Problem

A century-old North American insurer had built its marketing around direct mail but its customer base was aging. Attracting younger demographics meant embracing TV, social, search, and digital video, a significant cultural shift for an organization with deeply entrenched channel habits. The risk: investing in unfamiliar channels without knowing what would actually drive new quote requests and member sign-ups.

Solution

The company deployed Darwin to analyze conversion attribution across channels, identify high-ROI opportunities, and model investment scenarios with and without budget restrictions. This enabled a structured Test & Learn approach for faster learning from experiments with less capital at risk.

Insight

• Direct mail was losing its edge — despite remaining the single largest contributor to conversions, direct mail was no longer cost-effective compared to newer channels

• TV and digital video offered better incremental returns — data showed these channels delivered stronger ROI on incremental investment, justifying a meaningful budget shift

• Upper funnel drives lower funnel efficiency — the data demonstrated that brand-building activity in TV and digital video improved the performance of acquisition tactics downstream, not just awareness

Results

• 7% growth in new memberships

• 24% increase in quote requests

• TV advertising budget increased 68%

• Digital video investment expanded 7X

• Results visible after just one quarter