DIGITAL MARKETING ANALYSIS: AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR. Automotive Industry Report 1

Transcription

1 DIGITAL MARKETING ANALYSIS: AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR Automotive Industry Report 1

2 Contents INTRODUCTION 3 SEO Organic Search Volume Overview 5 Seasonal Search Trends 6 Ranking Keywords & Website Size 7 Search Visibility Year on Year 8 Potential for Quick Wins 9 Rate of Link Acquisition 10 Underperforming Sites 11 PPC Paid Keywords 13 Paid Visibility 14 Desktop vs Mobile Paid Visibility 15 Average Cost Per Click 16 Average Ad Position vs Average Cost Per Click 17 SOCIAL & CONTENT Social Influence 19 Automotive Industry Report 2

3 Introduction Here at WMG we re a full service digital agency that helps brands connect with their audiences. With more than 120 on-site experts in the team, we deliver SEO, content marketing, PPC and integrated PR from offices in Harrogate and London, providing timely, impactful and measurable results that help our clients succeed online. We produce a range of free industry reports to help businesses understand the digital marketing and search environments in their particular industry. This report focuses on the automotive industry and explores the four elements of search marketing: SEO PPC Social Content Within this report we will share some of the data that has been created using our own proprietary tools as well as data we ve generated using subscription-only third party information sources. Above all, we ll explain the implications of this information to you and your industry. I do hope you find the information useful and if you have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you. Ian Lloyd Director of Digital Operations info@wmg.uk.com Automotive Industry Report 3

4 SEO Automotive Industry Report 4

5 Organic Search Volume Overview This organic search overview shows which branded keywords are being used when people search for cars online, demonstrating which of the brands are top of mind and well-established within the marketplace. We also illustrate the volume of desktop search versus mobile, highlighting how mobile-friendly websites need to be a consideration for players in this industry. Branded Keyword Avg Monthly Search gumtree 9,140,000 autotrader 7,480,000 arnold clark 450,000 bmw 368,000 evans halshaw 301,000 vauxhall 246,000 used cars ni 165,000 parkers 135,000 kia 110,000 seat 74,000 auto express 74,000 mercedes benz 74,000 motors 60,500 exchange and mart 40,500 lookers 27,100 car craft 27,100 driving 14,800 v cars 9,900 car spring 8,100 Desktop vs Mobile Search 52% 48% Automotive Industry Report 5

6 Search Volume Seasonal Search Trends The graph below compares the UK weekly search volumes for cars for sale and shows how search volumes have changed across the period between 2014 and The data has been normalised, therefore the trend lines show the percentage of peak search volume (y axis). Any seasonal changes can also be observed from the peaks and troughs in the data, with the magnitude of any movements in the data showing whether the market has had a turbulent year Week The data used for this chart is taken from Google UK search and includes both desktop and mobile device search volumes. Please note that the above trend lines focus on just one keyword and its performance throughout the timeframe. The trends shown above may not represent the overall search volume and search trends throughout the entire industry, but do give an isolated snapshot of the performance of one keyword within this particular industry. Automotive Industry Report 6

7 Ranking Keywords & Website Size As part of the website analysis process, the size of each website in a market also needs to be taken into consideration. One way of identifying website size is to explore how many keywords it ranks for in search. If a website can be found through a large number of keywords, this can be a good indication of the size of the website. The bar chart below shows how many each site ranks for and therefore gives an indication of the comparative sizes of the websites operating in this sector Automotive Industry Report 7

8 Search Visibility Year on Year In order for a website to continue to perform in a marketplace, not only does it need to increase visibility, it needs to increase it at a greater rate than its competitors. This table shows the winners and losers in the race for search prominence. Search Visibility is a measure of how often a website shows up in the search results and is calculated by Searchmetrics. By comparing a website s visibility from one year to another, we can see how that site s visibility has changed over time. Comparing the performance of the competitors within this market, we can see how the market environment has developed and trends can be identified Difference autotrader.co.uk 314, ,600-5% exchangeandmart.co.uk 48,855 43,458-11% vauxhall.co.uk 24,297 24,746 2% arnoldclark.com 29,309 31,328 7% parkers.co.uk 107, ,986-5% raccars.co.uk 14,281 24,297 70% evanshalshaw.com 11,634 17,442 50% usedcarsni.com 8,199 9,048 10% carcraft.co.uk 1,957 8, % seat.co.uk 5,714 6,793 19% mercedes-benz.co.uk 22,570 20,100-11% autoexpress.co.uk 143, ,571-8% kia.co.uk 12,354 13,906 13% vcars.co.uk 20,082 18,467-8% gumtree.com 428, ,053 5% lookers.co.uk 5,807 19, % driving.co.uk 8,219 18, % motors.co.uk 27,445 31,679 15% carspring.co.uk 40 1, % bmw.co.uk 25,731 23,481-9% In April 2015, Google released its mobile update, Mobilegeddon, resulting in differences between desktop and mobile rankings. In July 2015 there was a refresh of the Panda algorithm. October 2015 saw the announcement of RankBrain, a machine learning artificial intelligence system. In January 2016, Google announced changes to its core algorithm and how it assesses website quality. In September 2016 Google launched Penguin 4, with real-time data refreshing for this algorithm for the first time. Automotive Industry Report 8

