Lead generation for insurance: find more customers, sell more policies

Lead generation is essential for insurance companies. Here’s our advice on how your business can find consistent, high-intent leads.

Allow us to take a wild guess. You’re not alone in your market.

The insurance industry is wildly competitive.

Pricing dynamics change quickly.

And profit margins can be thin.

You need a steady flow of incoming leads simply to survive, let alone thrive.

That’s why your advertising and marketing efforts are so important.

And we have some tips for how you can make your advertising work harder and more effectively for your business.

But first…

Get sales-ready leads, without lifting a finger

We’re Adbetter. We specialise in crafting highly effective pay per click advertising campaigns to generate sales-ready leads for our clients. And we’re good at it. (Take a look at our case studies.)

So here’s the pitch. We’re so confident in our expertise that we will tie our fees to the number of quality leads we generate for you, and you decide what counts as quality, by the way. We only win when you do.

Here’s the process explainer. Or arrange a strategy call and we’ll outline the results you can expect within six months of working with us.

“Adbetter reliably provide us with a steady stream of well qualified, high quality leads every month and our conversion rates have skyrocketed. We are a very happy client!”

– Ed Scott, Founder, Finlock Property Investment

Lead generation for insurance: put your faith in PPC

As an insurance provider, you’re well accustomed to receiving claims.

Here’s another.

When you get it right, pay per click advertising (PPC) is probably the most ruthlessly effective advertising strategy at your disposal.

The sponsored results at the top of Google’s search results.

The ads as you scroll through Instagram.

The content you see before you watch YouTube.

All examples of pay per click advertising.

We’ve covered why it can be so effective in the article below.

>> What’s the most effective type of advertising for insurance?

But here’s a quick summary.

1. It’s accountable

You only pay when someone clicks your ad.

Contrast that with other types of ad placement, such as a billboard, magazine or television advert, where you pay for placement regardless of whether people show interest or not.

2. It’s easy to control your spend

Pay per click platforms give you supreme control over your ad spend. Expect options to automate daily, weekly, monthly or maximum budgets per campaign.

Hit the pause button at any time. And see how every penny is performing in your campaign data.

3. Target the right audience

One of the most powerful things about pay per click advertising is the sophisticated audience targeting tools at your fingertips.

You can tweak dozens of parameters to target your ads at cohorts who are likely to be interested in your policies.

4. Generate highly qualified leads

Remember: with pay per click, you only pay when people click your ads. And you select the type of people who see them.

So if someone actually goes to the trouble of clicking, there’s a decent chance they’re interested in the cover you offer.

5. It provides predictable returns

Set up correctly, you can be reasonably sure of the kind of returns your pay per click campaigns will generate for every £100 you put in.

That allows you to make ad spend decisions with more confidence.

6. Optimise campaign performance over time

Pay per click platforms give you clear data on how your ads are performing.

Take the time to scrutinise the numbers and you can identify trends that show you which campaigns are getting the best results. That way you compound campaign performance and optimise your ad spend over time.

7. Build first-party customer data

With pay per click you acquire a marketable audience for all future campaigns, with the ability to reach out by email, SMS or targeted PPC campaigns depending on how your campaign is set up.

Contrast that with buying leads…

There are dozens of websites and services trying to hawk insurance leads.

Some more reputable than others.

The chief problem with buying leads is you don’t know where your leads have come from.

You don’t understand the motivations behind the contact details.

(It’s why we always insist that our clients are deeply involved in defining the type of leads they want.)

You can’t be sure that these leads are actually right for your business.

It’s a dice roll.

And there’s an even bigger problem.

Many lead generation farms sit outside FCA and ICO oversight because of where they are based geographically.

But in the UK, the ICO requires you to know how marketing consent was gathered. Without proof of how consent was obtained, you are potentially on the hook for huge fines for breaching UK GDPR.

Picking the right PPC platform for insurance leads

The majority of pay per click campaigns we work on are published on either Google Search, the Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) or both.

With most insurance campaigns, you’re going to be targeting Google Search as your priority, to capture demand at the moment people are searching for cover.

But there are clever ways to use Facebook and Instagram too, all while economising your ad spend.

We’ve covered that in the article below.

>> Facebook marketing for insurance agents: key elements of success

Attracting the first click

Pay per click advertising is a full-funnel undertaking. But it all starts with attracting that first click.

We’ve done a deep dive in the article below.

>> PPC for insurance: 13 tips for getting big results

But here’s a quick summary of the key points.

1. Know your product

Different types of insurance, different buying psychologies.

For products that are legally mandated, such as car insurance, the main factor in any buying decision is almost always going to be the premium.

