Adthena announced the launch of Local View, a new solution that gives automotive dealership groups complete transparency on the search advertising landscape across geographies, capturing consumer behavior and competitor strategies. With Local View, dealership marketers can see unique local trends in search, evaluate performance by location, and track and act on competitive moves.

The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed consumer behavior. With more people sheltering in place and working remotely, online searches for brands, products and services have exploded. Moreover, tier systems and city/county lockdowns which restrict movements and certain types of in-store purchases, pose a unique problem. With COVID-19 reshaping what people search for and where they search from, car dealers are seeing greater variance in search activity locally — across every region, state, county, city and neighborhood. To adapt, search campaigns need to become more locally targeted, ensuring personalization for the end-user and performance for the dealership group.

Unfortunately, there has been a lack of on-the-ground clarity today on what consumers are searching for locally, as well as how competitors are adapting their search efforts to this new normal, the company said. Without transparency on emerging trends, relevant search terms and competitor moves at the local level, dealers are struggling to build effective location-based search advertising campaigns. They do not know who their rivals are at a local level or what they might be bidding on, which is especially dangerous as one-third of all brand searches experience brand bidding — competitors targeting ads based on another dealership group’s trademarked keywords. 

Enter Adthena’s new offering — Local View. Local View provides in-depth analysis of consumer and competitor opportunities within a dealer’s local search ecosystem (e.g., Nielsen DMA^®, state, city, etc.). Local View helps dealership marketers understand search intent locally, discover search term patterns and uncover competitor strategies amid COVID-19, analyzing everything from their ad copy and terms to CPCs and CTRs. These insights allow dealership groups to capitalize on existing local opportunities and identify new ones, driving greater ROI.

“Your consumers are searching for what they want, where they are right now, and that activity is being redefined during the coronavirus pandemic,” said Ashley Fletcher, VP of Marketing, Adthena. “Your location-specific ads need to adapt and be there, and they need to be informed by these changes. With Local View, we can show you what your audiences are searching for by geography, which ad copy performs best and who you are really competing with, bringing much-needed transparency to location-based search.” 

Dealerships can leverage Local View intelligence in a number of ways, including targeting different vehicles to different areas (e.g., SUVs and 4x4s for more rural areas versus luxury auto in cities), understanding the highest performing themes in ad copy (e.g., money off versus 4-year warranty), gaining a true view of the competition, and more. Search term, competitor, device, and brand shift intelligence is also automated and actionable, helping dealerships save time and move quickly. 

Local View is powered by Adthena’s industry-leading “Whole Market View” AI. The AI automatically scans a car dealership’s website and their competitors’ keywords to create a custom map of only the most relevant terms for the dealer. Once a unique Whole Market View has been created, it actively gathers data on new market movements and relevant keywords, every single day. With Local View, a dealership can now get a personalized view of their search landscape in every location they care about, powered by Whole Market view. 

“Because of the pandemic, marketers want intelligence that drives greater performance and optimizes spend,” added Fletcher. “With Local View, dealers and dealership groups can monitor and analyze every aspect of their audience’s searches at a granular level, and at scale, to reach the right consumers in the right locations. They can also more accurately benchmark campaign performance locally, versus the competition. Together, these capabilities help dealership marketers achieve higher ‘return on ad spend’, better conversions and stronger campaign performance.”

Adthena works with 250+ clients across a wide range of industries. Automotive clients include Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo, and more. 

For more information about Local View, visit: https://www.adthena.com/technology/local-view/.