[whitepaper] how australians search for travel insurance - seo

HOW AUSTRALIANS SEARCHFOR TRAVEL INSURANCE

Understanding search opportunities and potential for travel insurance online

An In Marketing We Trust white paper by Kirsten Tanner

Introduction

Methodology

Summary

Trends in the Travel Insurance Market

The Most Dangerous Countries for Australian Travellers

Niche Markets

King of Competition

Travel Insurance Brands

Who Gets the Most Links?

Demographics

Linguistics

Devices: Mobile

Launching Your Campaign

About In Marketing We Trust

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

2IN MARKETING WE TRUST - How Australians search for travel insurance

We determined what the Australian people are searching for within the confines of the travel insurance industry and took a look at demo-graphics and linguistics for you to better understand your target audi-ence.

We also took a close look at the niche markets within the travel industry and analysed the big brand names in the space so that you can get a feel for your competitors, learn from them and ultimately outper-form them.

We inspected peoples preferred devices and explored seasonality trends, identifying the best possible time for you to plan and launch that next campaign.

With a steady incline in the searches for travel insurance throughout Australia, we thought it would be interesting to explore the online travel insurance space and develop key insights into the industry. We took a close look at some of the major trends in the travel insurance space.

We’ve delved into global events and analysed their impact on the market, we took a look at the year on year trends and the ‘travel insurance’ search forecast in Australia.

INTRODUCTION


Keyword, trend, demographic and competitor data has been collected using a combination of sources and that information has been thor-oughly analysed to identify key categories and insights into the online travel insurance space.

Key events, seasonality and plat-form trends were analysed to iden-tify patterns and gain insight into the industry. Analysis of the keyword data set was used to develop a linguistic report of the market and to further understand the language Australians use when they search.

Search volumes were analysed to discover and explore the key cate-gories within the travel insurance industry and develop a better understanding of niche markets within the sector. Competitors were ranked by their performance in natural search for the online travel insurance market as a whole and within niche categories.

Data was recorded in July 2014 and gives analysis of information from months to years prior, indicated within each segment of the paper. Natural search rankings were recorded in July 2014 and may have changed by the time this report is published.

METHODOLOGY


SUMMARYAustralians are most o�en searching for domestic travel insurance

There are a number of specific travel insurance niches, the most popular being ‘senior travel insurance’, which presents a space for smaller brands to enter the market

Almost 90% of ‘travel insurance’ searches are being conducted on desktop computers as opposed to mobile devices

The Australian market is heavily dominated by generic travel insurance search terms, meaning consumers are unaware or not sure of the more specific policies

Searches for ‘travel insurance’ have been steadily increasing over the past decade

The most popular finance-related search term is ‘cheap’, aside from generic travel insurance, Australians are most o�en searching to ‘compare’ travel insurance


38%37%18.9%were coming from travellers in the US

(compared to 13% recorded the previ-ous year), followed by Thailand (18.23%) and Indonesia (16.27%)

SNAPSHOT OF THE AUSTRALIAN TRAVEL INDUSTRY

Corresponding with our most popular finance-related search term, Austra-lians are looking for ‘cheap’ travel insurance. Grant Waldeck, spokesper-son for comparethemarket.com.au said “Alarmingly we do see many travellers booking their policy based on price alone.”

Overseas arrival and departure data shows that Australians took 8.2 Million international trips over the 12 months, ending February 2013

InsureandGo’s most popular destination for travel insurance is Asia, selling 35% of all policies to Asia in 2013, with a rise of 2.94% from the previous years recordings

Travel Insurance is o�en a last minute purchase for many customers “In 2013 we found that approximately 35% of all the policies we sold were from customers whose departure date was either the same day or within the next 2 days.” – Sebastian Kaisin, General Manager of InsureandGo

of all claims were related to smartphone the� and damage

were related to medical expenses with gastroenteritis the most frequent condition followed by food poisoning and physical injuries from a slip or fall

Most frequent claims in 2013


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Prospective

TRENDS IN THE TRAVELINSURANCE MARKET

If we take a look at the chart on the right we can clearly see how searches for ‘travel insurance’ have gradually increased and have fairly consistently been on the rise over the past 10 years.

