Telecommunication has had a significant social, cultural and economic impact on modern society. In 2008, the UK telecommunication industry's revenue was worth £39.5billion* which signifies its prominence within the consumer sector.

Through our research into the Auto Trader audience, we can see that when choosing a telecoms provider, over a million of our users claim that advertising online has influenced their decision making, signifying the power on online marketing to a modern audience.

Unsurprisingly over 80% of our users say that price is important to them when it comes to what telecoms provider they use. However, over a third of users state that they are either likely or very likely to switch over to a new provider if new offers appeared. This is reinforced by the fact that 2.2million Auto Trader users are looking to change their internet provider in the next year showing strong possibility to target prospective clients^**.

Increasingly consumers are looking to bundle their telecoms with 43% of users choosing to subscribe to bundled packages showing opportunities to target consumers with offers and deals**.

For more information on this survey or any others that have been conducted by Auto Trader, please contact your rep.

Sources
^* ‘The Communications and the Market’ Ofcom Aug 08
^** Auto Trader Telecoms survey August 09

This advertising format has already proved successful on autotrader.co.uk through a variety of campaigns for both manufactures and lifestyle brands alike. In July, Google booked a homepage takeover with Auto Trader to tie in with their latest Chrome Browser launch campaign. This campaign reached the 16,000 clicks mark, with a click-through rate of nearly 3%!

In April, a Fiat homepage takeover campaign promoting the manufacturer’s Scrappage scheme received a tremendous response, with visitors peaking from autotrader.co.uk at 25% from the 25th – 27th April 2009, overtaking Google visitors, which attracted 23% during the same period, What Car visitors (less than 2%) and MSN visitors (less than 1%).

With the launch of the new Auto Trader 2.0 website in September, the home page takeovers are set to play a huge role in branding and DR campaigns by combining the page background, MPU and an improved, larger leader board, taking the already successful takeovers to a next level.

Sources: Auto Trader internal stats 2009

To find out more about how your advertising can benefit from the homepage takeover, please contact your rep today.

Auto Trader supplements contain news, reviews and buying advice that increases readers’ dwell time and help adverts achieve stand out. They are in a traditional editorial format opposite relevant content that will attract the readers’ eyes and achieve better standout.

With over 97%* of Auto Trader readers reading our supplements every month, and more than half keeping them for products and services they may be interested in, your adverts will have an even longer life span and increase awareness of your brand. The fact that Auto Trader has a loyal audience with 76%* of all readers agreeing that they will continue to use the magazine and 17%* of these will use it more in the future shows that your advertising will continue to reach a dedicated and targeted audience.

Our supplement programme topics have been planned to allow you to specifically target an audience with a particular interest in your products or services allowing for stronger cut through and more response for your advertising. This is reinforced by the fact that over 76%* of all Auto Trader readers have been prompted to buy a product they have seen advertised or reviewed in a supplement.

The programme for the next year is as follows:
September 09 – Family Cars
October 09 – Family Drive
November 09 – The Business
December 09 – Christmas Guide
January 10 – Used Guide
February 10 – New Car
March 10 – The Business

To find out more about Auto Trader supplement advertising and how it can suit you, contact your rep today.

* Auto Trader Supplement programme December 08

According to recent research, there are now 47 million mobile phone users in the UK, with mobile internet users representing a third of the total internet populationˆ.

At 93%, mobile is the most penetrated form of telecom in the UK household above internet at 67% and broadband at 58%*.
This market demand is mirrored by Auto Trader Mobile. In the year since its launch, we have seen growth of over 1,000% from 40,000 page impressions in July 08 to over 7.8 million in July 09**. 

At Auto Trader, we are continually striving to enhance our users' experience by providing new and innovative products that make their interaction with our brand as easy as possible. In July we launched our revamped mobile site by giving it a whole new look and feel in terms of content and functionality. Search features are now available to include daily auto news feeds, editorial features and car reviews all of which include pictorial content. The core search function has also been improved with the option for users to save specific car searches and add personal comments, and search prompts have been enhanced to help users to efficiently narrow their search on the move.
In only a month since its launch, searches have increased by 1,403% and visits have risen by 1,369% which further emphasises the growth of our mobile platform as a way of reaching audiences***.

With over 65%† of our users being smart phone users, we have created 3 different types of Auto Trader Mobile website to provide the best experience for all users – an iPhone site, an XHTML site and a basic text site.

Jason Biffin, E Commerce Director said: “Mobile is one of the most exciting digital developments in the motoring industry and we are embracing this revolution for the benefit of both consumers and advertisers. We’ve spent the last 12 months researching and learning to create a more advanced platform that connects advertisers to our responsive audience. 

The mobile site will work in unison with both autotrader.co.uk and Auto Trader magazine making it easier for consumers to access us at any time. With the support of a heavy-weight marketing campaign, we’re working to deliver a mobile offering that addresses the core needs of both advertisers and motorists.”

Why not try Auto Trader Mobile for yourself? Contact your rep today to find out how you can access it and the different ways your client can benefit through mobile advertising.

Sources:
ˆComScore M:Metrics, April 2009
* Ofcom August 08
** Auto Trader internal data July 2009
*** Auto Trader internal data August 2009
† AT Mobile survey August 09

The Scrappage incentive scheme has boosted vehicle registrations for the third successive month in August. According to recent figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a total of 16,848 new cars were registered in August which account for 25.1% of all new car registrations for that month. In addition to this, as of August a total of 195,009 new car orders have been taken since the scheme began, indicating that consumers are taking advantage of the scheme and are continuing to buy despite the current economic climate.

