2. Purpose
To help you listen to and understand your dealer’s advertising needs (whether
dealers fully know them or not)
To help you help your dealers stake their unfair share of the market both now and in
the future
To help you help your dealers understand how banner advertising on CarSoup helps
our dealers meet those advertising needs
To help give you a better understanding of what types of campaigns we have
available for your dealers
To help you work with your dealers to determine how their campaigns are doing on
the site and how you can monitor their campaigns internally
3. Ad Banner Basics
Automotive Internet = Automotive Super Highway
Where all drivers on the CarSoup Automotive Super Highway are potential car
buyers.
CarSoup is a publisher. We generate revenue by delivering relevant messages to
drivers on our automotive super highway.
Banner ads are a cost-effective way of enabling dealers and other advertisers to
deliver their message only to consumers on the Automotive Highway.
The ultimate destination is getting users to the advertiser’s website. Don’t let your
dealers waste gas by taking expensive “shortcuts” off of the highway (i.e. spending lots
of money on non-targeted campaigns). Shortcuts have their place in getting an
advertiser to their destination, but their most efficient route is driving direct down the
main highway.
4. Ad Banner Basics
Ad Banners on CarSoup
Leaderboard, 728x90
Targeted Ad Banner, Summary 1 or 2, Full
Dealer Spotlight Banner, 468x60
Medium Rectangle
(Rec1 or Rec2), 300x250
Pop-Under
Wrap
5. Ad Banner Basics
Who Buys Ad Banners on CarSoup?
Dealers currently listing their vehicles on our site who want to increase their
exposure and brand their dealership to a purely automotive audience
Automotive third parties seeking direct leads for sales to visitors on the site, e.g.
auto insurance or finance companies
General advertisers who just want to have their products and services displayed to
the millions of eyeballs on our site
6. Why Brand Online?
The Internet is Dominant in the Automotive Purchase Funnel
cy2010 TOTAL 6mo 5mo 4mo 3mo 2 mo 1 Mo 2 Wk The Internet is now
Television Ad 12.92% 12.91% 13.55% 9.27% 6.01% 5.71% 3.19% the dominant medium
Internet 17.80% 20.89% 24.18% 26.14% 24.37% 21.34% 23.18%
used to in the
Consumer Mag
Ads 9.81% 10.43% 11.94% 12.78% 9.06% 7.15% 5.38%
consumer’s
Friend/Relative 11.82% 9.24% 6.83% 5.51% 9.37% 11.45% 6.13% automotive decision
Business making process. At
Associate 8.21% 6.19% 3.68% 3.41% 3.86% 3.96% 5.62% every level of the
Dealer Brochure 0.52% 0.47% 0.58% 0.82% 0.79% 0.72% 0.63% purchase
Consumer
Reports 7.32% 7.47% 9.21% 11.56% 11.83% 12.09% 9.83%
funnel, internet is out-
Local Newspaper 3.52% 4.86% 6.02% 7.13% 8.65% 11.35% 17.19% performing other
Auto Article (any media options by 2 to
source) 3.25% 3.87% 4.66% 5.24% 4.83% 6.73% 7.24% 3x percent.
Radio Ad 1.32% 1.35% 1.07% 1.03% 1.74% 2.39% 1.46%
Awareness Consideration Performance Action Loyalty BUYERS
Source: CNW Marketing Research 2010
7. Advertising Online Effectively
Banners are the Most Effective in Generating Brand Awareness
In this study, banner advertising was proven to
be more efficient than search by providing almost
11x more conversions. Although most viewers of
display never clicked on a banner, the message was
obviously effective enough for the viewer to
remember it when it came time to purchase.
These results are not all that surprising. Just as it
would be unreasonable to assume that someone
would walk right into their neighborhood store to
buy a six-pack immediately after seeing a
Budweiser ad on TV, it should be just as
unreasonable to assume that online users are
going to disrupt their current browsing experience
by clicking on an ad to check out what you have to
sell (even if it is relevant to their lives in general).
The goal is to get your brand in front of the
potential client enough times prior to them making
their purchase decision to think about your brand
when they go to purchase. These studies are
proving that banner advertising is the most
effective and efficient way to do that.
