Location-Based Mobile Advertising Surges with Tier 1 Auto Marketers – Grows from 5% to 22% of All Campaigns
Geo-Conquesting Proves Highly Effective for Auto Marketers, Resulting in a Significant Increase in Verifiable Foot Traffic
Custom Audience Targeting Using Location And Audience Data Combined Provide Even Higher Engagement Than Geo-Fencing Alone
New York, NY– Verve, the leader in location-based mobile advertising, published its “State of the Market: Location Powered Mobile Advertising, Deep Dive on Auto” report. The report highlights the rapid growth, diversity and effectiveness of location-based mobile advertising campaigns across all auto marketing tiers and objectives – tiers include National (1), Regional Dealer Groups (2) and Local Dealers (3).
As the fourth report in Verve’s “State of the Market” series, the “State of the Auto Market” delves into trends from 125 location-based auto marketing campaigns that ran across Verve’s platform. It highlights an increased use of location-powered targeting tactics: a mainstay for Tier 2 marketers. Noteworthy is the fact that that Tier 1 advertisers have also embraced location advertising with the amount of Tier 1 campaigns at 22% of all location based auto campaigns in 2014 to date, versus only 5% YAG.
Overall, location-powered tactics effectively reach auto-intenders and drive “the right” foot traffic to the lot, as well as driving high engagement with informative auto advertising. Branding, consumer path insights, and attribution – actual foot traffic lift to lots – are all effectively driven and enhanced by advertising with location data as its foundation. For example, for the 125 auto campaigns analyzed, geo-fencing – including geo-conquesting – on average drove a 3x increase in actual measured foot traffic for those exposed to marketers’ messages versus those who were not. Location-based audience targeting, such as creating custom audience segments with a foundation in real physical world consumer location behavior (e.g. devices seen at auto lots), combined with 3rd party demographic and transactional information, is extremely effective at targeting in-market consumers, as evidenced by consumers spending an average of 20+ seconds engaging with auto advertising content on ads using location-based audience targeting. Additionally, Verve saw 20%-30% increases in average CTRs and secondary engagement actions (e.g. make your model) for location-based audience targeting versus straight geo-fencing alone.
“Some agencies and marketers might be surprised by both the volume and effectiveness of location-based mobile marketing that is happening across all three tiers of the auto space,” said James Smith, CRO of Verve. “It began with Tier 2 auto marketers driving people on to their lots, but now we’re seeing Tier 1 marketers who are finding location-based audience segments are highly effective at targeting in-market auto shoppers.”
The diversity and effectiveness of location-based mobile marketing tactics for auto marketers is leading to increased use by this industry vertical. At 17%, Auto now exceeds Restaurants (12%), making it the second largest category utilizing location-powered advertising behind Retail (28%).
“Tier 1, 2 and 3 auto advertisers each have different needs, campaign goals and marketing tactics to reach consumers throughout the purchase funnel, and across-the-board we’re seeing that location-based mobile’s flexibility and ability to run goal-specific, sophisticated campaigns delivers meaningful metrics for each of them,” said Smith.
Other key findings from the report include:
- Tier 2 ran the most (76%) campaigns, besting Tier 1 (22%) and Tier 3 (2%)
- Location-powered advertising tactics perform especially well for the auto category in CTRs
- Location aware creative out performs non-location aware creative by 60%
- Audience targeting, DMA targeting and geo-fencing are the most popular and effective super-targeted location-powered tactics deployed by auto advertisers
The full report may be downloaded here.
The report on auto marketing is the fourth report in Verve’s research “State of the Market” series. In February 2013, Verve released its inaugural State of the Market report reviewing the evolution of the location-based mobile advertising market over 2012, followed in Q2 with a report showcasing insights from location-targeted mobile advertising campaigns in the Quick Service Restaurant and Casual Dining category; and in Q4 with a report showcasing the Retail category.
About Verve
Verve is the leader in location-based mobile advertising. Verve’s customers are national brand advertisers who want to engage consumers on their mobile devices with location-aware, data-driven and highly targeted marketing. Verve operates and serves over 2,000 premium publishers across the nation, delivering the platforms and services they need to power and monetize their mobile properties. The Verve location-powered technology platform and the proprietary data it generates are revolutionizing mobile media and advertising. Verve has offices in New York, NY, Washington DC and San Diego, CA.
