Choosing the Right Ad Partner for Your Automotive Business

We live in a digital age where everything is digitized. As the technology advances exponentially, new digital platforms and devices are emerging. Businesses must adopt the latest technologies in order to keep up with the pace of change or lose relevance. But automotive industry doesn’t have the luxury of sitting out the digital transformation. In order to expand the market reach and build a bigger market share, automotive businesses need to navigate through the changes and stay tuned with the latest technologies. Shift in the consumer demands, expanded regulatory requirements and increasing availability of data and information are some of the key factors behind the transformation of auto industry.

According to the recent reports and statistics, digital advertising spending has been witnessing a steep rise globally. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the automotive businesses to find the right ad partners agency to achieve collaborative and cross-channel engagement with their customers. Below listed are a few practical cues that every automotive marketer may consider before choosing auto advertisement service partner for their next campaign.

Be clear About Your own Digital Strategy and Goals: In order to devise and implement effective auto advertisements service strategy, it is essential to have a sound understanding about your business goals and marketing strengths. Know your audience so that you can let your advertising partner take account of the situation and craft the strategies for connecting with them. Also, estimate and allocate adequate budgets for annual ad spends.

Their Forte: You can find a lot of media agencies and dealer advertising companies offering a diverse range of marketing services to clients. But you need to find out what they specialize in. Do they specialize in automotive ad services? Do they have experience in working with the automotive businesses? Check whether they have an in-house team of marketing, technology and creative writing professionals. You need to choose a partner capable of delivering end to end services.

Work Profile: Take a close look at their work profile. Do they have any experience in working with automotive businesses? Have they crafted any innovative automotive ad strategies for their previous clients? Are they well-informed about the challenges that automotive industry faces? Evaluate their previous campaign strategies and technology expertise, as it would help in gaining a better insight about their skills.

Service Level: Business partnership is for long-term. Even a minor mistake can ruin your brand reputation and customer loyalty. So it is important to define the level of service with the potential ad partner agency. Make sure your business trusts the agency and it is comfortable to work with their team.

Last but not the least make it a point to do a trial run for a specified period of time before finalizing the partnership. You need to have a reputed advertising partner for promoting your business and service. Test the water and choose the right to enjoy a smooth sailing.

Auto Industry – Traditional and Digital Marketing Trends

ARA Marketing Into 2017 – Researching the shift in marketing trends is an online survey report conducted by Automotive Retailers Association (ARA) and Google partner agency Marwick Internet Marketing to study the marketing efforts of six automotive sectors including towing, licensed motor dealers, collision, mechanical, auto glass and auto recycling. Conducted from September 2016 to November 2016, this survey was directed among 100 businesses with a turnover ranging between $0 and $5 million+ in the automotive sector across British Columbia and Canada. And according to this survey report, almost two-thirds of the participants (61%) responded that their priority will be on traditional marketing over digital marketing during 2017- 2018.

While the major part of the respondents decided to spend around the same amount of marketing budget for magazines, newspaper, radio and TV channel advertising, the rest of the businesses think about cutting their traditional marketing budget. Website development, social media, organic search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques have been regaining wide popularity and acceptance in the recent years. Hence, the auto industry will be working with ad partners and increasing their digital marketing budget over the next few years. Even though, the auto sector still doesn’t plan to make the best use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snap Chat. Moreover, majority of the participants feel disappointed in their online marketing efforts, while the rest believe in the importance of online reviews. 

 With the exploding popularity of internet and mobile applications, more and more people are turning towards the digital media for information regarding products and services. Hence, using traditional marketing methods in this increasingly digital world will result in loss of sales and money. According to the survey findings, many automotive businesses are failing to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in marketing result. But when it comes to spending their marketing budget, 50% of the respondents said they will be spending the same on magazine auto ads, 57% will be spending the same on TV advertising and 61% will spend the same on radio advertising.

If we look into the 13th Annual Pew Research State of the News Media Report, it points out newspapers lagged behind local TV news (46%), cable TV news (31%), network evening news (30%), news websites (28%) and radio (25%) in providing information to public. Added to that, the print readership has also witnessed a sharp fall of 25% in the last four years.

Responses to digital marketing efforts and online auto ads were mixed in the survey. Even though digital marketing techniques have become way too advanced, automotive companies are still lagging behind to keep up the pace. Most of the automotive business recognizes the significance of having an appealing online presence and the benefits it can reap. But they are still unsure about taking advantages of social media platforms in marketing their business. When it comes to using the social media networks for marketing purpose, respondents were generally on the fence. Almost half of the businesses think that Pinterest and Snap Chat were “not important at all”. In a nutshell, the overview of the survey depicted the hesitance of auto businesses towards social media marketing. Latest figures and statistics suggest that there are around 2.34 million users in social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, a report published by Pew Research Center stated that 90% of the young audience use social media now. When the automotive business overlooks social media platforms, they are definitely missing out a wonderful chance to drive targeted traffic to their website. Social media marketing not only increases the brand awareness, but it also opens a new channel to connect with the customers effectively.

If the businesses have to choose the top three aspects of a successful digital marketing, then 84% of respondents chose having a mobile responsive website, 81% chose organic search engine optimization and 58% selected Google AdWords campaign with SEM or pay-per-click advertising. Last year, the search engine giant Google announced an algorithm change which made website with mobile-friendly experience rank higher. Similarly, organic SEO and Google Adwords have great potential in reaching out to the targeted audience in the most effective manner. Hence hiring the services of an automotive ppc marketing agency is a wise move. 

