Toyota Turns Up the Heat in Online Battle With Chevrolet

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/

posted on: March 13, 2008 | about stocks: F / GM / NSANY / TM / VOLVY.PK    

Toyota (TM) is closing on General Motors’ (GM) Chevrolet as the top brand in the U.S. automotive market. Can Toyota’s web site be contributing to their success? Based on Compete’s Website Engagement Study, the answer is yes.

A look at traffic shows that Toyota was consistently ahead of Chevrolet in the number of people visiting its site until the October Malibu launch. The heavy marketing push for Malibu drove traffic increases of 30% and more. Chevrolet.com exceeded 2 million unique visitors for three months in a row, until January, when Toyota reversed a downtrend and again surpassed Chevy.

What does this mean?
People visiting the Chevrolet site are 37% less likely to visit one of the four key online shopping tools than the Toyota site visitors.

Why is that important?
Compete data shows that those who purchased a vehicle were twice as likely to use a shopping tool on an OEM site.

What is causing the difference?
In a complex industry like automobiles there are a myriad of forces at work that contribute to the online behavior of consumers researching and shopping for cars. Some of the suspects are: the source of traffic, overall marketing efforts, website construction and navigation, consumer targeting, and of course the brand and product preferences of consumers.

Advertisement