Your buyer wants to know the necessary boxes are ticked for the best price possible.

Switch car insurance for health insurance, home insurance or life insurance and the thinking is different.

Your buyer is more eager to scrutinise policy benefits.

Proper peace of mind is more important than premium.

Knowing where your buyer stands puts you in a good position to sell.

And even if you are selling a type of insurance that competes heavily on premium rather than policy benefits, there are ways to make your brand stand out without racing to the bottom and losing your margin.

>> Leads for health insurance: how to win big with pay per click

>> Where to find the best leads for life insurance businesses

2. Know your numbers

If you want your pay per click campaign to be successful in terms of ROI, you must get to know key sales data like AOV and CPA.

Only then can you bid accordingly for keywords and make sure your PPC campaigns are as profitable as possible.

3. Differentiate!

If you can’t compete on price, compete on value.

If you can compete on price, compete on value.

One of the best ways to win with pay per click advertising is to niche down.

Focus on specific benefits of your policies.

Target specific cohorts with different campaigns.

The more you can make your policies feel personalised to your audience, the more likely you are to win.

4. Go(ogle) for long-tail keywords

If your platform of choice for PPC is Google Search, then you need to get creative about the keywords you’re bidding for.

You’re not going to compete on “car insurance” or “life insurance” or “health insurance” unless you have very deep pockets.

But with “life insurance for asbestos employees” or “income protection for self employed” or “travel insurance for heart disease”, you might be onto something.

Again, align your strategy with the strong points of your policies.

5. Get your audience targeting right

Pay per click platforms give you a vast range of options when it comes to selecting an audience to serve your ads to.

You can target people based on age, location, occupation, hobbies, online browsing history and a huge number of other variables.

One shortcut for finding people who are likely to be interested in your policies?

Lookalike audiences (on Meta) and Customer Match (on Google).

Feed the platform your existing customer data and it will find people who share certain common denominators, such as age, occupation, hobbies and interests.

6. Test (with A LOT of vigilance)

No matter which pay per click platform(s) you use, you will have the option to submit multiple variations of each ad, i.e. the image, the ad copy and so on.

This is your opportunity to experiment.

The platform will automatically test these variations before preferentially serving the variants that are most likely to drive the intended results for your business.

However, it’s arguable that Meta has taken this too far.

Meta’s Advantage+ creative enhancements now use AI to rewrite your ad text, and since July 2026 they can even rewrite the headline text inside your ad images by default.

Essentially, Meta’s algorithms will change your ad copy based on what they think is more likely to drive conversion.

That’s a major problem in highly regulated industries like insurance, where saying the wrong thing in your adverts can land you a hefty fine.

Be sure to switch off Meta’s AI text enhancements in your ad settings.

And be vigilant. Once turned off, these settings have been known to mysteriously switch themselves back on.

7. Be aware of the regulations

That brings us neatly to regulations.

You already know that insurance is a tightly regulated industry when it comes to marketing and advertising.

Pay per click platforms are extremely strict about the promotion of financial services, including insurance.

Firstly, you must either be an FCA-authorised firm or have your ad content explicitly approved by an FCA-authorised firm before it goes live.

To run ads on Google you must pass Google’s UK Financial Services Verification, with the primary account email on Google Ads matching the domain or email registered on the FCA Financial Services Register.

As for Meta, you must confirm your FCA authorisation directly within Meta Ads Manager. And any FCA-mandated risk warnings or conditions must be clearly legible within the image or video creative itself, rather than in the description.

That’s on top of the rules you’re already familiar with from the FCA and ASA.

Oh, and don’t forget GDPR.

(Too much to think about? Let us craft compliant, profitable campaigns for you.)

Beyond engagement: turning leads into policyholders

When someone clicks one of your ads, that’s just the start of the pay per click journey.

All subsequent steps in your sales funnel should follow on cogently, with landing pages that echo the messages from the ad your lead clicked on.

Here are some tips for building a post-click journey that turns your fresh leads into new policyholders.

1. Get your landing page right

In most cases your ad will drive your leads to a landing page.

Ideally you should have a unique landing page for each of your pay per click campaigns, both for ease of tracking lead activity and to provide a highly targeted and relevant journey for your leads.

Here’s a rapid run through of best practice.

