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Oftentimes the best ideas start on the back of a napkin.
I was enjoying a business lunch in 2020 - pre-pandemic, of
course - with longtime friend and business partner Bob Lanham from
Facebook. Since watching Facebook's simplification of campaign
management for small businesses dramatically propel the company, I
asked Bob one final question before wrapping up our meal - how can
we make it incredibly easy for auto dealers to access Polk
Audiences on Facebook?
That one question led to about two additional hours together,
stealing the wait staff's pens and scribbling on napkins. And that
one conversation led to significant brainstorming with our team
here at IHS Markit to decipher the challenge of simplifying the
complexity of audience buying for dealer advertisers.
The brainstorming yielded what we are incredibly excited to
launch on behalf of the Polk Automotive Solutions team at IHS
Markit - www.polkdealermarketing.com,
a self-serve e-commerce platform for dealers to quickly and easily
access Polk Audiences and reach them via Facebook ad campaigns.
It's available now, and it's quite user-friendly.
Eliminate Waste … Simplify Complexity … Sell More
Cars
Why is this launch important? Prospecting new customers is
always a key priority for dealers. And the ability to reach the
most relevant consumers with the greatest likelihood to respond to
a dealer's ad is critical in a hotly competitive auto market. PolkDealerMarketing.com
delivers on this need.
This launch is also important because ad tech is complicated. A
small business owner doesn't have the time or the resources to
dedicate to sophisticated platform integrations - so instead, they
turn to the basics for new customer acquisition - search engine
marketing, local television, or geographic Facebook ads. While
these are good options, they are either too limiting (SEM is only
geared toward specific keyword searches) or too broad (90%+ of
Facebook geo-targeting or local TV will be spent on consumers who
are not in the market for a car). Facebook advertising coupled with
Polk Audiences eliminates significant wasted ad dollars and drives
a true return on investment while reaching out to new potential
customers.
At IHS Markit, we offer a wealth of best-in-class consumer
attributes on car buying and consumer behavior. We have been
delivering digital audiences to Auto OEM marketers for more than a
decade. But due to the challenges of ad-tech, it's been difficult
to break through to the tens of thousands of auto dealers who spend
money on marketing. Until now, of course.
Our goal is to be clear and direct - with transparent pricing, a
variety of audiences to choose from through a seamless interface. A
dealer can reach distinct audiences of real people looking
to purchase a vehicle right in their region. We are democratizing
people-based advertising and delivering it directly to a dealer's
fingertips.
We have chosen Facebook as the first media platform to deploy
our audiences. There are a few simple reasons for that choice -
Reach - Facebook represents the largest
collection of consumers of any media platform available.
Performance - Facebook delivers a positive
user experience that yields higher ad effectiveness thanks to a
variety of sight, sound, motion, and inventory options.
Familiarity - Facebook is a platform many
dealers are already utilizing.
We are so confident in this solution that we are providing a
sales match report free of charge … every month … for every single
audience you buy from us via the PolkDealerMarketing.com
program. This is not a catch. We all win when we help you sell more
cars. So, we'll prove it.
The bottom line is that we know good audiences work for
digital advertising. We know unequivocally that our audiences
perform better than any others in the industry to the most
important measure - vehicle sales. We know this with zero
dependence on clickstream data and a complete view into 30+ years
of vehicle buying history that helps us understand clusters of real
consumers and their current and future attributes and buying
actions.
Thinking Different
Every pundit said that the pandemic would drive new ways of
thinking and new ways of doing business. For us, it was not the
pandemic that influenced the creation of PolkDealerMarketing.com
… it was simply the right time to give dealers an "easy button" for
audiences, and IHS Markit is the right company to deliver it with
our vast trove of automotive data and 100 years of industry
expertise … the pandemic ultimately offered our teams the
opportunity to pursue something interesting and exciting during a
difficult time in the world.
We couldn't be more excited about this launch. This is just the
beginning - there is much more to come. We will be developing new
audiences focused on areas like vehicle service and
electrification, and partnerships with new media platforms,
providing access to more channels for dealers to reach Polk
Audiences.
We will exert our energy toward developing deep partnerships
with dealers, dealer groups, and their trusted partners to deliver
these audiences directly—no more third-, fourth-, or
fifth-party access to data that comes in a mysterious black box.
Dealers will purchase the audiences directly from IHS Markit, with
unlimited volume, at the same price everyone else is paying.
There isn't an offering in the industry that's as turn-key for
reaching in-market audiences on Facebook.
The support of our leadership here at IHS Markit and development
efforts from so many members of our team helped turn a
back-of-the-napkin idea into what promises to be an industry
game-changer.
The launch of the platform is step one, but the possibilities
are limitless. We look forward to listening intently to each of our
customers and partners to continue bringing you the best possible
audience and measurement solution for auto dealers. Let us know how
we can help.