The Scrappage scheme has boosted sales of smaller cars, such as the mini segment and supermini, which showed surging growth, up 252.8% and 16.9% respectively in August. Sports and dual purpose segments also recorded strong growth, up 25.8% and 10.1% respectively, in the month.
Top 10 Best Sellers Year to date
1 Fiesta  69,948
2 Focus  60,241
3 Corsa  51,576
4 Astra  36,052
5 Golf  31,824
6 207  27,461
7 Insignia 23,998
8 3 Series 21,981
9 MINI  21,156
10 A3  21,146
SMMT August 09

Original timescales for the Scrappage incentive was due to be available to the first 300,000 eligible buyers or until the 31st of March - whichever was sooner. With the August figures showing that we are over two thirds into the way through, it’s looking increasingly likely that this will run out way before the March deadline.

However, despite growth, the 2009 August market was still over 10,500 units below the 2007 outturn and 15.0% off the 78,800 market averaged between 1999 and 2008.

As well as our Scrappage hub on autotrader.co.uk, there are considerable advertising opportunities in the magazine where manufacturers can display bespoke advertorials around the double page spreads that are included in each issue detailing the new offering.

To find out more about how your clients can benefit from advertising through the Scrappage pages, contact your rep today.

You may have seen our ‘World of Cars Made Easy’ adverts back on your TV screens over the last month, and following on from the success of this campaign, we are continuing to raise awareness of our brand by launching a radio campaign planned to run between the 2nd and the 27th September (Wednesday to Sunday only).
The schedule means that the 30 second advert should be hitting 20,987,000 individual adults over the period with at least 41% of adults in the UK hearing the advert at least once.

With over 35% of adults hearing the advert an average of 10.8 times over the campaign period, the total impacts (ie the total amount of times this is heard) will average at a whopping 355,466,000 times. All this penetration helps us to remain at the forefront of consumers minds and reaffirm us as the one stop shop for all things motoring.

Source Mediacom internal stats July 09

As part of its commitment as being ‘The World of Cars Made Easy’, Auto Trader now communicates to its audience through the magazine, online and more recently through its revamped mobile site. All these channels compliment each other due to the fact that buyers will use the different media for different things. This ensures that your advertising will reach a wider and more dedicated audience than any of our competitors.

Top 10 reasons to use multimedia offering
1. Auto Trader magazine is the UK’s number 1 motoring magazine as well as being ranked in the top 10 most read magazines in the UK* 
2. Autotrader.co.uk is the UK’s number 1 automotive website - customers spend more time online per visit than any other websites other than Microsoft Sites**
3. Not all car buyers know what they want - the magazine lets you browse without any preconceptions.
4. The magazine is seen to be local, as not all car buyers want to search nationally
5. Auto Trader has twice the amount of Unique Users than the nearest competitor**
6. 40% of all magazine readers also visit autotrader.co.uk within their buying process†
7. Our audience use different media for different things eg research, finance, insurance
8. Thursday sees the highest click through on the website (this being the magazines first day of sale)
9. Unique media opportunity – maximise your reach and hit 10million car buyers
10. No other competitor can offer this level of reach

Sources:
*NRS Jan – Dec 08
**comscore May 2009
†TGI Sept 07

As part of our promise to be the World of Cars Made Easy, we offer services such as insurance, finance and loans. In our insurance channel alone, we provide over 75,000 quotes a month emphasising the high level of response our insurance centre generates.

Through such interaction with our car buying customers, we have built up an extensive database with over 2 million records containing rich and granular data.  This database of quality consumer leads have agreed to be contacted by advertisers and can be filtered down by renewal date, geographical area and even the make and model of vehicle they drive meaning that your advertisers can plan successful and targeted marketing campaigns.

To get hold of some top quality leads to help you create some of the most targeted advertising campaigns, contact your Auto Trader rep today.

Auto Trader has partnered with InSkin, the new rich media ad format designed for online video, to provide our advertisers with a high impact, interactive new creative format within Auto Trader’s editorial section. The new format will wrap around the image slideshows which accompany Auto Trader’s wealth of editorial content which has seen a 7.4%* year on year increase in monthly users.

InSkin allows users to click on the creative frame of the slideshow which displays new car launches and spy shots, effectively launching a microsite within the same screen. The microsite allows a high level of interaction with opportunities for advertisers to show video content, book drive test drives and request brochures.
Contact your rep to find out more about how this new tool can benefit you.

Advertising with Auto Trader New Car means you can achieve an extensive reach to over 79%* of the UK internet population.

Auto Trader has long been known as the definitive market place for used cars, but we’re much more than that. More and more consumers are visiting us when they are in the new car market, not only to search the 3,000* new cars we list on the site, but to read our reviews and find buying advice.

As the largest motoring site in the UK, with over 10.3** million unique users, autotrader.co.uk offers a more dedicated audience than anywhere else. In June alone there were 700,000* searches on the new car site which emphasises that despite the current climate, consumers are still looking to purchase new vehicles. That teamed with our growing portfolio of content partners extends that reach to over 79%* of the UK internet population through the additional exposure on the partner sites.

To find out more about making the most of advertising on the new car section of the website, contact your Auto Trader rep.

* Internal analytics June 09
**Hitbox Jan 09