Number of searches for ‘travel insurance’ over the past 10 years

Medical costs and volatile

conditions push Australians to choose safety

average number of research per months

x1000

Year on year trends


TRENDS IN THE TRAVELINSURANCE MARKET Global event : Boston bombing

Global events o�en have an e�ect on what people are searching for so we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a couple of global events both positive and negative and see what kind of impact they had on search volumes within the travel insurance space.

as you can clearly see from the chart aside, searches for ‘travel insurance usa’ are at the highest point over a 12 month period within the 4 months following the Boston Marathon bombings that occurred on April 15, 2013.

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Number of searches for ‘travel insurance USA’ over the last 12 months

How global events a�ect peoples behaviour and reshape the insurance market


TRENDS IN THE TRAVELINSURANCE MARKET Global event : World cup

The 2014 world cup has also clearly impacted searches for ‘travel insur-ance’ with searches for ‘world cup’ increasing dramatically, while at the same time searches for ‘travel insur-ance’ also increased.

This can also be noticed in search volume for ‘travel insurance brazil’ which increased substantially in May 2014, corresponding with the dramat-ic increase in ‘world cup’ searches at that time.

Positive events can

also clearly impact short

term trends

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Number of searches for ‘travel insurance Brazil’

Number of searches for ‘World cup’Number of searches for ‘travel insurance’


TRENDS IN THE TRAVELINSURANCE MARKET Australians want domestic travel insurance

While most Australians are searching for generic travel insur-ance, many are also searching for travel insurance for a specific geographical location. By under-standing which areas Australians are most interested in, you are better able to target your product o�erings, marketing campaigns and website optimisation.

In the map below we can see how search volumes for travel insur-ance by Australians varies across the world. The darker the colour, the more people in Australia are searching for travel insurance in that region. We’ve also listed the top 10 locations Australians are searching for within the travel insurance space.

Australians prefer English speaking or

Asian destinations

Asia, Philippines, Malaysia, Fiji and Ireland (equal 10th)

AustraliaUnited States

BaliNew Zealand

United KingdomEurope

ThailandIndia

Canada, South Africa and Singapore (equal 9th)Asia, Philippines, Malaysia, Fiji and Ireland (equal 10th)

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TRENDS IN THE TRAVELINSURANCE MARKET Australians want domestic travel insurance

· Australia 1930

· USA 670

· Bali 620

· New Zealand 440

· United Kingdom 300

· Europe 260

· Thailand 210

· India 170

· Canada 70

· South Africa 70

· Singapore 70

· Asia 50

· Philippines 50

· Malaysia 50

· Fiji 50

· Ireland 50Search volumes of travel insurance by Australians


THE MOST DANGEROUSCOUNTRIES FOR AUSTRALIANTRAVELLERS

As insurance is generally taken out to cover risk, we thought it would be fascinating to determine the search trends associated with countries deemed riskier than average.


THE MOST DANGEROUSCOUNTRIES FOR AUSTRALIANTRAVELLERS

Locations determined as unsafe Afghanistan

Chad

Iraq

Central African Republic

Yemen

Average search

volume has been deter-

mined over a 12 month period

from June 2013 to June 2014. These

are the top 5 place to visit

We looked at the number of Australian searches looking for travel insurance for the locations determined unsafe and classified as ‘do not travel’ by smarttraveller.gov-.au. These locations are as follows:

AfghanistanCentral African Republic

ChadIraq

LibyaMali

NigerSomalia

South SudanSudanSyria

Yemen


NICHE MARKETS

Segmenting the market is important in order to understand and better target and serve potential customers. We have categorised the top niche markets in the Australian travel insurance search space.


