Making Auto Trader work harder for you
By Marc McNeill, Customer Experience Director, Auto Trader.
Everything we do is designed to make buying easier, connecting the right buyers to the right vehicles as quickly and easily as possible.
Last year we introduced the ‘three Ts’ of our customer promise;
Trust: Giving car buyers confidence in the vehicle, the retailer they are buying from and the price of the vehicle.
Transparency: Giving car buyers the information they need to feel confident in the buying decision.
Time: Making car buying easier by showing relevant results and useful information upfront to car buyers. Helping connect them to the right vehicle, the right retailer, delivering more meaningful connections to retailers.
This customer promise shapes all the product and feature improvements we make and I can now share with you a number of things we’ve been working on to launch later in the year but have now accelerated work on to deliver to you in June, to help you acquire buyers now. Making Auto Trader and your adverts work harder for you has never been more important.
Removal of display adverts around search results
We’ve listened to shoppers and retailers who told us that display advertising around the Auto Trader search listings makes searching for vehicles and converting buyers harder; so from 1st June there will be no banners adverts anywhere on Auto Trader. By removing the distractions from the search listings we are keeping car buyers on Auto Trader and focused on what matters most – the vehicles our retailers are advertising. This helps make sure your adverts get as much prominence as possible with around 25% more real estate for your ads on search pages. This is a big decision for Auto Trader but an important investment in our mission to improve the buying experience and make sure we deliver the maximum response and return on investment to retailers.
Giving your adverts more prominence in mobile search results
The digital landscape is changing all the time and with the increased growth in platforms like Instagram we wanted to make sure our mobile web and app experience kept pace and showcased your ads to buyers as best we can. We’ve been testing different designs for quite some time now to find a solution that engages buyers and protects retailer response. Our new design increases the size of your images in search listings on mobile by around 90%, giving your main images more prominence so they really shine.
Improving finance conversion in total price search
We’re changing the way we display finance when a buyer conducts a cash or total price search. Currently, we show a representative example monthly price in search listings for retailers who offer finance options. However, this price is not tailored to the user and they are not able to alter the terms to fit their circumstances. So we are changing total price search listings to simply state where finance is available from a retailer and encourage buyers to use the finance calculator on the full-page advert where they can tailor the offer to their circumstances and needs. This will result in a much more relevant finance experience with more buyers using our finance calculator to tailor offers to fit their circumstances.
All these changes will be visible to shoppers on your adverts from 1st June.