9 Potential for Quick Wins If a website has organic keywords and phrases that rank on page two or three of Google, then there is a huge short-term opportunity in pushing these keywords onto page one of Google, which will trigger a significant increase in organic traffic. In many cases, using the right techniques, it can be fairly straightforward to move these keywords up a few places. The graph below shows where the opportunities are. These can be exploited using a combination of onsite technical alterations, keyword optimisation and increasing page authority and domain authority through outreach activities. Automotive Industry Report 9

10 Rate of Link Acquisition Domain Authority (DA) is a website metric created by the company Moz. It is one of the most important measures of SEO success. The greater the number of links a site has pointing towards it, the more domain authority it is likely to have, which tends to correlate with its visibility in organic search. Also, the number of new links that a website is generating has an impact upon the DA. Due to this, not only is the current number of referring domains important, it is also important to gauge the number of new links that are linking in to a website. The graph below shows the number of new links that have been acquired by each website operating in this sector over the last 90 days. Automotive Industry Report 10

11 Underperforming Sites in Search Sites which underperform in organic search all have something in common they have a limited number of high quality unique linking domains pointing back in to their websites. The table below shows how the top websites in this sector compare for site visibility. All of the sites listed rank comparatively well, due to their high performance in the sector. However, in some cases, organic visibility may be limited by poor site structure, piecemeal onsite optimisation or a lack of coordinated outreach strategies. Search Visibility DA ULDs carspring.co.uk carcraft.co.uk seat.co.uk lookers.co.uk usedcarsni.com driving.co.uk evanshalshaw.com kia.co.uk raccars.co.uk vcars.co.uk mercedes-benz.co.uk vauxhall.co.uk bmw.co.uk motors.co.uk arnoldclark.com exchangeandmart.co.uk parkers.co.uk autoexpress.co.uk autotrader.co.uk gumtree.com ULDs is the number of unique linking domains that are pointing into a website. Automotive Industry Report 11

12 PPC Automotive Industry Report 12

13 Paid Keywords The volume of visible paid keywords per competitor should be monitored on an ongoing basis. This indicates the size of their overall campaign, which when based on direct competitors, allows us to identify if there are any keywords which could provide additional traffic that we may be missing out on. This, used in conjunction with organic search analysis, can show a total 'search footprint', and will identify the phrases they optimise, advertise and those that fall into both camps. This is a key area for growing your overall SEM strategy. Automotive Industry Report 13

14 Paid Visibility Put simply, Paid Visibility is calculated by reviewing how many key phrases a competitor appears for, but is weighted by how many searches each of the phrases gets. For example, a competitor with an average position of 1 for a phrase with 100 searches, is far outweighed by a competitor with an average position of 3 for a phrase with 100,000 searches. Overall, the Paid Visibility illustrates the aggression (or reduced aggression) any specific competitor has at any specific time. If, for example, we see a direct competitor reduce aggression towards the end of the month (potentially due to restricted budgets), there could be room to increase Paid Visibility and steal their market share. Automotive Industry Report 14

15 Desktop vs Mobile Paid Visibility This graph shows the split of competitors between desktop and mobile targeting, and traffic they are capturing. This is often swayed by reduced conversion rates on mobile. Those with a responsive or dedicated mobile site will likely be more aggressive than those without (as their conversion rate will likely be much lower). This can identify pockets of competition that we could either brand bid against, or find areas they are aggressive on desktop with, to steal their mobile traffic. Automotive Industry Report 15

16 Average Cost Per Click Below we can see estimated costs per click (CPCs) throughout the industry. Often, these are influenced by position (put simply, the higher you bid, the higher your position). However, there are multiple factors that influence this. A key one being Quality Score (how relevant your phrases are to the ad copy, and landing page). With an increased Quality Score (out of 10), Google will reward you with a reduced CPC. Going back to the previous model, the lower your CPC is (and assuming your conversion rate is stable), you will produce a lower CPA. Automotive Industry Report 16

17 Average Ad Position Vs Average Cost Per Click This graph illustrates the point made previously. Generally speaking, the average cost per click works on an exponential curve, which means going from position 10 to 9 may cost you an additional However going from position 2 to 1 may cost you an additional Often we find that - especially with high volume phrases - people will pay more for vanity, therefore their cost per acquisition may be sacrificed and the volume keyphrase used as a loss leader. Here, again, we can identify pockets of available traffic that may increase footprint but capitalise on a low CPC Sum of Avg. Ad position Sum of Avg. cost per click Automotive Industry Report 17

18 SOCIAL & CONTENT Automotive Industry Report 18

19 Social Influence Although not a direct impactor upon organic search rankings, social influence is likely to affect search engine rankings as we move forward. Beyond this, actively crafting a social influence and focusing on engagement, rather than just harvesting likes, will drive traffic to a website. The table below shows the winners and losers in this market segment when it comes to engaging with target audiences through social media platforms. Total Influence bmw.co.uk autotrader.co.uk gumtree.com vcars.co.uk autoexpress.co.uk mercedes-benz.co.uk kia.co.uk evanshalshaw.com vauxhall.co.uk usedcarsni.com driving.co.uk exchangeandmart.co.uk motors.co.uk seat.co.uk parkers.co.uk arnoldclark.com carcraft.co.uk lookers.co.uk raccars.co.uk carspring.co.uk Automotive Industry Report 19

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