The e-business revolution in the automotive sector: 4 marketing challenges for the future
Google Ads has launched a new ad format specifically dedicated to the automotive sector in the USA. These vehicle ads leverage how Smart Shopping campaigns work to show Google users the price, make, and model of cars for sale near them. On the program for advertisers: more intentional targeting and therefore an increase in conversions!
These new types of campaigns are not yet available in France, but they testify to the accelerated digital transition of the sector, which has changed the situation for its players. Some practices have become obsolete, but at the same time new opportunities have arisen.
At Ad Premier, we see this on a daily basis with our “auto-moto” advertisers in the broad sense (Racing Lubes, Turbopascher.com, Tout pour la moto). Because dealers are not the only ones affected by this development. Insurers and sellers of accessories or spare parts are also at the forefront of the new purchasing process for motorists and motorcyclists.
Professionals are unanimous in noticing this: today, their customers enter the store knowing better and better what they want. According to a Google study, 89% of French consumers research their future vehicle online before buying it. But that’s when they actually go to the dealership… And for good reason, the number of motorists who buy their vehicle directly online is constantly increasing.
Natural referencing, Google Ads and YouTube Ads, social networks, e-mailing campaigns, e-commerce sites: companies in the sector must now invest in development strategies on all digital marketing channels. This is essential to position yourself effectively on the major digital issues of the auto-motorcycle business for the years to come, and in particular on the 4 issues that we address in this article:
Summary
- Physical: to adapt to the new purchasing journey of customers in the automotive sector
- UX Design: to meet the expectations of your site visitors
- Data Marketing: to connect your activity to personal data
- Automation: to place AI at the service of more efficient management of your marketing
- Frequently Asked Questions
- How are new technologies impacting the automotive industry and marketing strategies?
- How can digital marketing help car dealerships attract new customers?
- How can automotive brands stand out in an increasingly competitive market?
Physical: to adapt to the new purchasing journey of customers in the automotive sector
A few years ago, motorists went to a dealership on average 4 times before buying a new vehicle, compared to 1.5 times today. Some of them don’t even go there anymore and make their purchase 100% online. Inevitably, the consequence of this evolution of practices is that brands and distributors must imperatively position themselves on the first stages of the purchasing process of their prospects.
Conclusion: insofar as these steps take place mainly online, players in the sector must therefore deploy omnichannel web marketing firm to support the activity of their physical points of sale by sending prospects attracted online.
With the acceleration of the digitalization of the economy, this “online-to-offline” economy represents an increasingly important part of commercial transactions. Whether we are talking about “drive-to-store” or “web-to-shop”, the objective is the same in many sectors: to attract prospects to stores through well-targeted digital marketing actions.
But it also works more and more in the other direction. In an increasingly omnichannel consumer environment, brands and distributors in the auto-motorcycle sector have every interest in implementing online retargeting strategies for visitors to their physical points of sale. We then speak of an “offline-to-online” approach, which consists of both prospect retargeting actions and customer loyalty actions.
Generate “foot traffic” and offer an omnichannel consumer experience from A to Z: two complementary ways of approaching Physical (contraction of “physical” and “digital”) and two growth levers that are now essential for all companies in the sector.
If necessary, contact our traffic managers to have the physical aspect of your marketing strategy audited free of charge.
UX Design: to meet the expectations of your site visitors
Car brands are used to being attentive to the experience they provide to their users through the design of their models. However, the attention paid to UX extends more and more to the entire customer relationship, particularly at the level of the first interactions linked to the information gathering phase.
And, to effectively deal with the need of a prospect looking for information, you need a web environment that meets current standards:
- A responsive design suitable for the majority of users who browse on mobile
- A personalized navigation that adapts to the history, choices and expectations of each Internet user
- Relevant content placed in the right places, in order to address each information, need where it is expressed
- A fluid user journey that eliminates as much as possible the sources of blockages in commercial progress
- Making contact as easy as possible
- Legal notices and a privacy policy perfectly in order
- Engaging and persuasive copywriting
Buying a car is clearly an extraordinary consumer experience. This doesn’t happen every day, or even every year for many consumers. The quality of the experience must therefore be commensurate with its rarity for the user. Hence the importance of UX in the digital strategy of players in the automotive and motorcycle sector, even more than in many other sectors.
By the way, did you know that we even recruited a UX Coach at Ad Premier, in order to support our clients on this central issue?
CONTACT OUR UX COACH
She will be happy to quickly give you a first impression of the quality of your own user experience.
Data Marketing: to connect your activity to personal data
If you have set up effective visitor tracking on your site that respects the legislation, it can quickly become a mine of information for your business. The data you collect from your prospects and customers allows you to:
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- Develop a better knowledge of your market and your commercial target to improve your offer
- Create increasingly precise and personalized prospect retargeting audiences
- Implement effective customer loyalty strategies
- Optimize your attribution models for a better assessment of the return on investment of each of your acquisition channels
- Model your sales to anchor your growth plan on more accurate revenue forecasts
More than a simple communication lever, Data Marketing underlies a whole model for collecting and processing data intended to feed your decision-making.
By 2025, the global volume of data exchanged should be multiplied by 2 to 3, to approach 200 zettabytes. So, it is better not to miss the start of what looks like a veritable gold rush of the 21st century.
Automation: to place AI at the service of more efficient management of your marketing
Contrary to popular belief, no, the major advantage of the main contemporary lead generation tools does not lie in the finesse of their targeting Technical Seo Service. Admittedly, Google Ads and Facebook Ads allow the precision of advertising campaign settings to be pushed very far, but this is not their greatest strength.
The revolution of recent years, the one that has transformed online business, is the power of big data driven by performance automation tools. To put it concretely, the asset of Facebook Ads and Google Ads is their AI.
Today, the role of the Ads expert is not to replace the incomparable calculation and modeling capacities of AI, but to know how to guide and accelerate their learning by giving them the right instructions and by feeding them with the correct internal data.
In a relatively universal sector such as the automotive industry, this power of automating acquisition campaigns is at its height, because it naturally applies to large audiences, which are those that lend themselves best to AI learning.