The 2011 Ad Banner Selling Guide

Purpose

To help you listen to and understand your dealer’s advertising needs (whether dealers fully know them or not)

To help you help your dealers stake their unfair share of the market both now and in the future

To help you help your dealers understand how banner advertising on CarSoup helps our dealers meet those advertising needs

To help give you a better understanding of what types of campaigns we have available for your dealers

To help you work with your dealers to determine how their campaigns are doing on the site and how you can monitor their campaigns internally

Ad Banner BasicsAutomotive Internet = Automotive Super Highway

Where all drivers on the CarSoup Automotive Super Highway are potential car buyers.

CarSoup is a publisher. We generate revenue by delivering relevant messages to drivers on our automotive super highway.

Banner ads are a cost-effective way of enabling dealers and other advertisers to deliver their message only to consumers on the Automotive Highway.

The ultimate destination is getting users to the advertiser’s website. Don’t let your dealers waste gas by taking expensive “shortcuts” off of the highway (i.e. spending lots of money on non-targeted campaigns). Shortcuts have their place in getting an advertiser to their destination, but their most efficient route is driving direct down the main highway.

Ad Banner BasicsAd Banners on CarSoup

Dealer Spotlight

Medium Rectangle(Rec1 or Rec2), 300x250

Pop-Under

Targeted Ad Banner, Summary 1 or 2, Full Banner, 468x60

Leaderboard, 728x90

Wrap

Ad Banner BasicsWho Buys Ad Banners on CarSoup?

Dealers currently listing their vehicles on our site who want to increase their exposure and brand their dealership to a purely automotive audience

Automotive third parties seeking direct leads for sales to visitors on the site, e.g. auto insurance or finance companies

General advertisers who just want to have their products and services displayed to the millions of eyeballs on our site

Why Brand Online?The Internet is Dominant in the Automotive Purchase Funnel

cy2010 TOTAL 6mo 5mo 4mo 3mo 2 mo 1 Mo 2 Wk

Television Ad 12.92% 12.91% 13.55% 9.27% 6.01% 5.71% 3.19%

Internet 17.80% 20.89% 24.18% 26.14% 24.37% 21.34% 23.18%

Consumer Mag Ads 9.81% 10.43% 11.94% 12.78% 9.06% 7.15% 5.38%

Friend/Relative 11.82% 9.24% 6.83% 5.51% 9.37% 11.45% 6.13%

Business Associate 8.21% 6.19% 3.68% 3.41% 3.86% 3.96% 5.62%

Dealer Brochure 0.52% 0.47% 0.58% 0.82% 0.79% 0.72% 0.63%

Consumer Reports 7.32% 7.47% 9.21% 11.56% 11.83% 12.09% 9.83%

Local Newspaper 3.52% 4.86% 6.02% 7.13% 8.65% 11.35% 17.19%

Auto Article (any source) 3.25% 3.87% 4.66% 5.24% 4.83% 6.73% 7.24%

Radio Ad 1.32% 1.35% 1.07% 1.03% 1.74% 2.39% 1.46%

Awareness Consideration Performance Action Loyalty BUYERS

The Internet is now the dominant medium used to in the consumer’s automotive decision making process. At every level of the purchase funnel, internet is out-performing other media options by 2 to 3x percent.

Source: CNW Marketing Research 2010

Advertising Online Effectively

*”A Click is Not a Click is Not a Click” IQ Advisor: May 31, 2011 via Adotas.com

In this study, banner advertising was proven to be more efficient than search by providing almost 11x more conversions. Although most viewers of display never clicked on a banner, the message was obviously effective enough for the viewer to remember it when it came time to purchase.

These results are not all that surprising. Just as it would be unreasonable to assume that someone would walk right into their neighborhood store to buy a six-pack immediately after seeing a Budweiser ad on TV, it should be just as unreasonable to assume that online users are going to disrupt their current browsing experience by clicking on an ad to check out what you have to sell (even if it is relevant to their lives in general).

The goal is to get your brand in front of the potential client enough times prior to them making their purchase decision to think about your brand when they go to purchase. These studies are proving that banner advertising is the most effective and efficient way to do that.

Banners are the Most Effective in Generating Brand Awareness

Why CarSoup? CarSoup and other third-party auto sites are THE way consumers are researching their vehicle purchases today. Seventy-one percent of consumers use the Internet while shopping for new and used vehicles. According to a study of recent car buyers, “Half of new vehicle buyers and 58 percent of used vehicle buyers said that the Internet was the most influential source in their purchase decision”. Of the time online, consumers are spending more time on third-party sites than on manufacturer and dealer sites.*

CarSoup reaches more of these car shoppers than any other Automotive site in our core marketplace, reaching 3x the consumers than our closest competitors.*

Dealers are paying A LOT more to advertise on TV, newspapers, direct mail, etc. Only 3-5% of consumers are in-market for a vehicle at any given time. That means that 95-97% of the impressions delivered through traditional mediums are wasted on consumers who are tuning out your message because it doesn’t relate to them. CarSoup users have actively chosen to come to CarSoup to research a vehicle.

