Autovia launches first-party data strategy connecting audiences with car makers, dealers and other automotive service providers

RADICAL IMPROVEMENTS to the way Britain’s biggest motoring content and commerce hub Autovia connects its audiences with car makers, dealers and other industry professionals have been announced.

A ‘win-win’ strategy has been designed to improve the reader and viewer experience on some of Britain’s leading motoring websites and inspire stronger confidence for Autovia’s commercial partners in the quality of leads provided by platforms such as Auto Express, DrivingElectric.com and the online car supermarket BuyaCar.co.uk.

Autovia has partnered with industry-leading customer data platform (CDP) BlueConic to not only build and unify its first-party data, but also leverage that data to connect its consented audiences with car makers and retailers in more sophisticated and relevant ways than historically used by online content publishers.

Traditional online advertising and data collection methods based on third-party cookies have earned a reputation as intrusive and often irrelevant in an increasingly time-poor and privacy-concerned consumer world.

Autovia aims to become a best-of-breed model for respecting consumer privacy by focusing on readers and viewers who actively consent to be connected with product and service providers when they are looking to buy vehicles or other products and services.

“Our readers and viewers are among the most strongly engaged in the automotive publishing world and they deserve the least distracting and most relevant information when they are in the market for new products,” said John Webb, Managing Director, Automotive Data, Demand Generation & Commercial Operations.

“At the same time our partners rely on us to provide the most reliable new business leads in the industry and our strategy is to bring both sides together in the most harmonious and mutually beneficial way,” he added.

Working with BlueConic, Autovia is able to capture individual-level consent, along with other audience attributes from all its online platforms and social media sites, and store that data in persistent, person-level profiles. These profiles build progressively in real time and detail consenting users’ interests, preferences, and other relevant information like potential lifetime value, which can be calculated directly within the platform.

Household names such as Heineken, T-Mobile and ING already use BlueConic to capture demographics, behaviours, transactions and other key attributes about their customers and prospects in a privacy-centric way.

The strategy places Autovia ahead of the curve on first-party customer data – an increasingly vital and strategic business asset – as Google moves to corner the market on audience information by ending its support for third-party cookies, which most businesses rely on to collect on-site and cross-channel data about consumers to understand their interests.

Autovia’s consented, accurate, and always up-to-date audience profiles will not only help it better target relevant advertising on behalf of its partners and create the highest value consenting leads, but also improve the audience experience across all Autovia titles.