Even as consumers continue to navigate toward online shopping channels, many independent agent carriers have hesitated to invest heavily in online customer acquisition.

While digital performance marketing enables carriers to connect with real, in-market consumers at the bottom of the funnel with segmentation granularity, some agent-based carriers worry that investing in it will undermine their existing distribution networks.

In truth, online customer acquisition can serve as a powerful complement to a strong, independent agent network, particularly when carriers are smart about using these tactics to boost one another. In much the same way that automation has complemented the human workforce in industries like advanced manufacturing, online customer acquisition gives carriers and their agents an added boost to make the most of every potential sales opportunity.