Case Study  

Online Autos Marketplace

Taboola Drives 100% Higher Conversion Rates for Online Autos Marketplace, Outperforming Search and Social

Online Autos Marketplace Logo

Educating Consumers with Earned and Owned Media

  • 100% Higher Conversion Rates
  • 40% Higher Time-on-Site
  • 60% New Leads Generated on Mobile Devices

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Company

An online auto marketplace that helps people easily sell their cars and purchase second-hand vehicles.

Challenge

Educate audiences across the web about the company and enroll new buyers and sellers for the marketplace.

Solution

Promote a mix of educational content and conversion-oriented landing pages through Taboola’s discovery platform.

Results

Increase in time-on-site and significant increase in conversion rates.

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Introduction

The buying and selling of “used” cars has traditionally been an informal market, occurring across local car dealerships, classified ads, word-of-mouth, and other ad-hoc channels. Recognizing an opportunity to transform this space, a leading car importer recently launched a new online marketplace that aims to facilitate the buying and selling of second-hand vehicles.

Like any new company with an innovative product offering, the online service faced the initial challenge of educating new audiences about its product before encouraging them to sign up for the marketplace. Early marketing efforts around search and offline advertisements failed to sufficiently educate audiences about their product, and both website traffic and new customer signups remained stagnant.

The online auto marketplace decided to partner with Taboola and leverage content discovery as a way to share its story with engaged audiences across the web.

Educating Consumers with Earned and Owned Media

Given the innovative nature of the new marketplace, the collaboration initially focused on strategies for educating new audiences about the service. Content promotion campaigns on Taboola incorporated a mix of on-site educational content, as well as earned media in top outlets. These content pages introduced users to the online auto marketplace in a more authentic and effective way than previous search or banner-like campaigns.

Retargeting Turns Readers into Buyers and Sellers

After investing in awareness-based campaigns, the online autos marketplace leveraged Taboola’s external retargeting capabilities to re-engage users who had previously read about the marketplace and might be interested in signing up for the service. Half a dozen campaigns promoted conversion-focused pages to specific audience segments based on their browsing history, as well as contextual cues that suggested whether a user might be more inclined to become a “buyer” or “seller.”

For example, using a tracking pixel, the company identified prospective buyers who had read about the marketplace in a related news article, and then retargeted those users with discovery campaigns that brought them on-site and encouraged them to explore the marketplace. Interested sellers who had read about the marketplace on the company blog were then retargeted with conversion focused landing pages about the benefits of peer-to-peer platforms.

Taboola Drives 100% Higher Conversion Rates than Search or Social

The online auto marketplace found that Taboola driven leads proved to be higher quality than competing marketing channels. By incorporating content into the user acquisition journey, these leads were more educated about the service when they ultimately converted into a user, spending over 40% more timeon-site than other organic and paid traffic.

The quality of these users was also evident in Taboola’s conversion rates, which proved to be 100% higher than related search and Facebook campaigns. These rates were especially impressive given that Taboolareferred users landed on a piece of content (rather than a direct response page) and had to navigate at least one additional page before signing up for the service. Also notable was the fact that more than half of Taboola-driven leads occurred on mobile devices, an environment that has been difficult for many marketers to crack.

Throughout the joint-collaboration, both teams uncovered new insights about online consumption habits that will inform additional strategies going forward. The online autos marketplace plans to build on its content discovery campaigns to reach new audiences throughout the entire marketing funnel, as well as pursuing content-driven strategies to re-engage users who have signed up for the service.