NICHE MARKETS

Generic Travel Insurance

Senior

Cruise

Student

Pregnancy

Pre Existing Conditions

Backpacker

Multi Trip

Ski

This tree map displays the relative popularity of each niche market within the travel insurance space. Generic ‘travel insurance’ searches make up approximately 91% of searches by Australians within the sector and generic ‘holiday insur-ance’ searches in last place, making up approximately only 1% of the market. Therefore more specific niche markets make up the extra 8% of the online travel insur-ance space.

This clearly shows that the vast majority of Australians aren’t sure exactly what type of travel insur-ance they are looking for and/or they don’t know what type of insur-ance is available. This implies that there is great opportunity within the travel insurance space to educate travellers on what type of insurance is best suited to them. The vast number of Australians searching to ‘compare’ travel insur-ance also backs this up.

The vast majority of Australians are not specific while searching for travel insurance,

instead opting for a generic product


KING OF COMPETITION

Determining where you’re placed in the Australian travel insurance market and knowing who your competition is, is important in order to compete, optimise your website and grow your customer base.

By knowing and understanding your competition you can learn from them, observe their tactics and ultimately, outgrow them.


KING OF COMPETITION

The Whole Travel Insurance Market

Travelinsurancedirect.com.au Comparethemarket.com.au Auspost.com.au Budgetdirect.com.au Nrma.com.au

The graphics below display who the market leader is in each travel insurance group. The overall travel insurance king in the online space is undoubtedly travelinsur-ancedirect.com.au with the number one ranking for the gener-ic ‘travel insurance’ search term.

It’s interesting to note that within the related ‘travel insurance’ search terms ‘travel insurance direct’ is the second most searched for phrase within the sector by Australians with an aver-age 22,200 searches monthly.

The overall travel insurance king

in the online space is undoubtedly

travelinsurancedirect


KING OF COMPETITION Senior travel insurance

Cruise travel insurance

Seniors.com.au

Good2gotravelinsurance.com.au

Artog.com.au

Aceinsurance.com.au

Insureandgo.com.au

Travelinsurancedirect.com.au

Pocruises.com.au

Insureandgo.com.au

Comparetravelinsurance.com.au

Travelinsuranceaustralia.com.au

Seniors travel insurance is the largest of the niche markets, representing approxi-mately 4.5% of all related niche search terms. This niche market is dominated by a mixture of specialist and generic web-sites, however ultimately ruled by the specialist insurer, the Australian Seniors Insurance Agency.

Within this niche market space, smaller and newer travel insurers will find it easier to compete, with large websites including travelinsurancedirect.com.au only rank-ing 10th. This opens up the market for new brands to carve out a niche.

‘Cruise travel insurance’ is the second most popular niche market with over 1,000 Australian searches per month. The overall king of the market, travelinsur-ancedirect.com.au is also the leader of cruise travel insurance, while the more specific pocruises.com.au comes in second.


KING OF COMPETITION Student travel insurance

Travel insurance Pregnancy

Statravel.com.au


Insureandgo.com.au

Studentflights.com.au

Mozo.com.au



Medibank.com.au

Columbusdirect.com.au

Essentialbaby.com.au

‘Student travel insurance’ is the third most popular of the niche search terms and is dominated by generic travel insur-ance websites and student-specific travel insurance websites alike.

‘travel insurance pregnancy’ is another popular search term within the market and is perhaps the most open niche market to new competitors as the 5th website is not even an insurance brand but a pregnancy and baby forum.


KING OF COMPETITION Travel Insurance Pre Existing Conditions

Backpacker Travel Insurance

Suresave.net.au

Insureandgo.com.au

Nib.com.au

Findaninsurer.com.au

Allianz.com.au

Insureandgo.com.au



Itrektravelinsurance.com

Worldnomads.com.au

Every month there are approximately 540 Australians searching for travel insurance for pre existing medical conditions. This niche market is dominated by generic travel insurers and insurance information websites.

