What Drives Auto Shoppers’ Behavior – according to Google

July 2, 2011

Automotive Mobile Search and Mobile Marketing becomes Focus for Dealers & OEMS

While reading on of my favorite blogs from eMarketer, I came across this article about how Google’s insight into the Car Buyer’s experience is very insightful. Having a strong presence in Mobile Marketing for the Auto Industry and Car Dealers nationwide for several years, I read the article top to bottom. It was very insightful and sheds light into what Google is tracking across their properties. In addition, it should come as no surprise, that many recent enhancements made to their ad serving capabilities further extends benefits to better local search results from their advertisers – especially local car dealers.

According to Google’s own Automotive Industry Development Manager, Kimberly Stonehouse, they have identify some key factors influencing the way today’s consumers shop for automotive products (their next car).

3 KEY TAKEAWAYS:
1) 3 Months to buy
2) Funnel Leads from National Advertising to Local Dealer
3) Mobile & Local Combination = SUCCESS

Questions & Answers from the Google/eMarketer Q&A session.
QUESTION: How long does it take a typical consumer to research and purchase a vehicle?
On average – Three months.

Google can see “an interplay between digital and the dealer. Digital media is used often for comparison purposes to determine the consideration set and narrow it, but it is not negating the importance of the dealer.”

QUESTION: What are OEMs doing to get auto shoppers’ to their sites? 
According to Stonehouse, “Automakers aren’t trying to necessarily predict where a shopper is in their purchase funnel, but are providing choice so shoppers can determine where they want to go, where they want to find information. For example, if you search for Toyota on Google, you’ll typically see an ad for the brand, Toyota.com, you’ll see a site within the ad space for BuyaToyota.com, which is the national dealer site. And you’ll also most likely see an ad for a local Toyota dealer.

What Toyota and what a lot of our automaker partners are doing is recognizing that it’s difficult to predict from a search of Toyota, or something similar, exactly what the consumer is doing or is looking for. They can increase their efficiency and, in many cases, lower their acquisition cost or lead cost by providing that choice. It increases the likelihood that the consumer will click because they’re provided with all of the options that they could potentially be looking for, regardless of where they are in the funnel.”

QUESTION: How and when does mobile come into the picture? 
According to Stonehouse, “Mobile is one of the biggest consumer trends this year, and we’re really starting to see automakers recognize the importance of mobile in the shopping process. Within automotive specifically, it varies among brands, but up to 20% of search traffic to OEMs comes through a mobile device. So that’s a tipping point for automakers to realize that mobile is a substantial portion of search traffic, and those consumers are ones they need to reach.

We’ve seen that mobile traffic doesn’t replace desktop by any means. It’s additive, and it’s complementary. Through our search data, we see more desktop search traffic in the middle of the day, but mobile will spike in the evenings. Although mobile usage is strong in the evening timeframes, it also has proliferated past what the typical uses and time periods you might expect.”

QUESTION: What advantage does the mobile platform offer to local dealerships? 
“One in three mobile searches are local. When a mobile device can recognize a consumer’s location, it becomes a much more powerful tool. Dealers can provide an offer to a consumer who is driving around looking for a vehicle on a Saturday. This enables the advertiser to send a targeted message—and for the consumer to receive something useful and relevant. “

For the complete interview, visit eMarketer (eMarketer Total Access clients only)