By Jimmy Ahmed,
Industry Director, Automotive, Meta
In today’s economic uncertainty, businesses must operate smarter and iterate faster to convert customers. Brands must capture attention while making the most of their advertising budgets, which can be challenging considering consumers are exposed to over 4,000 ads per day¹. Auto buyers often have a narrow wishlist to begin with when starting the car buying process. Automotive brands must rise above the noise to ensure they are top-of-mind along a complex purchase journey.
Moreover, the average automotive brand has up to 30 different body styles and models, eight trim variations, 10 color options, with all set in various creative environments, resulting in an exponential number of possible creative combinations. It is extremely manual and time-consuming for marketers to address the broad needs of car buyers with the right product and marketing message at the right time. But we know that relevance is critical to driving action, with 68% of surveyed online shoppers saying they want more personalized experiences². We also know that machine learning and automation can help reduce the steps it takes to set up and optimize campaigns. 77% of surveyed media planners say they see significant time savings on manual tasks when using machine learning-enabled tools³.
Meta's Automotive Model Ads
Meta has developed catalog-powered solutions designed specifically for automotive advertisers to address these challenges. Automotive Inventory Ads (AIA), launched in 2018, enable advertisers to dynamically show the right vehicles to the right people using a vehicle inventory catalog. Automotive Offer Ads (AOA), launched in 2021, connects consumers with the most relevant financial offers to incentivize a purchase. We're now expanding on this capability with Automotive Model Ads (AMA) to promote not only relevant offers but also vehicle models (including combinations of color, trim, etc.), all powered by a single catalog.
Automotive Model Ads is built on the same foundation as Meta’s other Advantage+ Catalog Ads, an end-to-end solution that leverages product catalogs, machine learning, and AI to deliver personalized ads to shoppers expressing implicit or explicit purchase intent. This new solution helps automotive advertisers promote their full range of vehicle models, trims, colors, features, and incentive offers while automating the entire process, saving time, reducing complexity, and optimizing performance.
Automation
Advertisers can dynamically promote their entire catalog of models, trims, colors, features, and financial offers with one campaign. Leveraging Automotive Model Ads, they can also optimize faster, combine prospecting and remarketing campaigns, and reach a larger qualified audience with relevant models and offers based on purchase intent.
Performance
Automotive Model Ads make it easy for advertisers to drive consideration and sales with less time, complexity, and effort compared to manual campaigns. By automating the entire process, Meta can predict which opportunities are most valuable based on data in real-time to help ensure that the campaign meets its goals at the best possible price.
Personalization
By leveraging machine-learning algorithms, advertisers can connect the right combination of products and offers to the right consumer at the right time. Automotive Model Ads removes the guesswork of connecting creative and targeting, delivering on the promise of personalization at scale.
There is a significant opportunity to help shoppers discover brands and vehicle models where they spend their time digitally. Based on a recent survey, 73% of new car buyers in the US relied on digital for automobile brand or model discovery⁴. With over 3.8 billion people active across Meta’s apps and services on a monthly basis⁵, advertisers can tap into the largest audience of in-market car buyers online.
Meta’s Automotive Model Ads is a game-changer for automotive marketers. With its powerful automation capabilities, this new solution enables businesses to efficiently capture the attention of automotive shoppers to drive consideration and sales with better performance than static ads. In today's competitive landscape, Automotive Model Ads can help businesses get the most out of their ad dollars while providing consumers with the personalized experiences they deserve.
1. Forbes “Finding Brand Success In The Digital World” 2. “Discovery-Led Shopping Study” by GFK (Meta-commissioned online survey of 12,000+ respondents ages 18 - 74 in the AU, BR, CA, FR, DE, IN, ID, MX, SK, JP, UK, US, Q2 2022. Qualifying respondents shop online at least twice a month and made an online purchase of beauty, furniture, electronics and/or apparel in the past 3 months at the time of the study; questions cited A08, C04.3. Facebook In 2019-2020 conducted a survey of 148 media buyers in the US.4. New Automobile Buyers Consumer Journey Study by Kantar Profiles (Meta-commissioned online survey of 1,141 respondents aged 18-64, US 2022)5. Meta Q1 2023 Earnings Call
Jimmy Ahmed is Industry Director, Automotive, Meta.