Now, it would seem, is not a good time to be in the business of producing cars.
Ford posted a loss of $8.7bn in the second quarter of 2008, compared with a net profit of $750m the previous year. The outlook for Vauxhall owner General Motors (GM) is also dire: it recorded a massive net loss of $15.5bn in the same quarter.
The problem is weakness in the US market; in Europe sales were positive in comparison. Ford posted a profit of $580m, up from $255m in the previous year, while GM saw record sales in the quarter of $10.6bn. This wasn't enough to prevent both companies unveiling cost-cutting measures though; Ford cut global marketing spend by $200m to $100m in the second quarter, while GM withdrew its planned TV advertising for the 2009 Academy Awards and this year's Emmys. In the UK, GM has denied it will be making the same cost-cutting measures as seen in the US, although Katherine Brashaw, digital communications manager for GM UK & Ireland, adds: "We constantly review the effectiveness of all our adspend."
The digital sector, however, appears to be largely immune to such cutbacks. Indeed, Ford has increased its spend on search. Lisa Brankin, brand communications and events manager for Ford of Britain, says: "If search continues to work for us, we'll continue investing in it."
None of this surprises Jack Wallington, programmes manager at industry body the IAB. "Because consumers spend so much time researching before making a purchase in the automotive sector, search is vital," he says. "It's the gateway to manufacturers' brands and products."
Mike Moran, managing director of marketing consultancy The Automotive Partnership, is more pragmatic about why car manufacturers have not cut back on digital marketing. "When it comes to adspend, all the car manufacturers are like a bunch of kids chasing a football, because they've all got the same strategy," he claims.
But Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise, thinks car manufacturers have failed to master search as effectively as some of the classified sites or dealerships. "If you have someone searching for a blue 1995 Vauxhall Astra, these advertisers are on top of that term, as that person has a clear purchasing intent," he notes.
Intent on finding out whether car makers' search strategies were up to scratch, Revolution commissioned a search expert to analyse the paid and natural search performances of two leading car brands: Ford and Vauxhall.
Although Ford came out ahead of Vauxhall, it's interesting to note that both brands performed considerably better in paid search than natural search. Moran thinks he knows why: "Car makers have been relying on the muscle of their budgets for paid search and have tended to ignore other opportunities for building a longer-term brand presence," he says.
In separate research from Hitwise, Goad found that 91% of people searching for Ford clicked on the Ford.co.uk site. "Ford, in that sense, is very well optimised for its own terms," he says.
Much of Ford's strategy to date has been driven by direct response search advertising - bidding on keyword terms for specific models or deals, for example, and driving visitors to request a brochure or test-drive. But the brand has been "playing around with search in a more brand building way", says Brankin, bidding on generic keyword terms such as 'fuel efficiency', for instance.
MindShare manages Ford's paid search strategy and will take over natural search when Ford relaunches its site later this year. "We're working towards a direct response metric, but we've split the campaign to focus on brand - being 100% visible on Ford terms, with a degree of visibility on what we call 'top-level funnel keywords', such as 'new car', and direct response, because we have to balance volume against efficiency," explains Nick Seckold, head of search at MindShare. This is apparent in the results - where Ford performed very well in terms of brand protection, but lost out by not bidding high enough on generic terms.
When it comes to natural search, Brankin admits, "I would imagine our site didn't perform strongly." But Ford is working to tackle this, with its new website in development.
"We recognise natural search has a strong part to play, as a lot of people prefer natural search to paid search," she adds.
Certainly, research backs her up (see Paid v natural search). The new platform should provide more flexibility, and crucially, the site will be optimised for search engines from scratch.
Cost still figures highly in Ford's search engine marketing strategy. For example, if brand-building keyword terms turn out to be more effective than product-specific terms, the car manufacturer will allocate more spend to brand building. "It's about becoming more efficient in the things we do," explains Brankin.
Vauxhall came out particularly strong in its use of ad copy. Brashaw isn't surprised: "On paid-for search, we focus on our brand terms but we also look at people who've not actually decided on a brand or car, and try out different copy variants to see if our brand can appeal to them," she explains.
