For the full report (PDF) please click here
Which New Zealand Car Providers are maximising their market share online?
Find out which car providers are taking the lead in organic search and how they’re doing it.
FIRST has investigated the organic search engine rankings for NZ consumer searches focused on new and used cars, utilising FIRST’s Ranking Based Reach (RBR) analysis framework. In addition, a consumer survey was carried out to discover what the first place of choice for Kiwis is when considering purchasing a new or used car.
In this report we discovered:
- According to an article from automotivenews.co.nz, sales of new vehicles in 2014 are expected to top those of a record in 2013, the best year for the New Zealand motor industry since 1984.* As the car sales market in New Zealand is likely to be very profitable, car dealers should make use of this development and implement suitable digital strategies to increase sales.
- Autotrader is leading the RBR (for desktop search), followed by Trade Me and Turners. However, in mobile search Trade Me just ranks on ninth position, left behind by players like AA, Turners, AutoBase and others.
- In general, search results are broadly dispersed among a wide range of car industry competitors. In this competitive market, some automotive providers have recognized the urgency of ranking well in organic search, nevertheless there are still many companies (especially car brand companies) which are not at all present within organic search. It would make sense for them to invest in a robust and smart search strategy.
- In our survey we revealed that buying from a car auction is rather unpopular among Kiwis, and that 75% of the respondents would buy their car at a car dealer.
- A digital strategy that integrates both organic and paid search should be a key customer acquisition and revenue driver for car dealers, both online and offline/in store.
FIRST uses its bespoke metric called RBR (Ranking Based Reach) to estimate how well each company is ranking in search engines. RBR provides a simple way to compare a website’s search engine rankings with its competitors. RBR is an estimate of the percentage of available search traffic a website will receive for a set of phrases – this gives the sites share of search or reach. It is weighted based on the popularity of each search phrase and the relative click through rate (CTR) of each ranking position.
For the full report (PDF) please click here
Websites included in this car industry report comparison:
www.2cheapcars.co.nz
www.aa.co.nz
www.audi.co.nz
www.autobase.co.nz
www.autotrader.co.nz
www.bmw.co.nz
www.buyrightcars.co.nz
www.carfair.co.nz
www.drivesouth.co.nz
www.ford.co.nz
www.holden.co.nz
www.honda.co.nz
www.hyundai.co.nz
www.kia.co.nz
www.mazda.co.nz
www.mercedes-benz.co.nz
www.nissan.co.nz
www.subaru.co.nz
www.suzuki.co.nz
www.toyota.co.nz
www.trademe.co.nz/motors
www.turners.co.nz
www.volkswagen.co.nz