Tag: automotive

While many view Millennials and Gen Z through the same lens, savvy automotive marketers are adjusting their strategies to capture the market of this generation.

We conducted a study of thousands of online listings to better understand what details are crucial for VDPs, which Kirsten Von Busch will be debuting the results of at the NADA Show in March.

According to Experian’s State of Automotive Finance Market: Q3 2021 report, leasing comprised 24.03% of new vehicle financing in Q3 2021.

In Q3 2021, the average new vehicle loan amount increased 8.5% year-over-year, while the average used vehicle loan jumped more than 20% year-over year.

In Experian’s Automotive Market Trends Review: Q2 2021, we looked at the data to better understand EV and internal combustion engine registration trends.

Although 2021’s continued focus is Americans learning to co-exist with COVID-19, automotive manufacturers and dealers will likely remember 2021 as the year of the chip. The semiconductor chip shortage is now expected to cost the global automotive industry $210 billion in revenue in 2021 and it is now forecasted that 7.7 million units of production will be lost in 2021, up from 3.9 million in the May forecast.1 Most experts agree that the shortage will likely extend into 2022. Chip Shortage Creates Additional Challenge for Dealers The current shortage in semiconductors has automotive manufacturers and dealers questioning whether to continue advertising or pull back. Some dealers view the increase in profits due to reduced inventory a signal to pull back on advertising spend. Other dealers, however, are thinking about long-term marketing strategy—and are continuing to advertise to help maintain brand exposure to customers. Foreword-thinking dealers and agencies should use this time to evaluate advertising strategies and plan for life after the chip shortage. Staying visible to customers in the interim is critical, so any advertising needs to be strategic in audience, medium and message. Here are three recommendations to help keep your brand in front of current and future consumers while using marketing dollars wisely. Identify Your Audience: Be Sure to Market to the Right People Knowing which consumers are most likely to purchase your vehicles is a key element of targeting with the promise of saving money by marketing only to those who are most likely to result in a sale. By evaluating prior purchase, demographic, and psychographic trends, including specific life events, dealership marketers can more effectively pinpoint demand as well as foster positive relationships. For example, knowing that a consumer recently added a new child to the family would be a great reason to send a coupon or make a call. Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine™ (AIE) will send “events” to your CRM to alert you of life events that can help develop and deepen relationships that lead to future vehicle sales. Additionally, AIE’s Market Insights enable dealers to grow market share by identifying the best prospects and matching them with the right messages. Strategically targeting both conquest and loyal customers with appropriate messaging keeps consumers engaged so they will remember your brand when they buy next. Leverage Your Brand Reputation Keeping your brand front and center has been the cornerstone of your marketing efforts and that shouldn’t change. Much like looking at family photos or reading an article about your favorite team, exposure to positive advertisements reinforces a consumer’s relationship with your brand. Whether the goal is to leverage your OEM driven brand awareness or support the consumer relationship with your dealership, positive messages from local dealers perpetuate ongoing loyalty. Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine generates powerful marketing strategies and efficient data-driven, omni-channel media plans with engaging, brand-specific messaging direction that resonates with consumers. Dealers and agencies use AIE to generate custom marketing plans that leverage data-driven market analysis, strategic audience creation, and powerful marketing strategy, creating messages that effectively reach the right prospects, with the right message, on the right channel. This end-to-end solution will reach consumer mailboxes, inboxes, screens, and computers where your best audiences spend their time. Continue to Foster a Positive Relationship with Consumers Marketing is more than selling a story.  Marketing initiates the consumer experience, especially in the digital world. From effective OTT ads to strategic social posts, successful dealerships often put their relationship with the community at the heart of their message. Simple images of your dealership delivering meals to local first responders and essential workers or posts showing the local high school marching band loading instruments into one of your trucks can convey a strong sense of community pride to your brand.  This sort of promotion impacts future consumer purchases well beyond any chip shortage. While the chip shortage has had a profound impact on how dealerships approach vehicle acquisition, price structures and marketing, it will eventually be resolved. The decisions you make now can have a big impact on your success when the shortage ends. Learn more about Experian’s Automotive Intelligence Engine™ (AIE). https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/chip-shortage-expected-to-cost-auto-industry-210-billion-in-2021.html