"We've tested the copy so much over the past 18 months to find out what the function of different keywords are and how the copy appeals to different parts of the customer journey," adds Greg Shickle, head of paid search at media agency Carat, which manages General Motors' paid search strategy. "The other big thing for us in how we plan our search strategy for GM is to make sure that it's synchronised with all other media, as there are car launches happening and PR events, which we want to support with search."
Although brand building has claimed more of Vauxhall's search strategy in the past 18 months, Brashaw doesn't expect it to overtake direct response, especially not in the short term. "In an economic downturn, we need to make sure our search spend is being used most effectively and we probably rely on other media more to brand build and drive awareness," she says.
GM is relaunching the Vauxhall.co.uk site at the end of this year, and plans to invest more in natural search than it has ever done before. When the new site launches, Shickle foresees a knock-on effect on Vauxhall's paid search strategy.
"Right now, PPC is used sometimes to plug gaps in natural search. But with more prominence on natural search, I think we'll see a shift in budget as some of that PPC spend is moved to give more exposure to keywords that are expensive - such as 'car' - and top-funnel awareness terms," he says.
Digitas is overseeing Vauxhall's natural search strategy for the new site. "The real change is looking holistically at the new site, which will make it easier for people to find Vauxhall not only by brand keywords, but types of car (such as 'family car'), so it will help drive customer acquisition in that sense," says Tammy Cowan-Learn, director of delivery management at Digitas.
It's anyone's guess when the economy will start to recover. But while other areas of advertising see budgets under pressure, the outlook for search in the car sector looks fairly bright. It won't replace the big, expensive brand-building campaigns seen on TV, because buying a car will always remain an emotive, if not expensive, purchase. But where car manufacturers' marketing strategy is likely to change, says Seckold, "is in realising search has a major role to play in supporting above-the-line messages". And that should make the times post-downturn even more exciting to watch.
SEO PERFORMANCE
FORD
- Search engine friendly page content
Ford's site contains a good amount of search-engine-friendly page content. Most of the site content has been crawled by the search engines. 6/10 - Meta Tag
Title and Keyword tags on car model pages are reasonably well optimised but the description tag is missing. The home page could be optimised for super generic keywords. 6/10
- Site Structure and URLs
The site is structured well with search-engine-friendly links. URLs could contain more keywords. 6/10
- Link Popularity
According to Yahoo!, Ford has 25,000 external web pages linking to the site with Google page rank six. The Ford site is highly rated in the search engines. 7/10
Ranking performance
Out of 20 keywords, Ford only ranks on the first page of Google UK for four terms related to brand and model keywords. The site doesn't rank for any generic car keywords. 3/10
TOTAL: 28/50
VAUXHALL
- Search engine friendly page content
The Vauxhall site contains shorter model descriptions with important model-specific content on pages that haven't been indexed by Google. 3/10
- Meta Tag
Description and keyword tags are duplicated throughout the site. Title tags on model pages are unique but the home page lacks optimisation for super-generic keywords. 3/10
- Site Structure and URLs
Site contains page URL's that are too long with too many parameters. A large number of pages aren't indexed. 6/10
- Link Popularity
According to Yahoo Vauxhall has 14,000 external web pages linking to the site with Google page rank five - a good rating within the search engines. 6/10
- Ranking performance
Vauxhall ranks for only three keywords and is failing to rank for some specific Vauxhall model keywords. The site doesn't rank for any generic car keywords. 2/10
TOTAL: 16/50
PAID SEARCH
FORD
- Keyword positioning and strategy
Ford is appearing at low positions on highly generic terms. 7/10
- Keyword visibility
Ford gains fewer impressions than Vauxhall on highly generic terms, indicating Ford is spending less on generic terms. Ford is advertising across Google, Yahoo! and MSN. 7/10
- Ad copy and variations
Ford seems to use a higher volume of differing ad creative within its campaigns. Ad creative is strong and relevant to the search query. Calls to action are slightly weaker. 8/10
- Landing page variations