*&Source: Polk View February 2011*Mpls/St. Paul Media Audit Press Release (Sept.-Nov. 2009)

Why Buy Banners on CarSoup? We know that vehicle listings are extremely effective for those consumers who are within 2 weeks of purchasing their vehicle. However, consumers are searching up to 6 months prior to making their final purchase. Our goal for our dealers is that they achieve TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness), meaning that when the consumer is ready to pull the trigger, they’ll think of your dealership first because they’ve seen their name throughout their purchase process. TOMA is achieved with the right frequency and placement. Our banner placements purchased in addition to vehicle listings are specifically designed to achieve that optimal frequency and placement.

Buying banners on CarSoup is like buying billboards on the Automotive Super Highway.

Compare the price a dealer will be paying to run in their local newspaper or other traditional medium. They are most likely paying a lot more for a lower frequency. And again, 95-97% of the newspaper impressions that they reach will be wasted.

Lead Gen vs. Branding Lead Generation is about the immediate gratification. Branding is about developing consumer awareness to enable lead generation campaigns to maximize results.

Lead Gen and Branding are both needed to get consumers to the holy grail: into your dealership to purchase a vehicle.

In our new marketplace, branding campaigns will be necessary to stay in the game. If a dealer doesn’t see the value in branding, move on. You act as a knowledgeable consultant to your dealer clients, but it’s not your job to try to convince a dealer otherwise if he doesn’t see the value of branding his/her dealership to shoppers who have actively shown interest in vehicle shopping for one reason or another. There are plenty of dealers that will see the value, and those who don’t will need to come around eventually to thrive. Remember, it’s all about getting your dealer their unfair share of the marketplace. Banners are the ONLY way to do that on CarSoup.

What Can You Sell?

Targeted Ad Banner

Dealer Spotlight

Run of Site Rec2

Pop-Under

Targeted Ad Banner Promotes your dealership right in the middle of a search return

The ONLY way to call attention to your dealership on these specific make pages

Limited availability – only a select number of dealers can purchase this position by make. Once it’s sold, it runs until cancelled, so you want to stake your claim before it becomes unavailable.

Make sure to tell consumers searching for the makes you carry why they should buy from you rather than the competitor before it’s too late and they are already looking at the details of a vehicle on your competitor’s lot.

Dealer Spotlight The ONLY way for a dealer to buy Home Page and Landing Page placement

Call attention to the attributes of your dealership before a consumer starts their search

Running on Landing Pages has proven to increase the number of searches for a particular make or model. Make sure to get your message out in front of the consumer so they consider your brand before it’s too late.

Run of Site Rec2 This is your second chance to get your message in front of a consumer before they make their purchase

Your message will appear on a percentage of all of the search return pages on the site. The percentage was set by determining the optimal reach and frequency by market.

Pop-Under Extremely limited opportunity

Reaches all users that come to CarSoup – the only way to do that

Exclusivity – only one dealer served

In addition to the branding opportunity of this unit, it’s unique in that it also produces unprecedented direct results.

Combo Packages

Combo Packages The goal of these packages is to give you an easy advertising opportunity to offer your dealers when they’re looking to run a short-term special promotion

Your dealer should always want to be promoting the benefits of their dealership to the dealership down the street. For that, we have the on-going Targeted Ad Banner.

To Note: The time period of these campaigns is 2 weeks in the Twin Cities; One Month in other direct markets. This time frame was determined to be the optimal amount of time needed to make sure your dealer gets their message in front of enough eyeballs to make their campaign matter while making sure that we kept campaign costs at an effective level.

Dealers often say they want to advertise for the last 2 weeks of a month, but that’s not how CarSoup users shop. Consumers don’t care what part of the month it is; they search for vehicles when they are interested in them.

Tue 3

/1

Thu 3/3

Sat 3

/5

Mon 3/7

Wed

3/9

Fri 3/1

1

Sun 3/1

3

Tue 3

/15

Thu 3/1

7

Sat 3

/19

Mon 3/21

Wed

3/23

Fri 3/2

5

Sun 3/2

7

Tue 3

/29

Thu 3/3

10

200000400000600000

Pageviews

Pageviews

Measuring PerformanceBasic Campaign Measures

IMPRESSION: Sometimes called a view or an ad view, is a term that refers to the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page.

CLICK-THRU: The number of times a particular ad was clicked on by a user.

CLICK-THRU RATE (CTR): The number of times an ad was clicked, divided by the number of impressions delivered. You will need to take that number and multiply by 100 to get this number expressed as a percentage.

For example, if you ran a campaign that served 100,000 impressions and 100 people clicked on that ad, you would have a click-thru rate of 0.10.

100/100,000 = 0.001 * 100 = 0.10

Measuring Performance

468x60 0.08%

Rec2 ROS 0.07%

Dealer Spotlight 0.08%

Pop-Under 3.10%

National Advertising through Jumpstart 0.06%

Gold Standard to Shoot For: 0.08%-0.12%

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CTR Averages on CarSoup (April 2011)

Measuring Performance

Summary We have a ton of opportunity for banner sales.

If a dealer can support the notion that they need to brand themselves to succeed, they should be able to see why placing an advertising spend on CarSoup in addition to their listings is necessary for their overall goal.

There is loads of information out there to help support this. If you think of something you could use, ask for it.

And Remember…Use your resources! All of the information provided in this presentation is bouncing around in our heads PLUS so much more! We like talking about this stuff and are more than happy to do whatever we can to help you succeed. That’s our only dream and desire in life – to help you succeed!

In case you forget, refer to this presentation for visual cues as to who your experts are.

Questions/Comments?