Overview
Using a full-funnel strategy to increase awareness and drive product views for AA Cars
Services: Strategy & Planning, Creative, Programmatic, Paid Social
Markets: UK
The challenge
In 2019, the UK used car aggregator market saw a wave of consolidation and new entrants. Whilst AA Cars generated significant traffic, the AA Cars brand needed to achieve greater share of voice in an increasingly congested landscape. As a result, standing out became a key strategic priority.
AA Cars enlisted the support of Croud to plan a campaign that would help them do two things: increase awareness of the AA Cars brand among people in-market for a car, and help them meet their commercial objective of increasing product views, demonstrating engagement with dealer listings.
The Croud difference
We built out a full-funnel strategy to meet AA Cars’ two-fold objectives. The awareness phase focused on the key proposition and AA Cars’ key audience characteristics, and as we moved into the conversion stage, we used a retargeting strategy that took into consideration which car models the user had shown an interest in, in order to provide more relevant ads. Ongoing optimisations throughout the campaign meant we were able to tweak budgets and creatives to where we saw the campaign really deliver.
The creative approach included using several key selling points such as “all cars have passed our quality checks” and “featuring only approved dealers and no private sellers”. The messaging variations were tested in rotation to determine effectiveness. Croud looked at which creatives resonated with which audience and ranked them, taking in account click-through rate, page views and time spent on site, among other metrics.
The results
All creatives beat the campaign cost-per-lead benchmark. The more conversion-focused phases of the campaign were very successful on Facebook, with car views 4.5 times higher than initially planned. Tailored car-specific creatives were 98% more effective than generic ones in terms of click-through rate, delivering a 3x creative production ROI and 77% more car views. We also managed to exceed the conversion rate target, reaching a conversion rate of over 50% towards the end of the campaign.
creative production ROI
%
more car views
%
video completion rates
Working with the creative team at Croud was a fantastic experience. They are skilled digital creative specialists, and their translation of our marketing objectives into effective creative and media planning delivered outstanding results.
Hannah Russell, Product and Marketing Director, AA Cars