Trusted Dealers is the UK’s first website created by franchised dealers for franchised dealers. The primary goal of the site is to drive phone call and email leads to dealerships. Trusted Dealers is a national brand boasting ties with the NFDA, and backed by big named automotive brands such as JCT 600, Bristol Street, Lookers, Arnold Clarke and Perry’s.
Analysis
What they wanted
Trusted Dealers are our longest serving client, and one we have developed numerous PPC projects for. Based on the continuous growth we deliver for their business, Trusted Dealers asked us to further grow their brand awareness within their car buying audience in certain cities across the UK, by using existing video content.
Challenges to Overcome
The Challenge
The client’s market is a very competitive one, and so efforts to raise their brand awareness had to be carefully planned and meticulously executed.
We had to combat the common misconception of what YouTube advertising is, and whether our client should you be spending money on Video Ads on YouTube.
We don’t define YouTube as Performance or Direct Response marketing like we do with Search; YouTube is all about putting video ads in front of a relative audience, raising your brand awareness and generating sales further down the funnel.
We had to prove YouTube advertising would drive an increase in our clients’ brand awareness in the target locations.
Leveraging popular platforms
Youtube Advertising
YouTube advertising enables brands to reach potential customers when they watch or search for videos on YouTube and only pay when they show interest. It gives brands the opportunity to reach the people who matter most. You no longer need to get your ad in front of a wide audience, just the people likely to be interested in what you have to offer – from sports fans around the block to fashionistas around the world, and everyone in between. They’re all on YouTube.
Any video uploaded to YouTube can be an ad. Pre-roll video ads appear before other videos on YouTube and other video ads appear beside videos that are being played as well as in search results.
Action
How we delivered
We decided to show 3 of the client’s video ads to a targeted audience on specific cities. We then tracked the number of search impressions of the term [trusted dealers] in those cities to see if there was an increase in searches and therefore an increase in brand awareness. No other advertising was to be done in these cities or a control group that might affect the brand search impression volume.
We targeted both Males and Females over the age of 45 who were looking at car reviews on YouTube in Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle & Nottingham.
We then tracked brand search impressions over the proceeding months against a control group of Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Sheffield and Stoke:
We then commenced the test, and tracked the search term [trusted dealers] over a 6-month period for both test and control group.
Success
The Results
After the 6-month test, we measured brand awareness again. The graph below clearly shows an increase in searches for Trusted Dealers, and therefore an increase in brand awareness in the target locations.
Brand searches in the target locations increased 108% over the 2 months, whilst the control groups brand searches only increased 35%.
If you would like to discuss video ads in more detail or have a general chat about Online Advertising then please do get in touch.