Around 56% respondents think remarketing efforts are important to business, while almost 18% were unsure about it. Though digital marketing is crucial to the success and growth of their business, 12% of the participants admitted their marketing team was “terrible” in utilizing the digital channels and 70% didn’t hadhave any idea about their website conversion rate.

Personalization is another crucial component of automotive marketing as it is required to stand out in the competitive market and build awareness across all generations. Businesses that fail to stay abreast of the dynamic marketing trends will be falling behind the line and losing to competitors.

Top 5 Global Advertising Partners Of 2016

Advertising is a necessity for any business organization and automobile industry is no exception. Planning and implementing auto ads strategy is quintessential to drive sales, generate revenue and boost profits. More than just boosting up the sales, advertising plays a key role in building customer relationships and brand loyalty. When it is about designing a digital advertising strategy, businesses need to choose a professional ad partner. With a multitude of options available, choosing a right ad partner is going to be a tedious task. That is why it is recommended to have a better understanding about what to look for and what questions to ask. Arming yourself with all the right knowledge and right questions can prove beneficial in choosing a digital ad inc that can guide you in the best possible direction to attain your goals.

How to find the advertising partner best suited for your business needs? There are several factors to consider. Some of the major factors include adaptation, reputation, retention and more. Make it a point to examine the work profile of the prospective agencies to check whether they have worked with similar clients. Are they well aware of the challenges auto industry faces? How will they choose the right strategy for your business? Most of the advertising agencies offer wide range of services, but you need to find out their forte. Choose a partner with an in-house technical team and who can offer an end to end solution. It is important to be clear about your own digital strategy, needs and goals in order to take an informed decision. Below listed are the top five best digital ad partners.

Google AdWords: An online advertising platform launched by the Search engine giants Google, AdWords can be used by the advertisers to attract customers instantly. Considered as a valuable tool for business, this online ad platform is best for location targeting, mobile targeting, language targeting, time targeting and auto-tagging. Another prime advantage of Google AdWords is its cost-effectiveness which makes it an affordable choice for businesses operating on tight budget. Moreover, it gives you a complete control over your marketing costs. Google AdWords campaign is measurable which allows the marketers to keep track of the number of clicks, traffic, click through rate (CTR), number of conversions, conversion rate, cost per click (CPC), cost per acquisition and more.

AdColony: Video marketing is one of the most versatile and profitable digital marketing tools in the recent times. If it is about developing an innovative video marketing strategy, then you can’t go pass AdColony as an ad partner. It is a premium mobile video ad network and monetization platform that allows the marketers to post HD video ads using its proprietary Instant-Play™ technology. Reduced loading time of AdColony advertisements ensure a pleasant and optimal user experience thereby grabbing higher traffic and conversion rates.

AppLovin: It is mobile marketing platform that allows the businesses to reach out a large number of consumers. Leveraging real-time data time, AppLovin helps the marketers in taking informed decisions and expanding the business reach. More than just attracting new audience at scale, this platform’s ROI-based analytics environment provides measurability and maximum value on investment.  Being a leading mobile marketing platform, this digital ad partner allows the business to acquire new consumers on mobile and Apple TV apps.

Twitter: When it is about giving a boost to your social media campaign, Twitter is the best bet. This social networking site offers advertisers a wonderful opportunity to connect with the audiences and build a strong customer relationship. Short yet creative tweets and posts can reach a potential audience of more than 800 million people across the globe. Advertising with Twitter is a smart way to generate quick leads, increase website traffic and target directly the people you want to reach.

IronSource: It is the largest independent mobile marketing platform that helps the businesses to connect with targeted audiences. Scalable, creative and well-targeted ad campaigns can be used to drive engagement and impact. IronSource deploys a result-oriented approach to build brand awareness and loyalty.

What Should Be Discussed While Planning to Promote Your Business

Being part of one of the rreputed automotive ad agencies it is very important to make the market objectives clear with your client and meet all their requirement. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the advertising strategy and develop campaign meetings. Important topics to be discussed are, upcoming ad partners going to perform their campaign, discuss the requirement of forthcoming project and the expected outcome. The objectives that are to be covered includes the background of the campaign, covering chances and risks. Then the marketing objectives are set which indicates that advertising will play in achieving the goals. The major role of upcoming ad partners here is to represent the plan for advertising the campaign, like increasing awareness of the product to the target audience by attempting a promotional offer.

The ground research incorporates the aim to support the campaign proposals. This includes targeting the audience, listing the profiles of customers and analyzing their purchasing traits. Also the focus is on market conditions, presenting the current competitive campaign and informing about the market net worth that that the product is going to achieve after this promotional activity.

Coming to the next point, reputed automotive ad agencies presents agency’s creative proposals. This includes the artificial visualization of planned ad or storyboards to illustrate the commercials. To illustrate it further, support of previous ads are also taken. Then comes the media point, which represents the media to be used for promotion. Here the reason of choosing a particular media is given and explained how the widest range of audience is targeted in low cost budget. This enlists the modes from newspaper to television and other publication modes.

The last point of the promotional activity is the production part. This part unwraps the campaign budget and the agenda to set the date for the promotion to be started and the delivering the ads to the media publishers.

The above discussed points are the most common ones to0 be implied to make any promotional event successful.