*”A Click is Not a Click is Not a Click” IQ Advisor: May 31, 2011 via Adotas.com
8. Why CarSoup?
CarSoup and other third-party auto sites are THE way consumers are researching their
vehicle purchases today. Seventy-one percent of consumers use the Internet while shopping
for new and used vehicles. According to a study of recent car buyers, “Half of new vehicle
buyers and 58 percent of used vehicle buyers said that the Internet was the most influential
source in their purchase decision”. Of the time online, consumers are spending more time on
third-party sites than on manufacturer and dealer sites.*
CarSoup reaches more of these car shoppers than any other Automotive site in our core
marketplace, reaching 3x the consumers than our closest competitors.*
Dealers are paying A LOT more to advertise on TV, newspapers, direct mail, etc. Only 3-5%
of consumers are in-market for a vehicle at any given time. That means that 95-97% of the
impressions delivered through traditional mediums are wasted on consumers who are tuning
out your message because it doesn’t relate to them. CarSoup users have actively chosen to
come to CarSoup to research a vehicle.
*&Source: Polk View February 2011
*Mpls/St. Paul Media Audit Press Release (Sept.-Nov. 2009)
9. Why Buy Banners on CarSoup?
We know that vehicle listings are extremely effective for those consumers who are within
2 weeks of purchasing their vehicle. However, consumers are searching up to 6 months prior
to making their final purchase. Our goal for our dealers is that they achieve TOMA (Top of
Mind Awareness), meaning that when the consumer is ready to pull the trigger, they’ll think
of your dealership first because they’ve seen their name throughout their purchase process.
TOMA is achieved with the right frequency and placement. Our banner placements
purchased in addition to vehicle listings are specifically designed to achieve that optimal
frequency and placement.
Buying banners on CarSoup is like buying billboards on the Automotive Super Highway.
Compare the price a dealer will be paying to run in their local newspaper or other
traditional medium. They are most likely paying a lot more for a lower frequency. And
again, 95-97% of the newspaper impressions that they reach will be wasted.
10. Lead Gen vs. Branding
Lead Generation is about the immediate gratification. Branding is about developing
consumer awareness to enable lead generation campaigns to maximize results.
Lead Gen and Branding are both needed to get consumers to the holy grail: into your
dealership to purchase a vehicle.
In our new marketplace, branding campaigns will be necessary to stay in the game. If a
dealer doesn’t see the value in branding, move on. You act as a knowledgeable consultant to
your dealer clients, but it’s not your job to try to convince a dealer otherwise if he doesn’t
see the value of branding his/her dealership to shoppers who have actively shown interest in
vehicle shopping for one reason or another. There are plenty of dealers that will see the
value, and those who don’t will need to come around eventually to thrive. Remember, it’s all
about getting your dealer their unfair share of the marketplace. Banners are the ONLY way to
do that on CarSoup.
11. What Can You Sell?
Targeted Ad Banner
Dealer Spotlight
Run of Site Rec2
Pop-Under
12. Targeted Ad Banner
Promotes your dealership right in
the middle of a search return
The ONLY way to call attention to
your dealership on these specific
make pages
Limited availability – only a select
number of dealers can purchase this
position by make. Once it’s sold, it
runs until cancelled, so you want to
stake your claim before it becomes
unavailable.
Make sure to tell consumers
searching for the makes you carry
why they should buy from you rather
than the competitor before it’s too
late and they are already looking at
the details of a vehicle on your
competitor’s lot.
13. Dealer Spotlight
The ONLY way for a dealer to buy
Home Page and Landing Page
placement
Call attention to the attributes of
your dealership before a consumer
starts their search
Running on Landing Pages has
proven to increase the number of
searches for a particular make or
model. Make sure to get your
message out in front of the consumer
so they consider your brand before
it’s too late.
14. Run of Site Rec2
This is your second chance to get
your message in front of a consumer
before they make their purchase
Your message will appear on a
percentage of all of the search return
pages on the site. The percentage was
set by determining the optimal reach
and frequency by market.
