Increasing purchases in the automotive industry with journey orchestration

In 2020, the automotive industry was among the sectors that were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With global production and supply chains being shut down and facing an uncertain future, the industry was given a sign for a radical change.

Despite the challenges, the most innovative automotive leaders saw the pandemic as an opportunity to accelerate the processes they had already initiated towards digital transformation. And with good reason—consumer behavior across countries and industries is shifting towards online channels (McKinsey). Providing a seamless, personalized, digital experience has become key in retaining customers and acquiring new ones.

In this customer story, we’re sharing how one of the largest automobile manufacturers and distributors in the world was able to increase sales in times of a global crisis, while significantly lowering the costs per lead.

The challenge

On a strategic level, the marketing team's ambition is to change consumer perception to appeal to a younger generation of consumers, whilst reducing the overall cost per lead by:

• Adopting data-driven marketing strategies;
• Increasing the marketing efficiency across paid media channels

To tackle this ambition, they turned to our partner CJ WORX and onboarded Supermetrics Data Activation (formerly Relay42).

For the first use cases, CJ WORX aimed to optimize media spending on paid channels, such as Facebook, Google, and programmatic, by reducing the overall cost per lead (CPL) by 30%. Launching during the COVID-19 outbreak also presented a second challenge to achieving the same number of leads as before the pandemic, despite reduced media spend.

The solution

Relay42 started gathering behavioral data from the brand’s website and connected it with all paid media channels: Facebook, Google, and programmatic display. After visiting the website, the visitors were retargeted with personalized ads based on their website interactions.

A personalized limited-time offer was communicated on Facebook - the channel with the highest conversion rate. The goal was to lead the prospect to book an appointment with a sales representative.

Results

Within the first 3 months of launching the first use cases, the brand saw an 11% increase in purchase rate , a 46% uplift in qualified leads , and a 40% reduction in media budget . The campaign achieved an 81% decrease in cost per lead , outperforming the 30% KPI.