How we’re bringing more buyers to Deal Builder adverts
Following a successful 12-month trial of Deal Builder, we’re now ready to invite all eligible retailers to register their interest in joining the trial*.
As part of opening up the trial, we’re gradually scaling our consumer-facing activity to raise awareness of this new buying journey and attract more digital-ready buyers to Deal Builder adverts.
Our marketing will encompass 3 key areas: bringing more digital-ready consumers to Auto Trader, raising confidence in doing more online once these consumers are on our site, and nudging these consumers to convert to sale once they start to build a deal.
Bringing an in-market, digital-ready audience to Auto Trader
7 in 10 buyers want to do most of the ‘jobs to be done’ online. We’re progressively targeting these digital-ready consumers with the aim of getting them to do more online, through Auto Trader.
This includes scaling up our ‘buy online’ digital marketing, SEO and PR activity to bring in-market buyers to Deal Builder stock on our site, meaning even more eyes on the stock that is ready to be Reserved for £99.
Raising awareness of Deal Builder on-site
Consumers have told us that ‘A brand I can trust’ is the number one enabler to make them feel more comfortable to doing more online*. As part of our commitment to supporting more of the purchase journey through Auto Trader, we’re increasing our coverage of Deal Builder on our website to build awareness and confidence amongst consumers visiting Auto Trader.
This includes reaching the record numbers of consumers visiting Auto Trader each month with new creative, messaging and signposting across our homepage, Buy a car online page, and other key touchpoints across our site.
‘Reserve with Auto Trader’ search filter
We also recently introduced a new search filter into our search function, which allows buyers to filter for stock that is only available to Reserve online through Deal Builder, driving an increasing amount of traffic through to retailers on the Deal Builder trial.
Since introducing this filter, we’ve found that consumers who apply it have a high purchase intent - with 35% of users converting to submitting a deal.
Nudging consumers to convert through Deal Builder
Over the last 12-months, we’ve been investing further into improving our start-stop cross-platform consumer experience for Deal Builder, with the aim of maximising conversion for retailers.
This includes improving the capabilities of our CRM to be able to nudge consumers through the Deal Builder journey, no matter which platform they started their journey on. These improvements enable us to send emails and app notifications to consumers to bring them back into our platform to complete their reservation.
We’ve also created a new ‘Your Orders’ account area for consumers to manage their Deals on our site, enabling a consumer to start building a deal with the ability to come back and complete it later (within 7 days).
Continuing to scale our marketing
We’ll continue to invest into the marketing of our new omnichannel solution over the coming months, with the aim to progressively attract more and more in-market digital-ready buyers to Deal Builder adverts on Auto Trader.
If you’d like to speak to us about Deal Builder, please reach out to your account manager. Or, if you’d like to register your interest in joining the trial, you can sign up here.
*Auto Trader Consumer Buying Journey Research - 2024