15. Pop-Under
Extremely limited opportunity
Reaches all users that come to
CarSoup – the only way to do that
Exclusivity – only one dealer served
In addition to the branding
opportunity of this unit, it’s unique in
that it also produces unprecedented
direct results.
17. Combo Packages
The goal of these packages is to give you an easy advertising opportunity to offer
your dealers when they’re looking to run a short-term special promotion
Your dealer should always want to be promoting the benefits of their dealership to
the dealership down the street. For that, we have the on-going Targeted Ad Banner.
To Note: The time period of these campaigns is 2 weeks in the Twin Cities; One
Month in other direct markets. This time frame was determined to be the optimal
amount of time needed to make sure your dealer gets their message in front of enough
eyeballs to make their campaign matter while making sure that we kept campaign costs
at an effective level.
Dealers often say they want to advertise for the last 2 weeks of a month, but that’s
not how CarSoup users shop. Consumers don’t care what part of the month it is; they
search for vehicles when they are interested in them.
Pageviews
800000
600000
400000
200000
0
Pageviews
Mon…
Wed…
Thu 3/17
Thu 3/31
Tue 3/1
Sat 3/5
Sun 3/13
Sat 3/19
Sun 3/27
Thu 3/3
Fri 3/11
Fri 3/25
Tue 3/15
Tue 3/29
Mon 3/7
Wed 3/9
18. Measuring Performance
Basic Campaign Measures
IMPRESSION: Sometimes called a view or an ad view, is a term that refers to the
point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page.
CLICK-THRU: The number of times a particular ad was clicked on by a user.
CLICK-THRU RATE (CTR): The number of times an ad was clicked, divided by the
number of impressions delivered. You will need to take that number and multiply by
100 to get this number expressed as a percentage.
For example, if you ran a campaign that served 100,000 impressions and 100 people
clicked on that ad, you would have a click-thru rate of 0.10.
100/100,000 = 0.001 * 100 = 0.10
19. Measuring Performance
CTR Averages on CarSoup (April 2011)
468x60 0.08%
Rec2 ROS 0.07%
Dealer Spotlight 0.08%
Pop-Under 3.10%
National Advertising through Jumpstart 0.06%
Gold Standard to Shoot For: 0.08%-0.12%
•fd
21. Summary
We have a ton of opportunity for banner sales.
If a dealer can support the notion that they need to brand themselves to
succeed, they should be able to see why placing an advertising spend on CarSoup in
addition to their listings is necessary for their overall goal.
There is loads of information out there to help support this. If you think of
something you could use, ask for it.
22. And Remember…
Use your resources! All of the information provided in this presentation is
bouncing around in our heads PLUS so much more! We like talking about
this stuff and are more than happy to do whatever we can to help you
succeed. That’s our only dream and desire in life – to help you succeed!
In case you forget, refer to this presentation for visual cues as to who your
experts are.
To start, let’s explain quickly why we’re giving this presentation. Our intent is to help you help your dealers succeed through successful online banner campaigns. I want to mention once again that this is another resource. A lot of what we cover will be verbatim from the slide because we’d like to verbally present the information once with the expectation that you’ll go back and re-read the relevant information. If it’s not contained on the slide itself, we’ve included the details in the notes section of the powerpoint, as we want this to be a resource you can refer to on an on-going basis.And finally, in case it needs to be said, this document is for internal use only. Please do not use any slides from this document for external use.Let’s dive in. Since this is unlike a normal presentation, we’d like you to feel free to interrupt with questions.
Our purpose today is to To help you listen to and understand your dealer’s advertising needs (whether dealers fully know them or not) To help you help your dealers stake their unfair share of the market both now and in the future To help you help your dealers understand how banner advertising on CarSoup helps our dealers meet those advertising needs To help give you a better understanding of what types of campaigns we have available for your dealers To help you work with your dealers to determine how their campaigns are doing on the site and how you can monitor their campaigns internally
Automotive Internet = Automotive Super Highway Where all drivers on the CarSoup Automotive Super Highway are potential car buyers.CarSoup is a publisher. We generate revenue by delivering relevant messages to drivers on our automotive super highway. Banner ads are a cost-effective way of enabling dealers and other advertisers to deliver their message only to consumers on the Automotive Highway. The ultimate destination is getting users to the advertiser’s website. Don’t let your dealers waste gas by taking expensive “shortcuts” off of the highway (i.e. spending lots of money on non-targeted campaigns). Shortcuts have their place in getting an advertiser to their destination, but their most efficient route is driving direct down the main highway.
