In just the past few years, digital ad spending in the automotive industry has risen quickly, and this growth shows no signs of stopping. According to eMarketer, the auto industry spent a staggering $5.11 billion on digital advertising in 2013. This year, that number will rise about 14.4 percent to $5.85 billion. Projections show that automotive advertising dollars will continue to steadily migrate to digital in the years to come.
It should be no surprise that auto marketers find display and video advertising to be the most effective online ad tactics for shaping purchase decisions. Coupled with the massive proliferation of HTML5-enabled mobile devices, the search is on for ways to engage and activate consumers via their smartphones and tablets.
This involves continuously immersing audiences in display ads that use different strategies for specific parts of the customer journey. Of course, the two main objectives of automotive digital display campaigns are branding and direct response.
Branding campaigns, aiming to communicate a brand’s main value proposition or introduce a specific product, often take advantage of interactive ad features that encourage brand engagement. On the other hand, direct response campaigns aim for presenting users with forms to generate leads or to sign users up for a test drive.
But let’s get more specific. Based on our second quarter 2014 Automotive vertical specific report we prepared some quick tips that will help you maximize the impact of your next mobile display advertising campaign:
Branding campaign:
- Use customizable galleries that complement your product’s design to introduce your latest car model with interactive features like Swipey, Flippy or 360° View.
- Video boasted an impressive 24 percent engagement rates in the second quarter. Use it to support other engagement metrics.
Direct response campaign:
- Allow users to locate nearest dealer or special deals – Location-based features show a strong engagement rate at 3.9 percent in the second quarter. Combined with Form fill a test drive can be booked directly from the ad.
- Spur sharing by including the Pinterest Pin button or WhatsApp features to give your content legs beyond Facebook and Twitter.
For more insights into mobile display ads performance read the full second quarter 2014 Automotive vertical specific report.
* Branding & Presentation, Video, Swipey and other features mentioned in the article are all integrated in Celtra’s AdCreator 4, the first cross-screen HTML5 technology for creating, managing, serving, and tracking immersive display advertising campaigns.
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