Continuing to invest in bringing more buyers to your adverts
During 2023 we’ve been committed to investing in powerful consumer marketing to bring in-market buyers to your adverts. Our efforts focused on three key areas: building trust in our brand and products, growing engagement of our community and content, and driving conversion through our product journeys. All of which have worked to bring more buyers to site than ever before.
We’ve reached buyers through nationwide advertising campaigns on TV, Radio, broadcast video on demand, as well as digital channels including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat and Podcasts, which has played a key role in being front-of-mind for young drivers. All to continuously drive buyers to site and your adverts.
Read on to learn about our current campaigns, from Britain’s Biggest Matchmaker and the launch of our Podcast, to our partnerships with Channel 4 and Global Media. Plus see how we’re growing our social media channels and how we engage in-market buyers through CRM.
Britain’s Biggest Matchmaker
Our multi-million pound marketing campaign; an evolution of the Britain’s Biggest Matchmaker platform, kicked off our year and focused on helping consumers find the right car for them. At Auto Trader.
The campaign targeted a mass audience and ran across television, radio, broadcaster video on demand, paid social, and display advertising.
To further raise awareness of the brand we also introduced exciting new social media content that included Snapchat filters. Over 122 million impressions were generated from the campaign, with our TV adverts being shown on ITV, Sky, Dave and Channel 4.
Exciting year-long partnerships with Global Media and Channel 4
Our partnerships with Global Media and Channel have helped drive even more potential car buyers to your adverts on our marketplace and help keep Auto Trader front of mind as the first place for consumers to visit when looking for their next vehicle.
Global Media - Launched in May, the partnership includes sponsorship of weekday afternoons on Capital and Smooth and mid-mornings on Heart FM, reaching mass audiences at key times of the day. During the course of the 12 months it’s estimated to reach 25 million adults across the UK over.
Channel 4 - Launched in July, the multi-platform deal sees a further extension of our ‘Britain’s Biggest Matchmaker' campaign through a series of branded idents and adverts. Running across Channel 4 and Channel 4 Streaming. It’s estimated to reach 37 million adults across the UK over the next 12-months.
Reaching new audiences with Show on the Road Podcast
In June, we launched Show on the Road - Auto Trader's first consumer-facing podcast.
Show on the Road takes the traditional celebrity podcast out of the studio and into the car for a road trip like no other. Host, Alex Legouix took each guest on a (literal) trip down memory lane as they revealed the places and experiences that have brought them to where they are today.
This brought Auto Trader to a brand-new audience, skewing 64% female and 56% under 44s. This is a huge step in showing Auto Trader as the modern and relevant brand we are to consumers, and getting them to engage with Auto Trader in a new way.
Raising awareness of Auto Trader valuations
September saw us launch our latest Valuations campaign to raise awareness of Auto Trader Valuations, and drive traffic to the ‘value your car’ page onsite.
It plays on the emotional value consumers associate with their cars as a creative hook to build empathy and drive engagement. This is supported with a call to action to ‘join the millions who value their car with Auto Trader’, showing our unrivalled scale and therefore building trust. Across our radio ads alone, the campaign is predicted to reach over 25 million UK adult listeners, with a focus on the 20-44 age group.
Supporting new vehicle plate changes
With over 1 million buyers a month actively searching for their next brand-new vehicle, our focus for each plate change was to highlight vehicles that were in stock and available now, giving confidence to consumers that they can still get the vehicle they want, when they want.
We updated our imagery on all pages related to new vehicles, communicated to 1.5million consumers through our CRM programme and directed users to stock pages, and used our social media channels, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to post gamification posts throughout the month to raise awareness of plate change.
Continuing to raise awareness of Electric vehicles with our monthly Giveaway
Launched in 2021, our monthly Electric car giveaway aims to raise awareness of electric vehicles whilst giving consumers a helping hand with their journey into electric, by removing the barriers which typically impede them.
In 2023 we’ve seen the page attract over 800,000 views every month, where consumers simply complete a form to enter the draw for a chance to win.
The brands featured in our giveaway can see huge uplifts in search volumes, ad-views and leads.
Reaching almost 3 million consumers a month over email
We continue to focus on growth in consumer engagement and now have over 2.1 million users opted in to receive our marketing emails. These emails cover everything from advice to vehicle reviews, supporting consumers with the transition to electric vehicles, new car offers including leasing and product specific emails targeting users with high intent to purchase across both used and new car stock.
Our engagement metrics continue to stand above global automotive averages and our account focused product emails such as saved search, saved adverts and price change emails continue to drive high volumes of leads by surfacing retailer adverts to consumers. A combination of our email programmes result in almost 3 million unique recipients that we regularly engage with every month.
Learn more about the ways we’re bringing more buyers to site than ever before
This summer we are launching our biggest new car marketing campaign to date, with the aim of making Auto Trader as known for our new car offering as we are for used.