These are the current banner advertising positions we run on CarSoup. As you can see, internally we use a number of names for the same position in a couple of cases. Note the 468x60 and 300x250 specifically go by many names – all correct.
Who buys ad banners on CarSoup?Ad banner sales can be placed into three general groups:Probably the most important and profitable way for you guys to sell our inventory is to sell it to your dealers and clients who are already participating on the site to increase their exposure and brand their dealership to a purely automotive audience. We also sell advertising space to automotive third parties seeking direct leads for sales to visitors on our site, e.g. auto insurance and finance companies.And finally, we sell to general advertisers who just want to have their products and services displayed to the millions of eyeballs on CarSoup. Your concentration should be to help your dealers stake their unfair share of the market both now and in the future by providing additional exposure opportunities on CarSoup through ad banners displayed to our audience. You can do this through the 4 “dealer owned” positions on the site, which we will discuss in detail later on in this presentation. For all other banner opportunities, Skilly and I will help or handle, depending on the opportunity. For these non-standard requests, please don’t send any pricing or ideas to your client unless it has been approved by Skilly.
Why should your dealers brand online? Because the internet is dominant in the automotive purchase funnel. This illustration shows that at every level of the purchase funnel, internet is out-performing other media options by 2 to 3 percent! By now, it should be apparent to dealers that they need to have presence online to stay in the game.
Dealers may know that they need to be online, but there are many ways for your presence to be made online. Lack of knowledge and the recession has forced advertisers to cut back on their advertising spends. Currently, many dealers are spending their online dollars to only retain their current customers. They do that by having their own website and buying search key words to make sure that they get people to their website. This is a more reactive approach to advertising (making sure your competitor doesn’t buy your customers in search) versus a proactive method to drive new customers to their websites. The problem with this is that a huge percentage of those clicks they just purchased from Google are people who just typed in the dealer’s full name (meaning you already had them as a customer). Dealers will not be able to grow just buying search keywords alone, and unfortunately the cost of search will only continue to rise as more dealers come into the space. The key for dealers who want to flourish is to buy branding campaigns on targeted sites online. By buying a targeted site (like CarSoup), dealers will not be wasting valuable dollars by running impressions on other non-automotive sites or other non-targeted mediums. This type of advertising has its place in an overall branding buy, but buying targeted online branding is the most efficient form of advertising for dealers.This study conducted by IQ Advisor shows how effective online banner advertising really is. This is just one of a number of studies that are finding similar results.Bullet PointsThis is just a quick summary of the study’s key points. I have a copy of the full study if you are interesting in reading the details. We are also going to continue to pull any relevant research and make sure that it is available to you moving forward.
So now that you have a better understanding of why your dealers would want to have presence online, let’s go into detail on why they should choose to advertise on CarSoup.CarSoup and other third-party auto sites are THE way consumers are researching their vehicle purchases today. Seventy-one percent of consumers use the Internet while shopping for new and used vehicles. According to a study of recent car buyers, “Half of new vehicle buyers and 58 percent of used vehicle buyers said that the Internet was the most influential source in their purchase decision”. Of the time online, consumers are spending more time on third-party sites than on manufacturer and dealer sites.CarSoupreaches more of these car shoppers than any other Automotive site in our core marketplace, reaching 3x the consumers than our closest competitors.Dealers are paying A LOT more to advertise on TV, newspapers, direct mail, etc. Only 3-5% of consumers are in-market for a vehicle at any given time. That means that 95-97% of the impressions delivered through traditional mediums are wasted on consumers who are tuning out your message because it doesn’t relate to them. CarSoup users have actively chosen to come to CarSoup to research a vehicle.
