The number of banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) Google searches in India spiked in 2018, with majority of searches coming from non-metropolitan areas.
According to Google’s annual ‘Year in Search: Insights for Brands Report’, there is massive interest in life and health insurance, especially among internet users outside the metropolitan areas, or the top eight cities in the country.
More than six in ten (61%) searches for life insurance came from non-metropolitan regions, or 43% higher than last year. Meanwhile, health insurance searches grew by 78% year-on-year, with 59% coming from non-metropolitan regions. Car insurance searches almost doubled, increasing 89% year-on-year.
Other prominent BFSI searches were mutual funds and personal loans, with the latter more than doubling in frequency since last year.
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The report also found that machine learning is becoming an important tool for brands, with Google’s Smart Bidding technology using it to help firms be more efficient in online marketing. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance reported a 71% increase in leads after it adopted TrueView for Action, a new format for its marketing on YouTube.
India is going online at an unprecedented rate, according to Google. It has 400 million active internet users – the second highest in the world – and 40 million new users are added on average yearly. There are over 350 million connected smartphone users, with the average mobile data usage per subscriber at 8GB, which is comparable to developed markets’ usage.
The figures showed increased awareness for insurance among Indians, even those outside the major cities. The rapid growth of internet usage also opens a window for insurance products to be marketed through the online channel, given Indians’ increasing tech-savviness.
