Contextual Advertising’s Role in Optimizing Auto Success:
Long gone are the days of a car dealership being the first stop for someone looking for a new vehicle. Instead, today’s savvy car shoppers often start their journey online. This shift has led to a surge in digital ad spend, projected to grow by 11.7% in 2023. But what does that mean for automotive advertisers? It means that the digital landscape cannot be ignored and that brands must focus on reaching customers long before they enter a dealership.
So, how can automakers navigate and excel in this digital realm? Read on for three tips for automotive advertisers looking for the road to success.
Laying the Foundation: Context Matters
In the fast-paced marketing world, a compelling message is half the battle, but delivering it within the appropriate environment is the key to victory.
For automotive advertisers, this means presenting vehicles in settings that deeply resonate with potential buyers, making their dream of ownership feel real and achievable.
The allure of new models, opulent features, and groundbreaking technologies can all work to ignite potential buyers’ desire for ownership. Still, without context, these messages run the risk of being overlooked.
By utilizing contextual advertising, automotive brands can connect with their target audiences within the precise context at the opportune moment, to ensure that their carefully crafted message hits the right target.
A recent study by Teads and IPSOS found that contextual advertising can help automotive brands achieve significant results, including a 19% boost in Ad Recall, increased Purchase Intent, and up to 31% higher brand lift, with a 49% attention increase.
This could mean displaying EV or hybrid car advertisements to a user perusing content about environmentally-friendly vehicles or an SUV with all-wheel drive to a user who has just viewed a video about the best off-road trails in their area.
What’s more, contextual advertising is also aligned with privacy regulations, giving automotive advertisers a way to capture interests, behaviors, and purchase intent without using personal data.
Pairing Data and Creativity for Maximum Impact
In automotive advertising, creativity goes beyond aesthetics—it’s about using raw data to understand what potential car owners desire and mirroring it in the ad content. Whether it’s a young professional’s first car, a family needing space, or an adventurer seeking an SUV, the creative content should directly speak to these aspirations.
This is where dynamic creative optimization (DCO) comes in. By using real-time data, advertisers can customize ad content for each viewer. But DCO isn’t just about relevance; it’s about creating an immersive experience by merging the viewer’s reality with the aspirational world depicted in the ad. By presenting the car within the viewer’s context, creatively optimized campaigns have been shown to enhance the ad’s emotional impact, leading to significantly higher levels of attention (+49%) and brand lift (+31%).
In order to provide clients and agencies with further insights into the optimal design of advertising media, we have also collaborated with IPSOS to develop best practices to increase the view time of campaigns significantly.
First, we curated 500 videos from 2019 to 2022, featuring 18 automotive brands in 23 countries. Then, Teads Studio optimized certain videos while others served as benchmarks, revealing the impact of these enhancements and leading to real-life business outcomes.
Nissan, for instance, partnered with Teads to generate awareness of Nissan Kicks e-Power and increase the intention to schedule a test drive with the brand. With Teads Studio and Data, Nissan delivered engaging content within premium, brand-safe editorial contexts, resulting in a 19% boost in Ad Recall, increased Purchase Intent, and up to 31% higher brand lift, with a 49% attention increase.
Mastering Omnichannel Advertising
The automotive consumer’s journey is far from linear, which can make reaching these fragmented audiences a difficult prospect. The solution for automakers? A robust omnichannel targeting strategy that ensures that campaigns reach users wherever they are online, improving both reach and engagement.
In today’s multi-screen era, maintaining consistency in brand messaging across various channels is paramount, so working with a partner with expertise in multi-channel approaches such as Teads is critical. At Teads, we understand that TV advertising notably elevates brand awareness, surpassing the impact of desktop and mobile platforms on their own, while the combination of TV and web advertising typically yields a 25-30% higher ROI compared to web activations in isolation.
What we’ve learned
In a fast-paced automotive industry, staying ahead of the curve is key, and with Teads, automotive clients gain the strategic advantage of reaching buyers at every juncture of their journey, backed by a track record of success. By leveraging contextual and omnichannel strategies and utilizing technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, automotive advertisers can deliver their message with precision and take the fast lane to growth.
Henner Blömer, VP Global Client Partnerships