‘Backpacker travel insurance’ is dominat-ed by many of the big names in travel insurance, including Travel Insurance Direct and Insure and Go but also makes room for category-specific travel insur-ance brands in 4th and 5th place.

InsureandGo saw an increase of 5.7% in policies that included medical screenings for travellers with pre-exist-ing medical conditions in 2013.


KING OF COMPETITION Multi Trip Travel Insurance

Ski Travel Insurance

Multitrip.com.au

Insureandgo.com.au

Auspost.com.au

Gbe.com.au

Good2gotravelinsurance.com.au


Insureandgo.com.au


Worldnomads.com.au

Ski-insurance.com.au

‘Multi Trip Travel Insurance’ is dominated by the category-specific, multi-trip.com.au while the rest of the top 5 positions are made up of the overall big names in the industry.

‘Ski Travel Insurance’ is made up of a mixture of the big name brands and more category-specific sites. Interestingly Insure and Go is in 2nd place and features in the top 5 of all the niche markets with the exception of ‘travel insurance preg-nancy’.

According to a Roy Morgan Research Survey, a decade ago approximately 4 out of 5 Australians seeking a skiing or snowboarding holiday chose domestic locations. Today, almost half head overseas with popular destinations being New Zealand, North America, Europe and Japan.


TRAVEL INSURANCEBRANDS

While brand marketing and o�-line messaging play a vital role in driving online tra�ic, search volumes for generic terms such as ‘travel insurance’ are approximately 10 times higher than branded search terms with the exception of ‘travel insurance direct’ at just 5 times under ‘travel insurance’.


TRAVEL INSURANCEBRANDS

The graph below shows Australian monthly search volumes for branded travel insurance terms. Interestingly, high street brands feature heavily in the top 10, while the ultimate king of the market, Travel Insurance Direct, is an online only brand.

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WHO GETS THEMOST LINKS

The amount of natural inbound links to a travel insurance site shows just how well

that site performs in providing information and resources, as people and other site

owner’s link to their top picks within the space. As a result, the more quality links a

site has pointing to it, the higher it will rank in search results.


WHO GETS THEMOST LINKS


Auspost

Comparethe Market

BudgetDirect

TravelInsurance

Direct

NRMA

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Within the travel insurance space Australia Post comes out on top, however we can assume that many of these links are not actually related to their travel insurance products. The top 5 are a mixture of travel insurance-specific brands and non-travel insurance specific brands.

BACKLINKS

DEMOGRAPHICS


Obviously, understanding the demographics of your potential customers is important to better target your market, online messages and content.

DEMOGRAPHICS


Short or Long Term Stays?

96%4%

Short term stays Long term stays

According to the International Move-ments 2012 study conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics the vast majority of travelling was for short term stays (less than 1 year).

DEMOGRAPHICS


Age groups2002

2007

2012

According to recent research conducted by

SureSave, Generation Xers are the riskiest travellers

with 34% of 30-39 year olds opting to travel

unprotected.

According to the same study, the top travelling age group for Austra-lians is 50-54 at 9.4%. The peak age group is slowly rising over time. In 2002 the peak age for international travel was 45-49 but rose to 50-54 in 2012.In the graph below you can see the percentage of Australian travellers in each age group and how the number has changed within a decade. 0-4

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age groups

Percentage of each age group in Australian travellers

DEMOGRAPHICS


GenderThe ratio of male to female Australian departures is slowly evening out over time with short term resident depar-tures being 121 males in 2002 (the number of male departures per 100 female departures) and just 111 males in 2012.

The highest gender ratios were found in the 40-44 age group in 2002 with 158 males and 2012 with 129. The lowest ratios were recorded within the 15-19 year group in both 2002 with just 85 males and 2012 with 81.

