New consumer marketing campaign supports reopening of showrooms
By Catherine Faiers, Chief Operating Officer, Auto Trader.
As part of our commitment to help retailers get back to selling vehicles as quickly as possible, today we’ve launched a new multi-million-pound marketing campaign to coincide with the reopening of showrooms in England.
Buyers are already returning to Auto Trader in greater numbers than pre-COVID-19 and with performance ahead of this time last year, we’re seeing over 1.1 million unique buyers visiting per day (1). We will deliver these buyers a simple message: that they can shop safely with retailers on Auto Trader. The messages will be targeted regionally to allow for variations in regional legislation.
This campaign isn’t about Auto Trader - it’s about you, our retailer partners and bringing more buyers to your adverts. We’re in a unique position to act as the voice for the industry to give buyers confidence and trust in the buying journey. We have the ability to reach millions of potential buyers with this message through; our app which has been downloaded over 14 million times, CRM to millions of UK consumers and messaging across our sites which receive more than 1 million unique visits each day.
Make sure you take advantage by clearly communicating your safety measures and ensure all of your stock is online for buyers to find with the extension of our double stock offer.
Targeted campaign drives response and sales conversion
Our marketing team are using a range of channels to ensure we reach the right audience of in-market buyers, then reassure and guide them through the process of buying safely on our platform with our retailer partners.
Here are some examples of the sorts of content which is already live and you’ll see a lot more of in the coming weeks and months; the campaign will be live until at least the end of July.
Rory Reid explains new safety measures to buyers
Rory Reid will be reassuring buyers across digital platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram that they can shop safely on Auto Trader. This video has already reached 6 million buyers across our social platforms in the last few weeks.
Editorial content serves to reassure buyers
When buyers arrive on our site they will see a series of messages on our homepage ensuring they know how to shop responsibly with our retailer customers and customers visiting from England will also see messages about showrooms being open. With over 1.1 million buyers visiting per day this should be a real boost for the industry.
Lots more to come…
Example advert which will target buyers on Facebook
There will be lots more to come with messages to registered users via CRM, PPC and display campaigns bringing in-market buyers to Auto Trader plus lots of activity on our social channels. Keep your eyes peeled for more and make sure you take advantage of our new retail ready features.
Giving your adverts more exposure to buyers
As well as bringing more in-market buyers to our platform safe in the knowledge they can shop responsibly, we’ve also made some improvements to our platform to showcase your ads better and drive more buyers to them. These include:
Removal of banner adverts
Giving your adverts more prominence on mobile
Improving engagement with your finance offers
Read more about these changes in this blog post by our Customer Experience Director, Marc McNeill.
Extension of our double stock offer until 16th July
All this adds up to a great opportunity for retailers to make up for missed sales during lockdown and to capitalise on the pent-up demand returning to market. To help you maximise sales, we recently announced an extension of our free double stock offer until 16th July. It’s never been more true that if your stock is not online, then it’s not for sale and there’s never been a better reason to ensure all your stock is advertised on Auto Trader.
Sources: 1: Auto Trader internal analysis of Google Analytics data, average number of unique users daily, 18th May to 24th May 2020 (inclusive).