• Design and copywriting. Your landing page should feel like a continuation of your ad. Optimise for mobile and make sure key messages are visible above the fold.
• Create a closed journey. Single-mindedness is a strength when it comes to landing pages. Limit navigation options and stay focused on one clear call to action (i.e. getting a quote).
• Gather data. The main aim of your landing page should be to gather the information you need to provide a quote. More on that in a moment.
• Use social proof and trust signals. Customer reviews help to build credibility and establish trust in your company. Try to source reviews from a verifiable platform such as Trustpilot or Google Reviews and, if possible, showcase reviews that mention a positive claims experience. If applicable, use trust signals such as your policies’ Defaqto star rating or industry accreditations, qualifications and awards.
• Remember your GDPR obligations. For your forms that means a tick box that gets people to actively opt in to your comms, the name of the business that will be contacting them and how they will be contacted. Include a link to your privacy policy too.

2. Make your policies more personal

The more you can make your policies feel personalised to each lead, the more likely you are to turn leads into policyholders.

So how do you do it?

By using a multi-step form with built-in conditional logic.

Let’s say you provide pet insurance. Your form prompts your lead to specify the type of pet they have.

When they specify that they have a dog, the next step of your form asks questions about the breed and so on.

In this way you can take your lead through a journey that makes it easy for them to give you the information you need to provide a quote, while making them feel that your policies are deeply personalised to their pet.

Once you know you are providing a quote for the owner of a 4-year-old Golden Retriever called Milo, your quote results page might talk about how your policies cover the hip issues (hip dysplasia) that Golden Retrievers are prone to in later life.

You’re not inventing a new policy. It’s your standard policy for all dog breeds. But you are using conditional logic to make your policy feel highly specific to the person getting a quote.

Another example?

Perhaps you provide car insurance and your lead uses your multi-step form to tell you that they have a make and model of car that is susceptible to a particular engine issue.

On your quote results page you might upsell your mechanical breakdown insurance or replacement car perks, based on what you know about your lead’s car and its statistical likelihood of breaking down.

Now, this might all sound like a lot of work.

It’s not.

We have developed a platform that allows you to build your own fully branded, conditional multi-step forms within a matter of clicks, no coding knowledge needed.

It’s called Nerchr. And it gives you access to the same technology we developed ourselves to build over 2,000 custom funnels.

Try Nerchr for free here.

3. Retarget the non-converters

Let’s say your lead doesn’t fully complete your multi-step form. Or they do, but they don’t take out a policy on your quote results page.

You need to follow up fast.

You know they are in the market for a policy. Don’t miss your chance to convert.

You can use retargeting to reach these leads via an ad on their social media channel of choice, reminding them of your policy benefits and perhaps offering a discount on their premium.

The same logic also applies to your existing policyholders who are coming up for renewal.

You likely have an email sequence to guide them towards renewing their policy. But complementing it with targeted ads on their favourite social media channel is an imaginative and memorable way to keep your brand front of mind.

Just feed your customer data into the ad platforms and create lists of policyholders coming up for renewal in each specific month.

PPC campaigns for insurance tend to be far cheaper on social media than on Google Search, so it’s worth a few extra pennies if you’ve already paid to gather your lead via paid search.

Need some help with social media retargeting? Book a quick call.

Beyond conversion: finding better leads

Tracking the performance of your PPC campaigns is a no-brainer.

Look into the data and you will be able to identify performance trends that allow you to optimise your ads over time.

But for the really big wins, you need to train the PPC algorithms to load the dice in your favour.

By default, PPC algorithms learn to target people who are most likely to click your ad.

That’s all well and good.

But there’s a subtle difference between people most likely to click your ad, and people most likely to buy one of your policies. Optimising for clicks is just frittering away your ad budget unless they convert.

When you have the right tracking set up, you can feed the PPC platforms your conversion data and instruct the algorithms to serve your ads to people who are most likely to buy a policy.

You can even feed them your brokerage data to optimise the algorithm for people likely to take out policies with the highest profit margin.

In this way, PPC can lead to genuinely transformative ROI. You just need to get the right tracking in place.

And we have made it easy to do so with Nerchr. If you want to run your own PPC campaigns, you really should take advantage of Nerchr’s free trial.

Rather outsource PPC to an expert?

That’s us! We can take care of everything: getting your campaigns set up, published and optimised, with all post-click tracking and reporting in place, and monthly dashboards and reports that show you exactly how our efforts are contributing to your revenue growth.

Sounds good? Get in touch to arrange a short strategy call. We will outline everything you can expect within six months of working with us.

Not sure? Take a look at our case studies. Or learn a little more about how we work.

You may also be interested in:

>> PPC for insurance: 13 tips for getting big results

>> What’s the most effective type of advertising for insurance?

>> Facebook marketing for insurance agents: key elements of success

>> Where to find the best leads for life insurance businesses

>> Leads for health insurance: how to win big with pay per click

>> Lead generation for financial services: 16 tips for getting big results

Frequently asked questions