A panel of automotive experts offered suggestions for ways dealers can improve their marketing performance when facing rising costs and tighter budgets.
With budgets at a premium, doing more with less is frequently proving to be a necessity for today’s dealers. Gaps in visibility, escalating media costs and growing scrutiny over return of interest (ROI) all indicate a need for smarter and more efficient campaigns that can attract the right audience and create successful customer journeys.
The online webinar – available to watch now – featured:
- Daniella Lindskog, marketing lead at Phyron.
- Matt McGillicuddy, VP marketing at Infinity.
- Vicky Hart, marketing director at Waylands.
Doing more with less
With automotive marketers under pressure to deliver more from less, the impacts on conversion and the scale of a marketer’s role were identified as areas likely to create challenges for dealers.
“There’s a huge challenge there around resourcing,” observed McGillicuddy.
“Year on year, calls in the automotive sector are up (9%) and we know there’s still healthy demand for buying cars. What we also know is that there’s more complexity associated with those inquiries.
“The big challenge when you’re working with a smaller budget is it’s got to be super-efficient.”
Hart added: “Automotive retail marketing is the job that’s very quietly got three times bigger than it was.
“Not only are we trying to do more with less, but we’re also then trying to deliver greater visibility in terms of marketing’s impact on revenue generation, there is a greater expectation of optimisation around real time reporting, so the pressure’s coming from lots of different angles.”
Lindskog highlighted how, for automotive marketers, there is frequently a gap between expectations and capacity.
“One of the biggest challenges is that expectation to be everywhere; to create more visuals, more ads, more formats, and to stay ahead of the curve, but with fewer resources and often with the same manual processes that they’ve had.”
Improving visibility
With buyers often researching online before converting offline, visibility can often break down as the omnichannel journey continues – and that this can significantly impact marketing decisions.
Hart noted that budgets often get spent on maximising channels that are easier to track, regardless of their impact.
“What we’re having to do is ensure that we really focus our budgets on what builds buyers that longer term demand ownership but also isn’t solely focused on what we can measure today, and much more focused on what’s profitable, and sometimes that is the stuff that’s harder to measure.”
McGillicuddy said: “Regardless of what sector you’re operating in, we’ve got to start with good foundations, with visibility and, invariably, data, especially if we want to leverage systems that create efficiency.
“Whenever I speak to any new marketers for the first time when we have a conversation about visibility and data, digital attribution is normally awesome, nine times out of ten. But invariably, the scenario that we see regularly is that visibility breaks down at the moment where intent peaks.
“It’s not good enough anymore just to understand that a conversion has taken place. Context is important.”
Scaling and automating with technology
Attention was given to how technology can be used to help scale marketing activities, particularly when considering content.
“We all know that the buying journey is starting online,” said Lindskog.
“There are hundreds of customer touchpoints, it’s no longer limited to a dealer website, people are spending most of their time on social media. If you want to be everywhere all the time, you need to optimise for those specific channels.
“Marketing teams are able to do so much more today with AI and automation to present their inventory and in new and engaging ways that that haven’t been done before.
“Traditionally, it was only OEMs that had the power or budget to work with video in their marketing campaigns, particularly when they launched a new vehicle. But now things are changing, and video is becoming fully democratised and accessible to dealers of almost any size and for every single vehicle.”
As automation becomes more of a necessity for marketing platforms, leading marketers ensure that the necessary data is available.
“It always comes back to data systems and process,” McGillicuddy explained.
“Where I see sort of marketers pulling ahead, it’s the ones that have prioritised getting that first-party data game absolutely nailed and made sure to build systems that really lean into the AI platforms being used.
“Obviously it doesn’t remove the need for human monitoring and intervention, but it means that something is going to be happening that is productive and the right thing, even if we can’t find the time in a day to manually intervene.”
Ensuring effective ROI
With ROI under increasing scrutiny across the sector, Hart explained how reporting on ROI needs to develop.
“So often ROI reporting stops with digital measures rather than real outcomes.
“I still see people treating all conversions as equal, and I believe that today we shouldn’t be in a position where we still find ourselves doing that. I think we still, again, it’s a legacy thing, but we still over-credit that last touch.
“We need to shift our thinking to actually understanding what’s building longer term demand, rather than just those short-term spikes in leads, the offline data piece is clearly a huge issue in terms of ROI, it is that missing piece of the puzzle.”
Practical suggestions
Each panellist offered practical suggestions on ways that dealers can generate more sales without increasing spend, and what to prioritise.
Hart said: “Before you even think about touching your media at all, actually fix what’s coming in.
“It is effective in terms of understanding your lead response times, understanding actually your follow up process, and how many follow up touch points are there, making sure that you are able to identify the real and high value calls being generated by the activity that you’re running today and pushing those into your CRM.”
McGillicuddy highlighted the need to avoid revenue leakage and ensure that teams are not chasing the wrong metrics. However, he made a point of mentioning the benefits that marketing teams can achieve by breaking down any silos that exist with the sales team.
“That can still be the last great frontier for many marketing teams, improving that relationship.
“We sit on a wealth of insight that can be used to help sales convert more, progress more, and that’s beneficial to both teams. We’re all pulling in the same direction on the same mission. I would really encourage a closeness in that working relationship.”
Lindskog discussed the need for upgrading the creative quality of existing ads and the need for effective testing.
“Avoid changing too many things and avoid pulling the plug too early. If you want to really test something, make sure that you really understand what’s being done, the expected outcomes, and also give it sufficient time to really perform.”