2002

2012 53%male

55% male 45% female

47%female

LINGUISTICS


Creating a better understanding of the language and phrasing Australians use when searching for travel insurance is essential when wanting to rank highly in search results.

By matching the language, keywords and phrasing on your site with the language Australians use when searching, you are far more likely to rank well for those same queries.

LINGUISTICS


Compare Travel Insurance

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travelinsurancecompare

comparetravel

insurance

travelinsurance

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reviews

best travelinsurance

best travelinsuranceaustralia

travelinsurance

comparisonaustralia

travelinsurance

comparisons

comparetravel

insurancequotes

best travelinsurance

reviews

Aside from searching for generic travel insurance terms, specific brands and niche markets, Austra-lians most want to compare travel insurance with 9,900 searches per month for ‘travel insurance compare’. Below we take a look at the top 10 phrases Australians use when searching to com-pare travel insurance.

average number of searches per month

Average number of searches per monthby keywords

LINGUISTICS


Cheap Travel Insurance

Australians are also looking for cheap travel insur-ance with 8,100 searches per month for ‘cheap travel insurance’. Here are the top 10 phrases Australians use when searching for cheap travel insurance choices.

average number of searches per month

Average number of searches per monthby keywords

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LINGUISTICS


Keywords

COMPARECHEAP COMPARISON

SENIORSREVIEWSBEST AUSTRALIAQUOTE

BUDGETANNUAL

CRUISE

STUDENTSENIOR COMPREHENSIVE

COMPANIESCOMPARISONS

PREGNANCY

FAMILY MEDICAL

BUY BAGPACKERS WHAT ISOVER 70

OVER 80

RATINGSCOVER

ONLINE LONG TERM

MULTITRIP

REVIEWSKICRUISESEASYDISCOUNTUNDER 30

QUOTES

CHEAPEST

Below we can clearly see the most used keywords within searches. The cloud map shows the most common keywords used in search terms by Australians looking for travel insurance. The larger the word the more o�en it is used. The words ‘travel’ and ‘insur-ance’ have been omitted for the purposes of this map.

DEVICES : MOBILE


Mobile search is now a huge player in the online space but how relevant is it to the Australian travel insurance market?

DEVICES : MOBILE


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While mobile search is certainly growing, travel insurance searches are still primarily made via desktop computer with a total average of just 10.58% of ‘travel insurance’ searches conducted on mobile devices over the last 12 months.

InsureandGo reported that 15% of their policies were purchased via tablet or smartphone in 2013, up 5% from the previous year.

Share of searches on mobile devices

LAUNCHING YOURCAMPAIGN


Understanding seasonal trends in the online travel insurance space can help you better plan activity and prepare you for launching your next campaign.

Knowing when your target audience is making travel arrangements and searching for ‘travel insurance’ helps you to plan and push your campaigns and content and online and o�-line messaging.

LAUNCHING YOURCAMPAIGN


Keywords

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Travel insurance

Seniors

Travel insurance

Cruise

Student

Pregnancy

Pre existing conditions

Backpacker

Multi trip

Ski

In the graph aside we show the seasonal trends for gener-ic travel insurance and associ-ated niche markets. The seasonal activity has been calculated by the average number of monthly searches over the past two years (June 2012 to 2014).

The colour graph aside represents the

seasonal trends in the online travel

insurance space, the darker the colour

the more searches there are in that

month.

Seasonal trends

IN MARKETINGWE TRUST

ABOUT

We are an SEO Agency based in Sydney. Our strength is based on our focus of straight sales/conversion rather than rankings or tra�ic.

We earned our skills working in the toughest industries in online marketing. We are an agency by in-house marketers for in-house teams.

We built this company because we are determined to be a better alternative than the average agencies out there. WWW.INMARKETINGWETRUST.COM.AU

+61 2 8966 9287

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[whitepaper] how australians search for travel insurance - seo

Marketing

travel insurance industry

travel industry

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senior travel insurance

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travel insurancekeyword

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