So we obviously have clear evidence that dealers need to have presence on CarSoup. Buy why does it make sense for the dealers to spend on CarSoup beyond their listings? Again, we know that only 3-5% of people are in-market for a new (to them) vehicle at any given time. And we know that vehicle listings are extremely effective for those consumers who are within 2 weeks of purchasing their vehicle. However, consumers are searching up to 6 months prior to making their final purchase. Our goal for our dealers is that they achieve TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness), meaning that when the consumer is ready to pull the trigger, they’ll think of your dealership first because they’ve seen their name throughout their purchase process. TOMA is the goal for any advertising campaign. TOMA is achieved with the right frequency and placement. Our banner placements purchased in addition to vehicle listings are specifically designed to achieve that optimal frequency and placement. While not every consumer on CarSoup will be a fit for your dealership, not running anything will only further ensure that you are missing out on that consumer. Buying banners on CarSoup is like buying billboards on the Automotive Super Highway. On any highway, why do some dealers put up balloons and big signs? It’s because they want to draw attention so they stand out from the others. CarSoup is like the automotive super highway, where all of the dealers are on one strip to drive down. Buying banners on CarSoup is the only way that our dealers can pull themselves out of the crowd, since we don’t allow bidding wars for premium listings. If your dealers looked at our listings this way, don’t you think they’d want to make sure they called attention to their particular dealership in any way possible?And finally, compare the price a dealer will be paying to run in their local newspaper or other traditional medium. They are most likely paying a lot more for a lower frequency. And again, 95-97% of the newspaper impressions that they reach will be wasted.
Lead Generation is about the immediate gratification. Branding is about developing consumer awareness to enable lead generation campaigns to maximize results. Lead Gen and Branding are both needed to get consumers to the holy grail: into your dealership to purchase a vehicle.In our new marketplace, branding campaigns will be necessary to stay in the game. If a dealer doesn’t see the value in branding, move on. You act as a knowledgeable consultant to your dealer clients, but it’s not your job to try to convince a dealer otherwise if he doesn’t see the value of branding his/her dealership to shoppers who have actively shown interest in vehicle shopping for one reason or another. There are plenty of dealers that will see the value, and those who don’t will need to come around eventually to thrive. Remember, it’s all about getting your dealer their unfair share of the marketplace. Banners are the ONLY way to do that on CarSoup. That being said, it’s important to note that more often than not you are not going to be successful pitching a banner campaign to an internet manager. We aren’t advising that you don’t meet with the internet manager, but the internet manager’s main goal is to get more leads. Running listings on CarSoup will do that. Your pitch will fall on deaf ears to an internet manager because he’s not focused on branding the dealership. When pitching a branding campaign, you need to be speaking to the person in charge of getting the dealer’s message out there. Most often that is the General Manager.
Okay, so by now I’m sure you’re all itching to get out on the street to sell banners, right???? Right. Knowing that our lives are hectic, we’re making sure to keep banner sales as simple as possible. There is plenty of inventory available for these positions, and you’ll be able to easily keep track of the inventory available for these positions through resources that we’ve put together. We already have the Targeted Ad Banner report available for that position. Continue using that and selling a la carte. We also already have documents that report on the availability of the pop-under and the Dealer Spotlight. I think you’ll agree that this method is more efficient than requesting availability from me. We’ve made sure the Rec2 position mirrors the Dealer Spotlight so that it is a clean cut position for you to sell. We’ll get into the details of selling these positions in a bit, and follow-up in your team meetings with pricing details, etc. Any other type of campaign you’ll need to work with Skilly as he’s the expert.Please note: I didn’t include the wrap here. That’s because we are more or less just including the wrap now if your dealer has purchased the preferred package. Also, you won’t have any channel conflict on these pages, as your dealer’s detail pages are obviously theirs to purchase if they want to (as long as they are on the enhanced package or above).
We’ve bulleted out some details for each of the banners that are available to you to sell. In the interest of time, we’ll just cover points that may be a new way of thinking of these positions, and explain how each of these positions fits on the Automotive Super Highway.The purpose of the Targeted Ad Banner is to make sure to tell consumers searching for the makes you carry why they should buy from you rather than the competitor before it’s too late and they are already looking at the details of a vehicle on your competitor’s lot.On the automotive super highway, the Targeted Ad Banner is like having a billboard placed as an overhang in the Ford lane.
