"The first car sold", how and why to conduct Microsoft Advertising activities
- Bluerank & Dom Volvo
At first we don't see the benefit of going in and paying for a platform that is small or smaller than the existing one. The question is, is lack of scale always a disadvantage? In our view, no, and the proof is in the statistics seen in the Microsft Advertising House of Volvo account.
About a company
House of Volvo is one of the largest dealers of the Volvo brand in Poland. It sells new cars, but also used cars (under the Volvo Selekt program). Its offer includes a rich portfolio of car accessories. In addition to selling cars, House of Volvo boasts a technical center with modern diagnostic equipment. Get to know the House of Volvo HERE.
The brand has been working with Bluerank since 2022. We have been running Google Ads paid campaigns and Microsoft Advertising campaigns since March 2023.
Challenges
In fact, it's hard to pinpoint challenges in this project. Global statistics still show that the share of Microsoft's Bing search engine compared to Google is very small. For this reason, using this advertising space is not a priority for advertisers. However, our client showed great openness and agreed to test this channel without hesitation.
Microsoft Advertising is another important advertising space. Another point of contact with the user that we should not bypass. Especially since the entry threshold and the risks involved are very small in this case. The small scale of the MSA platform sometimes even makes it impossible to invest a larger budget in this channel. Thus, even in the case of unsatisfactory results, we will not see a significant increase in marketing costs.
Strategy and implementation
The decision to launch a campaign in Microsoft Advertising was supported by data from Google Analytics. We noticed that organic traffic from Microsoft's Bing search engine began to appear, and what's more, it was very qualitative.
The campaigns were launched in the second half of March. The budget we allocated for these activities was just 4% of the media budget for Google Ads. The goal of the activities was to reach users at every stage of the sales funnel. The MSA is a platform that has specified users. Traffic from this platform is mostly clicks from desktops.
The campaigns were launched based on historical results from Google Ads. We decided to include the best and most business-critical campaigns, overwhelmingly search network campaigns promoting Volvo's major car models. We also launched ads in the ad network targeted mainly by remarketing. MSA is not only a new search engine, but also the ability to show ads on a completely different ad network.
In addition, we also used a brand new type of "Automotive Ads." This is an advertising format dedicated to the automotive industry. The launch of these campaigns involved the creation of an advanced product feed customized under the Microsoft Advertising platform. The Feed was created using our proprietary Feeds Automated tool, which allows you to personalize the product file according to your campaign and partner requirements. The Feed was armed with the most relevant information about the technical data of the cars, as well as their availability and price. The campaign is definitely innovative because it combines product ads displayed in the search engine along with dynamic ads in the ad network.
Results
Thanks to the strategy used and the experience of the Google Ads campaign, the results from the Microsoft Advertising campaign were very promising from the beginning. Just after the first month of running activities:
- The cost of acquiring a lead was almost 13% lower compared to the legacy platform,
- Globally (for the 3 months of the campaign), lead costs were found to be 37% lower,
- Conversion rate, on the other hand, higher by 38%.
Back in May, Daniel Treszczotko (Head of marketing at House of Volvo) wrote on his LinkedIn profile, "At Dom Volvo we have just sold first car using Microsoft Advertising search ads." This is definitive proof that Microsoft Advertising campaigns are responsible for conversion and quality traffic, even if the scale of activities remains considerably smaller.
"We received a proposal to test advertising activities in the Microsoft environment and to be honest - we didn't think about it for a long time, especially not seeing the ads of the competition there. We are satisfied with the results and, in addition to search advertising, we also plan to expand our display activities."
Daniel Treszczotko, Head of Marketing, House of Volvo