Growing Honda Dealership Lead Volume While Reducing Costs

What was the goal?

Honda, a Top 5 Auto Manufacturer in the US, was facing a significant decline in dealership sales and struggled to adapt to multiple post-pandemic issues. They had limited success generating leads via Search & Youtube but accounts & campaigns were not providing the return Honda needed. In the face of sweeping cuts to digital budgets, the goal was to assess the landscape and revamp the program to produce higher quality leads for less ad spend.

To revitalize dealership business nationwide, we built a more complex user journey funnel alongside updated campaign structures & bidding for each local market.

Our Solution:

1. Top-Down Auditing: We initiated the project by conducting a comprehensive audit of all active ad accounts across the country. This involved an in-depth analysis of their current operations, target market, and competitors. By understanding the unique challenges and goals for each particular market, we developed a tailored strategy to improve Honda's costs-per-lead by targeting higher-intent users.
2. Value-Based Bidding Strategies: Implementing a new conversion funnel allowed us to dig deeper into the activity our best customers exhibited the most. By creating that hierarchy, our campaign structure was able to be refocused entirely on that stack, further prioritizing users we identified as being the most likely to actually enter a dealership. We weren't just focused on getting more people in the door, we needed the right people to walk through that door.
3. Scaling Performance Nationwide: Starting with 5 of the largest markets by ad spend, we tested the new strategy in small batches, while tweaking the settings & testing new creative to help boost performance. Once we got solid results in, we scaled it out to the rest of the market, and eventually nationwide.

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The Results:

The new strategy yielded remarkable results, bolstering dealership performance and showing stakeholders a clear path to "double down on digital":

1. Increased Sales and Revenue: Following the implementation, Honda saw a significant boost in lead volume and cost-efficiency. The updated campaign structure, optimized ad copy, new audience segmentation, and strategic bid strategies resulted in nearly double the lead volume seen in the prior period, with a -25% reduction to average CostPerLead. The gap in budget from previous quarters was not felt by the dealerships who previously feared a dropoff in volume.
2. Enhanced Online Visibility: Without a proper remarketing funnel, Honda was leaving money on the table by not re-engaging users who already showed a clear interest. By utilizing first party data from the website, we were able to generate new audience segmentations based on the users intent and phase in the life cycle. We used that to boost campaigns where we wanted to target returning customers for an upgrade, or hit current customers looking for parts & services with a message to come into their local dealership.
3. Improved Brand Reputation: Over the course of time we kept an eye on the competitive landscape, particularly in Paid Search. As competitors continued to bid on our keywords and take up space in the more general non-brand sphere, we secured gains in average impression share & top of page rates for a handful of priority terms that produced higher ROI for us, while helping keep other vendors from poaching our customers.

What It Meant To Us

With our help, Honda successfully transformed its digital presence, reaping the rewards of increased lead volume & sales, and casting a bigger yet more refined net across their multiple marketing channels. This project stood as a testament to the efficacy of comprehensive, omnichannel approaches in delivering proper ROI in Media. If you're looking to revitalize your marketing campaigns and drive growth for your business, We're here to guide you every step of the way.