Adthena Automotive Industry Insights Ashley Fletcher, VP of Marketing, Adthena Presented at Drivers for Digital Growth, an automotive summit co-hosted by Adthena and Jellyfish

1. Adthena
Automotive Industry Insights
PREPARED BY
Ashley Fletcher - VP Marketing
ashley.fletcher@adthena.com

2. Introduction
The Journey in Search 2017
Market Disruptors
Winning at the Finish Line
Future Trends

3. It Started with a Search…..
What I wanted:
● Reliable, family car
● 5-7 years old, under 100K miles
● Diesel, eDrive model
● Black or Blue
● R-Design Model
● Collect Nationally
● Trade
● Max 3 previous owners
What I ended up with:
★ 7 years old, under 100K miles
★ Diesel, eDrive model
★ Private seller
★ Silver!
★ Only 40 miles away!
★ 30% over my budget!

4. My Search Journey
My search journey was unpredictable, broad and
irratic, took me awhile to land on car of choice.
Research phase took time, eg MPG, Roof Racks,
Best Family Cars, Insurance, Reviews etc
Google was always the reference point when
searching at home (tablet/mobile) or work (desktop)
From a search perspective my activity can easily be
categorized….

5. Why is this important to the people in the room?
Time. Targeting. Performance.
Google
AdWords will
map to a
taxonomy of
~20 different
auto
categories.
Adthena will
map to a
taxonomy of
80+
categories &
2.5m+
keywords
Family Car Vehicle RacksEstates Brand Vehicle Tyres
Some of the AI Categorization by Adthena:

6. Automotive Clients Using Adthena
6

7. ​Machine-learned
Whole Market
View
​AI
Categorization
​Built for Client
Value & Outcomes
Money back
Guarantee
World Class
​Customer Success
Only Adthena offers...
Award Winning Technology….
What Makes Us Different

8. The Journey in
Search 2017

9. Whole Market Share of Clicks - Q1 2017
ebay were the market leaders
in paid search visibility on
desktop
Along with Auto Trader they were
winning the largest proportion of
clicks across all of UK desktop
search
In March 2017...
ebay had a lower share of clicks
on mobile, but still a significant
proportion of the market

10. The Leader Puts the Breaks On
From April, ebay begin to turn off paid search spend...

11. By October a New of Competition
ebay.co.uk no longer present
on desktop or mobile ads
With the share of clicks being
absorbed by other main
competitors in the market
By October...
Who capitalized on the gap in the
market best?
● Volkswagen +2.55%
● Ford +1.52%
● Audi +1.46%

12. Manufacturer Deep-Dive - Share of Clicks
Audi have an above average
Pure Brand click share on
desktop
But Ford and Volkswagen have a
lower % of Pure Brand click share,
meaning they both gain a greater
proportion of their clicks from
generic search terms
Protect Pure Brand click share? Or
capitalize on Generic terms?
Volkswagen in particular seem to
have capitalized on more generic
search terms where ebay may
have left a gap in the market

13. Takeaways
1. Anticipate competitive movement
2. Understand diversity of competitors
3. Housekeeping for both brand and generics
4. Be prepared for further disruption

14. Market Disruptors

15. Price Comparison Gets Congested
Price Comparison
arrives in UK
automotive search:
The last few years especially
have seen large growth and
investment in the space.
● Carwow
○ $62m raised from VC
(Jul 2017)
● Cargurus
○ $150m raised after IPO
(Oct 2017)

16. Maintaining an Aggressive Spend Rate
Carwow and Cargurus consistently had the highest ad spend in 2017
Share of Spend (Text ads)

17. CarWow: Competitor Brands Driving the Volume
Up to 70% of clicks on
competitor brand terms
Up to 10% of clicks from generic
search
Carwow brand and generic search
term distribution
On average, about 5% of clicks
from owned brand terms

18. Rich Choice, Content & TouchPoints keep Aggs Present
e.g. “best family car”
Disruptors have a natural advantage
over manufacturers early in the
purchase journey as they allow
consumers to compare brands.
e.g. “skoda fabia vs
ford focus”

19. Your Takeaways
1. Expect competition on brand terms
2. Leverage brand term + modifiers for early
conversions
3. How can manufacturers win back consumers?

20. Winning at the
finish line

21. Insights: Optimise Ad Copy (Desktop)
Manufacturers focus on CTAs
Product modifiers (“new” and
“dealer” also appear frequently in
higher ad positions)
Ad copy analysis of manufacturer ads on
desktop reveal:
Lots of insights from digging deep
into the data, and analysis of ad
copy

22. Insights: Optimise Ad Copy (Mobile)
Up to 70% of clicks from
competitor brands
Up to 10% of clicks from generic
search
Ad copy analysis of manufacturer ads on
desktop reveal:

23. Your Takeaways
1. Proactive rather than reactive ad copy
2. Optimise CTAs to win buyers back from
search
3. Optimise for your most relevant competition

24. Future Trends

25. Streamlining consumer purchase journeys
Been tested for some time but ‘Click to Buy’ experiences growing, buy a
car in 5 minutes from your living room...

26. Search to reflect an ever evolving Persona
“Both Land Rover and Volvo have
recently advertised accessories to
increase the pooch-friendliness of
their respective rides. Specifically,
people have been searching for
dog car seats, dog car hammocks,
dog car steps…”
Cnet.com - Feb 2018

27. Streamlining consumer purchase journeys
Richer ad experiences...
Full width image ads on
mobile rolled out in the US
Localised ad extensions and
CTAs
Leverage richer content
experiences to make your offer
more compelling

28. Questions?

29. Thank you for
listening