Confused.com hires SAS to improve targeting as comparison site rivalry heats up

by Noelle McElhatton, marketingdirectmag.co.uk 13-Aug-09, 10:23

LONDON - Confused.com has brought data analytics supplier SAS on board to help it target prospects and retain customers as the competition in the price comparison market intensifies.

Using SAS Analytics, Confused.com aims to improve customer targeting and retention, as well as acquire new customers for the home insurance, utility services and financial services listed on its site.

Confused.com advertises consistently on TV to drive people to its website.
It recently shortlisted Iris, Krow, BMB and McCann Erickson for its £25m advertising account.

The company recently said it was moving more heavily into digital channels to 'create a more effective dialogue with consumers'. SAS software will help optimise Confused.com’s use of marketing channels and campaigns.

A Confused.com statement said that "increased competition amongst other aggregator and price comparison websites, alongside higher TV advertising costs" had increased the pressure to improve its targeting.

"Our main requirements from SAS are to reduce our cost of offer, bring down marketing costs, improve cross-sales with other products on the site, and increase retention," said Tom Beverley, customer director at Confused.com.

"We want to improve the level of customer insight and are developing a lot of personal finance products that require better one-to-one targeting. Prior to SAS, customer insight was limited to information gathered via car insurance quotes, with no segmentation apart from very simple demographics like age and TV region."

Confused.com said it considered other options, including SPSS, before choosing SAS "for its ability to bring disparate data sources together, manage large data volumes and carry out modelling and segmentation".

Beverley said that SAS] will initially focus on customer segmentations. "Results from analyses can be used, for example, to locate variables, enhance selections and improve targeting in email campaigns.

"In our home insurance campaign [for example], we will use SAS to highlight the customers who will find the product most relevant, and use this to maximise response and optimise campaign size," Beverley said. "SAS gives us a far better idea of who we should pursue; using SAS we will target fewer people and achieve more uplift."