The launch whose weak link was the dealership
In 2015, inside the agency's digital division, we built the launch of a premium car model and we measured it all the way. Not to the click. To the test drive at the dealership, and to the sale.
The top of the funnel worked: over 3 million impressions, over 10,000 unique visitors, and click-to-visit conversion of 34% on display and 36% on search. Test drive requests came in at 0.89% of visitors, which is the standard for this kind of product.
And that is where the document gets interesting. Of all the hot leads passed to the network, only 29% resulted in a test drive actually taking place. The weak link was not the campaign, it was downstream of it. This page explains why I prefer this case to every other one from the period.
A premium car brand was launching a new model in an island market, through a local dealer network. The media budget was modest against the brand's standards. The system combined display and search with a campaign site, a test drive request form, and lead handover to the network. What is unusual, then and now, is that the chain was instrumented along its whole length.
A car campaign does not sell cars. It produces test drive requests. Between that request and the sale sit a phone call, an appointment, an available vehicle, a trained salesperson and a follow-up. None of that belongs to the agency. Second constraint: traffic was mostly mobile, 61.6% against 38.4% on desktop, in a market where the connection is not a metropolitan one. A heavy form killed the request before it existed.
1 · Week one: listen and decide.
On site. Understand what the cooperative does, what its buyers and partners need to believe, and what the members are proud of. Positioning written and validated in the room, not by email.
2 · Week two: build the identity.
Visual identity designed against the positioning: name system, marks, colours, typography, and rules simple enough to be applied without a design team. Every choice tested against one question: does this raise institutional trust?
3 · Week three: ship the assets.
The working kit the cooperative actually needed: documents, signage, presentation materials, templates. Delivered with a short guide and a working session so the members could produce their own materials next month.
4 · Spend where perception changes.
The budget went into the few physical touchpoints partners actually see. Nothing was spent on deliverables that flatter the consultant.
2015 launch, measured end to end.
- Over 3 million impressions and over 10,000 unique visitors on the campaign site
- Click-through of 0.77% on display and 1.42% on search, with click-to-visit conversion of 34% and 36%
- Traffic 61.6% mobile, request journey designed for that constraint
- Test drive requests at 0.89% of visitors, in line with sector standard
- 29% of hot leads worked by the network, written into the report handed to the client
- Chain instrumented from impression to sale, every step with its own counter
A campaign that delivers hot leads and a network that works fewer than a third of them is not a media problem, it is a commercial organisation problem. The only way to prove it is to have instrumented the chain before you needed to. If your marketing stops at the form, you will never know whether the problem is yours.
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