The Dealer Spotlight is the only way for dealers to call attention to the attributes of their. dealership before a consumer starts their searchRunning on Landing Pages has proven to increase the number of searches for a particular make or model. Make sure to get your message out in front of the consumer so they consider your brand before it’s too late.Jumpstart has a number of case studies that has proven this. They’ve seen time after time that when a manufacturer purchases a sponsorship placement on the Home Page or on a Landing Page the uniques that search for the vehicle advertised increases. I’d be happy to provide this reporting. While we can’t personally guarantee or provide reporting that running the Dealer Spotlight will increase the uniques to the dealership, we do know that this is a key placement in achieving the top of mind awareness that the dealer is striving for because of its unique placement. Sell the value of the placement for branding vs. direct results.On the automotive super highway, the Dealer Spotlight is like running a billboard right as you get onto the highway telling consumers why they need to make sure they stop at your dealership.
The Run of Site Rec2 is a new position being made available to you only through the new packages that we’re about to present. The Run of Site Rec2 is the second chance to get your message in front of a consumer before they make their purchase.On the automotive super highway, the Run of Site Rec 2 is like having a billboard along the strip reminding the consumer not to forget the reasons for stopping into your dealership.
The Pop-Under is unique because in addition to being a branding campaign, it also produces unprecedented direct results.On the automotive super highway, the Pop-Under is like putting up a gate at the end of the highway with your message reminding consumers that your dealership will be there when it’s time to make a decision. The gate will open once the message has been read.
A combination of the Dealer Spotlight, Run of Site Rec 2 and the Pop-Under is the optimal way to reach consumers at all points throughout their shopping process on CarSoup. Combining all three positions will garner your dealers the best results, and we want to encourage you and your dealers to purchase presence in all 3. Because of this, we have decided to put these products into packages to make the selling process that much easier. In addition, we feel so strongly about the effectiveness of running multiple positions that we included a discount from rate card if you purchase the products in the package. You can still sell dealers these products a la carte technically, but we want to move away from that option whenever possible. You can always add on the Targeted Ad Banner to this package at the rate card price, but because of availability and targeting restrictions, we cannot include it in these packages or provide a discount on that position. Remember that these are our current packages and prices (which we’ll provide later this week). Please be aware that we are free to make changes to this whenever necessary, and you should expect that we’ll continue to tweak these packages as we grow this opportunity. That being said, when selling, you will need to stick with the most current rate card to make sure that we are being fair to all of our dealers.
The goal of these combo packages is to give you an easy advertising opportunity to offer your dealers when they’re looking to run a short-term special promotion Your dealer should always want to be promoting the benefits of their dealership vs. the dealership down the street. For that, we have the on-going Targeted Ad Banner campaigns. To Note: The time period of these campaigns is 2 weeks in the Twin Cities; One Month in other direct markets. This time frame was determined to be the optimal amount of time needed to make sure your dealer gets their message in front of enough eyeballs to make their campaign matter while making sure that we kept campaign costs at an effective level. Dealers often say they want to advertise for the last 2 weeks of a month, but that’s not how CarSoup users shop. Consumers don’t care what part of the month it is; they search for vehicles when they are interested in them.This graphic illustrates that there are no spikes in page views on CarSoup throughout the month. Consumers are consistently shopping for vehicles.
Now knowing why we would want to sell banner advertising on CarSoup and what you have available to sell, let’s discuss quickly what you need to know to maintain these campaigns once they’ve been sold. A campaign sold on CarSoup runs through our ad server, DART. DART can provide the basic reporting that your client will want to know after the campaign has run: Impressions Served, Number of Clicks on those Impression, and the Click-Thru Rate (CTR). (Walk through bullet points).Remember, however, that this is just basic reporting on the performance of a banner campaign. We will want to be able to provide this information to a client when asked, because they will expect to see it, but the overall campaign performance encompasses so much more than just the CTR. A branding campaign simply cannot be measured on CTR alone, as the purpose of a branding campaign is to create overall awareness for your dealership so that they are remembered when the consumer is ready to purchase. There is no exact way to measure the success of a branding campaign on any medium, but what your dealers can control is how effectively they place their message in front of potential customers. We can guarantee that placing their message on CarSoup is not wasted because our audience has actively shown interest in getting information about available vehicles in your dealer’s backyard.
