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Videology strikes third-party data pairing with Autobytel to bring intent data to US auto market

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By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

November 17, 2016 | 5 min read

US auto dealerships and manufacturers can now mine the user intent data of auto-enthusiast websites owned by Autobytel to better hone both their linear TV and video-on-demand media buying, after a deal it struck with demand-side platform Videology.

Autobytel's network of automotive research sites such as MyGarage.com and Car.com has a monthly audience of 8 million

The partnership means marketers using Videology’s platform now have access to Autobytel’s anonymized first-party data to further target their direct response (DR) messaging to those audiences that are at the lower end of the purchase funnel.

Videology chief executive Scott Ferber (pictured below) made the announcement at this week’s Beet Retreat 2016, hosted by Beet.TV in Miami Florida, where he told attendees the partnership posed those in the autotrade with a unique opportunity to engage with consumers currently in the market to buy vehicles.

Scott Ferber, Videology CEO, being interviewed on stage at Beet Retreat 2016

Scott Ferber, Videology CEO (pictured left), being interviewed on stage at Beet Retreat 2016. Picture by Brian Papish
 

Marketers looking to take advantage of the offering now have an array of data points to help improve the efficacy of their media buying, such as brand-preference, budget-windows, location, etc, which are sourced from Autobytel’s monthly audience of approximately 8 million users across an array of properties.

“Our platform allows advertisers to reach targeted consumers across TV and video, but our technology is only as good as the data that informs it,” said Ferber. “The power of sight, sound, and motion has always been huge for automotive brand advertising. Naturally, now that viewing is shifting across devices, auto advertisers want to extend this power across screens.”

Videology’s media buying technology also offers advertisers a variety of use cases for automotive marketers, including the ability to measure offline results such as sales or visits to a dealership resulting from video ad campaigns. This gives them the ability to plan holistically across TV and digital video, according to Ferber.

Speaking with The Drum, Ferber claimed the power of Autobytel’s user-intent data was demonstrated by recent research from IHS Automotive, which suggested that sales leads submitted via the media owner’s network, which includes websites such as Car.com and Mygarage.com, helped generate over 2.5 million new retail sales between 2011 and 2015, accounting for 2% of all used car sales in the US during this time.

Discussing Videology’s wider approach to making advanced TV buys, Ferber added: “Our first approach was to integrate with those firms [such Nielsen, comScore and Rentrak] to understand both the consumption and audience, and then to bring marketers’ first party data to make advanced TV buys … it seems that a lot of people want to do that.”

Ferber further went on to discuss the benefit of integrating with third-party data providers (Videology has over 40-plus such integrations similar ot its Autobytel one in the US alone) and the unique perspective that it can provide those in market for highly engaged audiences.

“Third-party data is often the most interesting … you can take it, append it to the other information we have, punch it in with a Rentrak and comScore then say: ‘where are these automotive purchase intenders?',” he explained.

“Then we can put it along with what cars they were looking at, and the features they care about and you have a lot of lower funnel marketing opportunities. So if you think about Autobytel, almost eight-in-ten new car buyers go to the internet to research a buy, and then you think you have almost 92% of US car sales [are not buying new cars fresh from the production line] and are in a six-year cycle then the opportunity to find them somewhere like Autobytel is huge … that’s a large data set that’s never been available before,” added Ferber.

The Drum is the official media partner of Beet Retreat 2016, and will be report live from the event. See here for highlights of the agenda

Similar issues and topics will be covered during The Drum's Programmatic Punch event in London next month.

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