New Research Shows Search Ads Drive Brand Awareness in Automotive

A recent study from market research group Ipsos MediaCT and Google has tracked the effects pay-per-click search ads have on brand awareness in a variety of different industries. Of all of the industries for which data was recorded, the automotive industry was listed as the industry in which brand awareness is most significantly boosted by pay-per-click search advertising. According to the study, those in the automotive industry can expect about a nine percentage point lift in top-of-mind awareness of a product among consumers if their ads appear in Google search.

The Ipsos MediaCT/Google study was conducted using 800 consumers who ran different searches on various keywords. Next, they were presented with either Control results for the search engine page or Test results that listed the brand in question on top. Lastly, study participants were questioned on which brand came to mind first in a particular industry and based on a particular keyword. While 14.8 percent of participants who had been shown Test results named the brand listed prominently in the results, only 8.2 percent of participants in the Control group named the brand in question.

A total of 12 different industries were examined in this study, and on average the study showed that search ads raise brand awareness across all industries by about 6.6 percentage points. Yet the test results are of particular interest to those in the automobile industry due to the fact that brand awareness in the automotive industry increased by 2.4 percentage points higher than the average raise for all industries at 9 percentage points. This data clearly indicates that automakers and those in the automobile industry might want to put increased focus on search marketing to raise brand awareness.

One automaker has already put search marketing to use in a big way to increase brand awareness. Fiat has reportedly raised brand awareness by over 125 percent in North American markets due to an aggressive search marketing strategy that has involved creating branded content that is optimized for both desktop and mobile platforms. Having recently returned to the United States market, this Italian automobile company needed a way to spread brand awareness in a market in which it was fairly unknown among the general public prior to a few years ago. Yet Fiat has achieved impressive exposure to American consumers since 2011, and this increased exposure has converted well into impressive sales figures. Fiat noticed a 120 percent improvement in United States sales year-on-year between the years 2011 and 2012.With effective marketing strategies, search engine marketing can be a valuable tool to help increase brand awareness.

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