Ford utilises the home page for all generic searches and points consumers to model-specific pages where relevant. 8/10
- Brand protection
Ford is investing greater sums in protecting its brand. All Ford branded search terms appear close to 100% of the time. 9/10
TOTAL: 39/50
VAUXHALL
- Keyword positioning and strategy
Vauxhall is appearing in positions one to four for highly generic terms. 8/10
- Keyword visibility
The high visibility of Vauxhall paid search ads show that Vauxhall are investing heavily into their paid search marketing strategies across Google, Yahoo and MSN. 8/10
- Ad copy and variations
Vauxhall uses similar ad creative on all generic terms, varying the ad title. Calls to action are strong, utilising special offers and exclusive online discounts. 9/10
- Landing page variations
Vauxhall directs the majority of consumers to the homepage on highly generic terms. On some generic searches, users are directed to model-specific pages. 7/10
- Brand protection
Vauxhall is missing approximately 20% of brand impressions. Here, dealer networks are appearing in high positions and are bidding aggressively. - 6/10
TOTAL: 38/50
OVERALL TOTAL: FORD 67/100 VAUXHALL 54/100
SUMMARY FORD
Ford has a reasonably well-optimised site with good search-engine friendly page content. However, it is a long way from achieving maximum results. Unique description tags and optimised heading tags should be applied to each page of the site. More seriously, a number of car-model pages are duplicated, which may cause slight penalisation to occur within Google. Its big opportunity is to optimise the site for generic and super-generic keywords, as it currently doesn't rank on the first three pages for any of the sample keywords checked such as "buy car online" or "new car".
Ford appears to be spending lower paid search budgets in a more cost-efficient manner. By using the bulk of its budget to protect its brand against numerous dealerships and competitors, Ford is obtaining highly relevant clicks at a very low cost.
SUMMARY VAUXHALL
Vauxhall's site ignores some of the basic rules for good SEO - lots of content that can be easily indexed by the search engines. The site has good link popularity, but the site doesn't rank well for some core model keywords such as "Vauxhall Zafira" (currently on page two of Google UK). Like Ford, it isn't optimising well for generic keywords.
However, Vauxhall is investing heavily in paid search and applying its budget well with strong calls to action. It could be concluded that Vauxhall is using click path analysis to inform its bidding rules, applying high CPCs (cost per click) to generic terms, while maintaining very strong visibility. In terms of improvement, Vauxhall needs to try to protect its brand. As it gains more traffic from these sources, its click-through rates and conversion rates should improve.
THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN NUMBERS
What's interesting about these figures, says Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise, is that Ford has dramatically risen in the search rankings, compared with last year. "Searches for automotive brands online normally skew a little towards luxury brands, so BMW may not be the best-selling car but it is one of the most aspirational," he says. "Ford's rise up the rankings could indicate that, during the credit crunch, people are being more realistic about how they search for car brands."
MOST POPULAR BRANDS ONLINE
Rank Make Volume of Searches
%
1 Ford 9.7
2 BMW 7.8
3 Audi 7.3
4 Vauxhall 6.5
5 Volkswagen 6.4
Source: Hitwise, August 2008.
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR MODELS
Rank Make Model Volume
1 Ford Focus 126,928
2 Vauxhall Astra 113,894
3 Ford Fiesta 102,872
4 Vauxhall Corsa 94,120
5 Volkswagen Golf 68,843
Source: SMM.
PAID V NATURAL SEARCH
Category Clickthroughs Paid Natural
% %
For July 2008
Automotive 24,165,543 19 81
Auto m'facturer 2,392,603 34.7 65.3
For July 2007
Automotive 19,965,363 21 79
Auto m'facturer 2,509,553 32.1 67.9
Source: Nielsen Online.
SMART THINK!NG - How Ford and Vauxhall can make the most of search
FORD
- Use click path analysis to inform paid search campaign and enhance visibility on generic terms
- Improve creative by utilising stronger calls to action
- Solve page-duplication issues on car models
- Optimise upper-level pages for generic and super-generic keywords
- Write unique description tags for each page
VAUXHALL
- Increase budget across brand campaigns to further protect and leverage the brand
- Ensure users are directed to the most relevant landing page and are not too deeply linked on highly generic terms
- Re-write URLs so that they can be indexed by Google
- Optimise for generic and super-generic keywords
- Ensure the main Vauxhall website isn't outperformed by the VXR campaign site.