When we look at how automotive manufacturers and dealers have marketed vehicles over the last few decades, we can see how through every decade, and every learning, it has led to data-driven marketing strategies that are powering success today. Let’s take a look: Strategic marketing in the 1990’s In the 1990’s dealership marketing included mainly newspaper and radio advertisements complimented by occasional direct mail pieces mailing to every home in a zip code. OEMs purchased ad time on popular Television and their dealer associations and local dealers had an option to do the same. Because the 1990’s was the age of “mass media,” marketing was based off geography. There was less attention on channel or audience and a good deal of spending! Cars were sold. Strategic marketing in the 2000’s The new millennium brought advancements in computers and databases. Dealerships explored the exciting world of internet promotion and email marketing and continued using traditional newspaper, radio and television to drive traffic. mail programs such as the “scratch and win” or the “key to a car you can win” efforts were common, resulting in massive mail-based marketing campaigns. Then came 2008, when many dealers drastically cut back on spending and were focused mainly on surviving the Great Recession. As we all know, many dealers, and even vehicle makes, did not. Strategic marketing in the 2010’s In the beginning of the decade, manufacturers and dealers were still recovering from the recession but were slowly feeling more optimistic about the economy. If there is one thing the industry learned from the recession, it was to be much more strategic when it came to spending. During this decade, ad technology advanced, as did the ability to evaluate marketing spend. Dealers became aware of the true cost of their traditional marketing ways and embarked on new paths of marketing to a smaller but more specific audience. Equity mining and greatly advanced revolutionized the direct mail and related online arena. As the decade drew to a close, marketers leveraged solutions where merge fields enabled customization and personalization for both direct mail and email marketing. With the ability to deliver massive volumes at a lower cost, email blasts grew in popularity. Social media platforms emerged as a force, and dealers experimented to invent new ways to leverage them. Television marketing underwent a massive facelift as consumers left cable for streaming services resulting in new advertising strategies such as addressable and connected TV, OTT (Over The Top) advertising. Strategic marketing in 2020 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of the pandemic. In automotive marketing, it was also the year of reinvention! With many showroom closures, dealers and OEMs found themselves with a reduced advertising budget and a greater need to find more targeted audiences with more effective marketing messaging. How do I master my market share? Who is in-market for my vehicles? How is my website performing? Which customers are in equity? Which customers have added a child to the household? How do I reach them in a digital world? This is where Experian has helped both manufacturers and dealers. Experian’s automotive marketing solutions help marketers utilize vehicle, consumer, lender, and market data to leverage market insights, target the right audience, develop effective messaging strategies, and measure outcomes to continually optimize results. Over the last four decades, automotive marketing strategies have become much more data driven, so having a solution that uses data insights to help retain loyal customers and win new conquest customers, all while reducing total marketing spend, is a key requirement for success in this decade…and beyond. If you're a marketer at a Dealership, learn more about our marketing solutions here. If you're an Auto OEM marketer, learn more about our marketing solutions here.

The AutoCheck FREE Flood Risk Check site has been updated with Hurricane Ida information New cars have been in short supply due to the worldwide microchip shortage, so consumers quickly turned their attention to used cars. Unfortunately, dealers continue to struggle with obtaining enough used car inventory to meet demand. To add to an already challenging year, Hurricane Ida hit the gulf coast in August resulting in an estimated 250,000 cars sustaining flood damage. It’s more important than ever that dealers be careful about obtaining pre-owned cars that could potentially have flood damage. The best way to mitigate the risk of purchasing a flood damaged vehicle is to start by running an AutoCheck Free Flood Risk Check. Visitors simply enter any vehicle's 17-digit VIN and the tool will check for flood brands and provide information if the vehicle was registered in a region impacted by a FEMA disaster declaration. Two levels of reporting available The first level of reporting determines whether the vehicle has been titled/registered 12 months prior in a county that has been identified as requiring public and individual assistance (FEMA categories A and B) for a FEMA-declared major disaster. This would yield a “Yes” result. For instance, you would get a “Yes” result if the vehicle was registered in an impacted area during the time of a FEMA-declared major disaster like Hurricane Ida. The “Yes” result should not be interpreted as confirmation of flood damage or even possible flood damage. The data is provided merely as information regarding the location of the vehicle’s registration/title history so users can be aware of risk exposure. For example, the Hurricane Ida region had thousands of damaged cars, but some cars in the region may not have been damaged by the hurricane — the owner could have driven the car when they evacuated, or a child or other family member may have been out of town with the car when the hurricane hit. The second level of reporting is based on search results from Experian data such as flood title and problem records, including flood State title brands, auction flood announcements, salvage auction flood designations, and other vehicle records determined by Experian to relate to or suggest an increased likelihood of flood damage or risk exposure. It takes time for claims and updates to vehicle title information to appear on a vehicle’s history and although the DMV requires that title brands be issued for vehicles damaged by floods, not every vehicle flood event is reported by car owners. Unreported flood events may not appear on an AutoCheck Flood Risk Check or AutoCheck Vehicle History Report. Although Experian provides flood related records from available data sources, we cannot provide assurance that an AutoCheck Flood Risk Check that does not produce any records means that the subject vehicle has not experienced flood damage. That’s why it’s important to review a full AutoCheck Vehicle History Report, which—in addition to potential flood damage—includes reported accidents, branded titles, recalls, number of owners and more. Once you run the full Vehicle History Report we recommend an independent evaluation and inspection of the vehicle to determine and confirm a vehicle’s condition prior to purchase. Try the AutoCheck Flood Risk Check today to help mitigate the risk of purchasing flood damaged vehicles. Not an AutoCheck subscriber?  Contact us to become an AutoCheck client.

Despite used vehicle prices rising, loan-to-value (LTVs) ratios are dropping. Ultimately, lower LTVs are a positive trend for consumers because it puts them into positive equity on their vehicle faster.

The automotive finance market is beginning to level out to pre-pandemic trends in Q2 2021.

Experian’s Q1 2021 Automotive Market Trends Review revealed that some of the once-consistent new registration generational trends have reversed.

In the Q1 2021 Market Trends Review, we explore the average age myth and highlight other ways to inform aftermarket strategy.

Trends can vary based on location. In the Q1 2021 State of the Automotive Finance Market report, we took a look at market share nationally and regionally.

Experian’s Q4 2020 Market Trends Review takes a closer look at aftermarket trends, including the growing sweet spot.

In 2020, new trends emerged, driven by a continued shift in consumer preferences. Let’s take a closer look at how the industry fared during the year.