ENGAGEMENT AT OEM SITES | SATURN AURA GETS COMPETITIVE

By: Randy Rubin & Brenda Aulinskis

August 29, 2007

SMALLER BRANDS, BIG ENGAGEMENT

A key objective to every OEM-site is to drive as many qualified leads through their site as possible in support of aggressive sales targets. Compete ranked all the OEM-sites by the level of engagement on their sites. Engagement was defined as the percent of visitors who used the configurator, request-a-quote, and/or dealer locator as a percent of overall traffic.

The top-5 OEM-sites with the highest engagement (chart) have two attributes in common. First, the OEMs are not full-line manufacturers. Second, their share of overall OEM-site traffic is on the lower end, ranging from 5.2% to 0.8%.

How do these lower volume sites drive higher engagement? Compete can provide a deeper understanding to what is driving such high engagement. For example, the degree that site design and traffic source drivers affected these results. Other areas to explore could be the impact of a limited vehicle lineup and how focused these visitors are on just one or two brands.

SATURN AURA TAKES ON ACCORD AND CAMRY

Saturn’s new marketing campaign inviting people to their local Saturn dealer to test drive the Saturn Aura and compare it against two dominant segment competitors, the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord looks to have paid off for GM. Using its monthly measure of automotive demand, Compete determined that in June and July the Aura reached all time high shopping levels in a market that was down over 20% year over year.

And this demand growth was increasingly coming from Camry and Accord shoppers adding Aura to their cross shop list. The percent of Camry and Accord shoppers also shopping the Saturn Aura has been steadily increasing through 2007. The percentage of Camry shoppers also shopping Aura reached an all-time high in July while Accord shoppers cross-shopped Aura at their second highest ever.

In addition to getting more competitive shoppers to consider their vehicle the test drive campaign also got shoppers more focused on the Saturn Aura. Compete’s Zero Cross Shop analytic shows the percent of vehicle shoppers that shopped only the Aura. In June the Aura’s Zero Cross Shop reached an all-time high.

By measuring shopper behavior, Compete is able to provide auto manufacturers with marketing effectiveness data that is fast and accurate. To date, the Aura test drive campaign has focused shoppers on the Saturn product and increased consideration from its two key import rivals. Compete data can also be used to understand how well those additional shoppers were converted into Aura sales and more importantly why, through additional insights into their shopping behavior and Saturn’s marketing effectiveness.