MARKETINGESSENTIALSCASE STUDY: Toyota Netherlands

Category:Data-driven Digital

Vertical market:Automotive

Agency:Toyota Netherlandsin-house, withIgnitionOne

Campaign:Facebook CustomAudience targeting

Timing ofcampaign: Started Sept. 15,2015, and stillongoing

Summary: Toyota Netherlandsaimed to improveretargeting effortsusing an audiencescoring system. Aftershifting digital adbudget allocation, it’srolled out the strategyacross markets.

2 | FEBRUARY 2016 ADVERTISING AGE

CASE STUDY:TOYOTA NETHERLANDSMARKETING ESSENTIALS

THE MARKETING CHALLENGEToyota Netherlands had the same problem all autosellers do: It needed qualified leads and a way tocommunicate with those potential buyers. The deal-er group – a small division of the auto giant withjust 110 sales outlets throughout the country –already used Facebook Custom Audience targetingto advertise to people who have shown an interestin its vehicles by visiting its website. But it wantedto refine its approach to ensure it was only spend-ing to reach the right people.

“The most important thing for us is really to get toknow the online prospects and customersbetter,” said Menno Damsté, manager,interactive communication atLouwman and Parqui B.V. Toyota/Lexus, The Netherlands.

THE INSIGHTWhat started as a two-monthtest would eventually lead to astrategic shift in digital ad budg-et allocation and rollout of a now-ongoing campaign to other markets.

Beginning in September 2015, the in-houseToyota Netherlands marketing team built audiencesegments to target on Facebook by categorizing or“scoring” website visitors based on their interac-tions and level of engagement using marketing ana-lytics firm IgnitionOne’s technology and scoringalgorithm.

The algorithmic system uses information such ashow recent a site visit was, whether someone pur-chased a Toyota in the past, site categories visited,where people click on the site and what content isscrolled over with a mouse, referring URL, andmonetary value of vehicles they showed interest into calculate an engagement score. Then the resultsare displayed on a dashboard.

“This is a visualization to show our clients that it’snot a black box,” said Stephan van den Bremer,enterprise business development director atIgnitionOne.

THE CAMPAIGNFor the test, IgnitionOne’s technology was embed-ded on the Toyota.nl site in order to track userswho checked out select vehicle models and opti-mize what content they were shown. Facebook ads– pushing things like test drives for instance – werethen aimed at the test groups using the social site’s

Custom Audience offering.

It also informs in-person sales, Mr.Damsté said. When someone is

deemed a potential buyer andoffered a deal, that informationis filtered to Toyota retailersbased on region, along with a.pdf document detailing thespecs of the vehicle in which

that person expressed an inter-est. Those leads also go

through the national site via a ful-fillment system, and if there isn’t a

prompt follow-up from the local dealer,an alert goes out. From there, another dealer

could get the lead.

“We have a lead management system so the nation-al level pre-qualifies leads, then monitors them andmakes sure that leads have been contacted by thedealer,” Mr. Damsté said.

The test was so successful Toyota Netherlandsdecided to continue targeting IgnitionOne-qualifiedleads with Facebook and Google ads as part of anongoing campaign.

“It’s an always-on campaign.” Mr. Damsté said.

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CASE STUDY:TOYOTA NETHERLANDSMARKETING ESSENTIALS

THE RESULTSn Conversion rate lift: 62%

n IgnitionOne group conversion rate:0.30%

n Control group conversion rate: 0.19%

The test brought Toyota a conversion rate lift of62% when comparing organic conversions to sign-ups for test drives via a website form to conver-sions prompted by IgnitionOne lead targeting.Targeting the IgnitionOne group led to a 0.30%conversion rate, compared with the control groupwho converted 0.19% of the time.

The test was enough to persuade Toyota

Netherlands to continue using its IgnitionOne-fueled segments for all its Facebook ad targeting,and later employ the system for all its Google Listsfor Remarketing targeting.

NEXT STEPSNow in 2016, Toyota Netherlands has shifted toIgnitionOne-based targeting entirely, dropping anystandard retargeting efforts it employed in the past,and expanding the program to at least two addition-al markets.

MARKETING LESSONSDon’t Settle. Toyota Netherlands already usedstandard ad retargeting to reconnect with peoplewho visited its site in a way it deemed successful.But the company learned it could get even betterwith a more sophisticated approach.

Technology Can Enhance the HumanTouch. Car sales often require the skill of a goodsalesperson, but using a data-centric approach cancomplement efforts by staff.

ToyotaNetherlands’Facebookpage invitesconsumers totake a testdrive, while themobile site letsthem requestmoreinformationfrom regionaldealers.