In order to assess how digital marketing affects the business of local dealerships, Mazda and Mindshare were once reliant on conversion metrics such as on-site phone calls, on-ad phone calls and web form completions. For the main site – Mazda.co.uk – conversion metrics were limited to brochure downloads, configurations, and test drives. Store visits reporting, however, has given the team a new way to monitor success, prove the value of digital and evolve a cohesive overarching strategy for driving dealership visits and sales.
About Mazda Motor Corporation
Multinational automaker
www.mazda.co.uk
About Mindshare UK
Part of GroupM and WPP
www.mindshareworld.com
Goals
Measure effect of digital marketing on driving dealership footfall
Approach
Implemented store visits reporting on search and video activity
Products
Search Store Visits
YouTube Store Visits
Custom Intent Audiences
Results
Proved digital investment has driven over 50,000 dealership visits over eight months
Conversions grew by 54% within eight months, overall conversions increased by 190% with a 3.75% conversion rate from clicks on search ads to store visits
Traffic to Mazda.co.uk has increased by 250% year over year and drives an incremental 600 dealership visits per month
Store visits measurement for search
After rolling out store visits reporting on Mazda’s search activity, the data available for analysis increased significantly – across all dealer domains, overall measured conversions grew by 54% within eight months. This helped illuminate new insights: traffic to dealer sites increased by 10% year over year and the conversion rate from clicks on search ads to store visits improved by 9.32%. For the Mazda.co.uk domain, the implementation of store visits reporting saw overall measured conversions increase by 190%, with a 3.75% conversion rate from clicks on search ads to store visits.
With store visits reporting, Mindshare is now better equipped to identify areas for optimisation and growth. By passing onsite call data and store visits data into a bid management platform, they can optimise towards high intent conversions instead of the more traditional softer leads like brochure downloads. “Store visits allow us to see the transition from online to offline, which is the ultimate metric”, explains Mindshare Account Director Jonathan Whitney. “Over time, we plan to integrate this metric as being one of our core KPIs.”
The notable increase in data through store visits also means that Mindshare can analyse generic traffic and its impact. For example, this shows that bidding on generic car terms when a consumer is not originally considering Mazda still drives footfall, at a cost only 5.4 times higher than those searching a Mazda branded term (measured on last click).
In addition, store visits provides an intelligent way for Mindshare to expand the account’s keywords. (For example, they found that keywords relating to used cars drive large volumes of store visits.) Thanks to these additional keywords, traffic has increased by 250% year on year over and drives an incremental 600 dealership visits per month.
Store visits measurement for search on YouTube
When Mindshare launched a YouTube campaign for two Mazda models, the MX-5 and the CX-5, they decided to use store visits reporting to measure the impact of the video ads on dealership visits. While YouTube is traditionally used as a brand awareness platform by automotive brands, store visits reporting presented a completely new opportunity to assess performance.
Google’s new performance targeting on YouTube allowed Mazda and Mindshare to reach audiences who had searched for specific terms using Google Search but had not interacted with the Mazda brand on YouTube – allowing them to find a qualified attentive audience and drive action.
The results were phenomenal with store visits reporting showing a cost per visit on YouTube that was 17% lower than on search. Custom intent audiences produced the lowest cost per store visit, which was 20% lower than that of Mazda.co.uk search traffic.
“Store visits reporting has provided us with a strong KPI to measure against, helping us increase relevant traffic to both the Mazda.co.uk domain and the dealer domains”, Jonathan affirms. “Across our conversion types, we will be working with Mazda to assign value per dealer for each conversion type so that we can evolve our bidding strategies.”
Store visits has helped Mazda prove the value of Google Ads to their network of dealerships and also better understand the value of upper-funnel tactics.
