Improving Performance Through AI and Machine Learning

Codan is one of the Scandinavian market's largest and oldest insurance companies. In addition to business, private and health insurance, they offer comprehensive advice on avoiding injuries and accidents all together.

With more than 3,000 employees throughout the Scandinavian region, Codan services around 245,000 households and 50,000 small and large companies in Denmark annually. But when they wanted to rely more on AI and machine learning to improve their offerings to their customers, they turned to Valtech for help.

The more people visiting codan.dk, the better the site gets at recognizing what the individual user reacts to—and adapting accordingly. AI and machine learning algorithms have thus far yielded results of up to 200 percent improvement and increased the number of users entering the sales funnel. It’s about creating a better and more relevant user experience for each individual user, thereby enhancing the sales and service performance in the digital channel. Valtech helped Codan get there.

Which banners and what textboxes work best on the frontpage of the website of an insurance company? Those with two kids on their way to the beach in the summer (it’s about travel insurance)? Those with a young couple (“considering a new insurance scheme – 10 percent online discount”) Or perhaps the one with the businessman (“is your business properly insured”)?

It’s questions like these Lars Koch Rasmussen is confronted with. Seemingly simple and uncomplicated questions for the Head of Online Sales at Codan, RSAs local Danish brand and the third largest insurance company in Denmark. But far from easy to answer. “In a world where the digital processes are a central part of any business in the service industry, it’s increasingly crucial to be able to attract new customers and grow sales in your online channels. At Codan, we found that the frontpage, codan.dk, missed out on engaging customers and leading them through sales funnels on product areas which are strategically important for us,” Rasmussen said.

The answers to the questions aren’t trivial either. On the contrary: the answers stem from the intersection of some of the hottest technological trends: Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and solid business savviness.

In theory, it’s simple: the more relevant the message, the better it performs. Banners and text boxes with travel insurance call to actions work perfect with parents on their way to vacation. Online discounts resonate among those who are looking to swap insurance companies. And the proposition to sign up for a company insurance scheme is likely to appeal to the woman whose start-up is taking off and now finds a need to consolidate.

“The problem is finding out who’s who. Users are rarely logged in when they arrive at codan.dk. And it is even more rare for us to be able to recognize non-logged in users by other means. At least not in a way, that qualifies his or her needs in any substantial way. Luckily, we can do without,” says Rasmussen.

How many visits, pageviews or conversions does your website get? Those questions are easily answered by most people charged with the responsibility of running an e-commerce site thanks to their analytics-systems. Systems that typically disclose a far greater amount of information about the visitors. For example, when did they visit? Where did they come from, a search engine or directly to the site? Was the traffic generated from a smartphone or a desktop?

This applies to Codan as well. But Codan’s analytics are far more advanced than those of most other e-commerce sites. Among other things, the analytics setup includes an Adobe Analytics Premium installation and an AI and machine learning engine. The AI and machine learning system constantly spots patterns in the analytics system’s enormous volume of data. Patterns of timestamps and clicked elements, referrals and bounces. Patterns that, among other things, reveal which segments of users are most likely to react to which specific messaging.

To make things even better, the Adobe installation gives Valtech and the online team at Codan the opportunity to exploit the artificial intelligence engine to make the site adapt to each user as he or she enters the site, giving them the version of Codan.dk most suited for their specific needs.

In this way, the site not only produces qualified guesses at what users will respond most positively to e.g. travel, company insurance messaging, or who’s engaged the most by the possibility of obtaining online-discounts, price-calculation or general sanity checks of the state of their current insurance schemes; the page also automatically picks the elements to display that appeal most to the particular user. Thus, yielding the highest click-throughs and the best results.

It’s this automated personalization Codan decided to go for. “We were very curious to see how far the automation and predictive analysis approach could take us” Lars Koch Rasmussen recalls.

In principle, the personalized automatization never stops. Because the algorithms get smarter and better as time goes by. Because business and online analysts tune the algorithms to optimize performance and because new campaigns, new messages, new product launches and USPs keep coming along, fuelling new impulses to the AI and machine learning engine. 

“The effect of the increased relevancy of the messaging mix is very clear. Some teaser boxes show a 100 percent uplift – click through rates have more than doubled. And the number of users abandoning their purchases before having reached the end of the sales funnels is reduced markedly”, explains Rasmussen. “It gives a really good feeling when your data starts working for you like that.”

Valtech helps Codan with both digital strategic consulting, implementation, optimization and analytics.

“Valtech is really good at helping us optimize our business. They’ve helped us analyze our market, our competitors and our customers. They’ve opened our eyes to new insights into both digital and physical channels. They’ve helped us identify opportunities and challenges and pointed us towards how to grow both our existing customer base and our overall revenue. They’ve implemented our analytics in order for us to track the right KPI’s, and act accordingly. Not least, Valtech helps us activate the data we collect, and turn it into solutions that work. Like they’ve done for us with automated personalization, AI and advanced analytics.” Lars Koch Rasmussen