That being said, we know that those measurements are available and that dealers will want to know how their performance stacks up to their competition. Although the overall goal is a long-term branding campaign, there is nothing wrong with confirmation that the message you are presenting CarSoup users is interesting enough to garner a click from the user. Considering the user is actively searching for a vehicle, if you can present an offer or message that is so appealing the user wants to leave their search to find out more information immediately, that’s very valuable. We just need to make sure we set our dealers’ expectations at a reasonable level and fully explain why a click on their creative is NOT the end all be all of an effective campaign. 468x60 0.08% Rec2 ROS 0.07% Dealer Spotlight 0.08% Pop-Under 3.10% National Advertising through Jumpstart 0.06% The gold standard was provided to us by Jumpstart. They have an entire team based in Detroit who are analyzing campaign results on a daily basis to provide back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer has much more in-depth reporting about the entire campaign cycle, and they put all of this information together to produce a KPI (key performance indicator) which differs on an OEM to OEM basis. Therefore, we can trust that they have done their research in determining what a good to great CTR is in producing overall campaign performance. On a regional level, 0.08 to 0.12% is a great CTR and they will happily buy from a site that can produce these results. If we can aim to keep our campaigns in this range, we’re golden. In general, 0.08-0.12 is a much higher CTR than you would typically see for a campaign that can’t provide the audience targeting that CarSoup can provide.
Our job is to consult with our dealers and give them our expert advice based on the knowledge we have obtained through relationships with thousands of dealers. We’re not just selling products that may or may not work to hit our goals , we’re helping these dealers reach their optimal results by providing solutions that can help them get there. As with anything we provide to our dealers, when we sell a banner campaign we need to make sure that we’re diligently continuing to help that dealer succeed. We may not be able to control all aspects of the campaign, but we can make sure that we get a good message out on the site for our dealers and that we’re keeping an eye on the impressions and performance for these dealers on a regular basis. You have the tools currently to keep an eye on the performance of your dealers as well as all of the campaigns on the site. This information is included in the All Advertiser Report, which I send out on a monthly basis. As part of our maintenance, we should be using this report to make sure that our clients are receiving the number of impressions that they should based on their monthly payment, and that they are performing to the level of expectation set by other dealers in the marketplace. Additional group branding and location aside, there are definitely still instances where it is evident why one campaign is performing better than another. I can help show you how to do this analysis for any of your dealers. We don’t want to pit dealers against one another, but rather our job is to make sure that all of our dealers are getting the best results as possible by running a campaign that will be meaningful to the consumer.By way of example, I’ve looked at a couple of campaigns by target to determine if anything stood out as being more effective. In the essence of time, we’ll just look at one today. Can anyone wager a guess as to which of these campaigns targeted to Toyota is more successful and why? The Rudy Luther Toyota campaign sends a clear message and has a call to action. Carlson Toyota doesn’t give us any reason to want to shop at Carlson Toyota, and it doesn’t invite you to click to get more information. RL Toyota had a 0.07% CTR in April, while Carlson had a 0.03%. Overall, neither of these are fantastic examples of creative because they’re not saying anything specific about their dealerships. The goal for any marketing campaign is to tell a consumer what makes your dealership unique. If you don’t tell them clearly and succinctly why you are unique, you have missed out on that consumer down the road.
We have a ton of opportunity for banner sales. If you are going to attain your goals this year, this is one of the easiest ways to do it because of the amount of opportunity available.If a dealer can support the notion that they need to brand themselves to succeed, they should be able to see why placing an advertising spend on CarSoup in addition to their listings is necessary for their overall goal. There is loads of information out there to help support this. If you think of something you could use, ask for it.