How Effective is Your Dealership’s Digital Advertising Campaigns?

A recent study by Sophus3 revealed how effective targeted commercial messages can be in driving traffic to automotive websites. The study looked at seven UK premium automotive consumer publishing sites from January to May 2018, analysing 135 million visits. It measured the effect of six million impressions to a top-five car brand and tracked 10.5 million visits to the site. 

This study was a huge project in terms of the sheer amount of data processed, and it offers an important insight into the online car purchase journey. It assesses the timeframe in which consumers are exposed to digital advertising, and pinpoints when they reacted and visited the brand’s site. 

Findings 

Scott Gairns, Managing Director of Sophus3, commented: “The leading car brand involved in this study, the automotive publishers and their agencies took a risk to ask for this independent analysis of advertising effectiveness, but the results clearly show consumers engage with digital advertising.” 

Quantity 

Sophus3’s study found that 177,000 (3%) consumers visited the website within seven days of exposure to the advert, and three million (more than half) consumers visited the site within 30 days of exposure. It is clear from this that digital advertising is effective over time. 

Quality 

50% of web users will leave a car website after visiting just one page, spending an average time of three minutes on the site, but this survey found significant improvements in bounce rate and dwell time on one of the publisher’s sites after visitors had seen their advertisement. Only 34% left after visiting a single page and dwell time rose to almost eight minutes. 

The digital advertising efforts of one premium automotive publishing site led to a 237% increase in brochure requests in a seven-day timeframe and test drive requests rose by 131%. These figures show that the advertising wasn’t just driving more traffic, but high-quality traffic, that resulted in conversions. 

Competition 

In recent years, the number of brands that consumers consider after initially entering the market has more than doubled, meaning that car buyers have a tendency to shop around more before choosing a dealer. One of the most interesting findings of this study is that visitors who were exposed to the advertising were 27% less likely to go to a competitor’s site in the period when they are finalising their purchase decision. 

Making Your Digital Advertising Effective 

At Click Dealer, our in-house PPC experts have seen impressive results from managing advertising campaigns for our dealers and offer the following tips: 

• Write compelling ad copy 
• Optimise landing pages 
• Measure your performance 
• Conduct keyword research 

• Regularly review your budget allocation 

If you would like to find out about how our PPC packages can help your dealership gain more high-quality traffic to your site, get in touch today via marketing@clickdealer.co.uk, 01782 478220 or through our contact page!