Annual awards names Audi, Vauxhall and SEAT among top performers

Extension of Sophus3 and What Car? Connect project to decipher buyers’ virtual journey

March 21, 2014: Sophus3 and What Car? Connect have jointly hosted the UK Top Digital Performer 2014, an event celebrating the car manufacturers with the most effective digital performance over the last 12 months.

The online consumer behaviour specialist, Sophus3, marks the beginning of the ‘year of online’ by naming winners across five categories at the event in London.

Audi scooped the ‘Audience Reach’ award for its ability to connect with more potential buyers than any other manufacturer.

The four other categories spanning the digital landscape included: ‘Audience Growth’, ‘Best Visit Quality in Lower Funnel’, ‘Best Digital Test Drive Lead Response’ and ‘Largest Impact of an Online Campaign’.

Vauxhall succeeded in winning the ‘Audience Growth’ award, while SEAT triumphed in the ‘Best Visit Quality in Lower Funnel’ category.

What Car? and Sophus3 recently partnered to create a pioneering lead generation tool, which decodes online consumer behaviour. The newly-enhanced What Car? Connect service, a first for the automotive industry, enables the pair to reconstruct a consumer’s online car-buying journey in real time, pinpointing users who are likely to be active in the purchase process.

Mitsubishi was adjudged to be most effective when it comes to test drives, taking the ‘Best Digital Test Drive Lead Response’ honour. The success of Honda’s ‘hands campaign’ meant it prevailed over BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the ‘Largest Impact of an Online Campaign’ category.

Graham Ede, Director of What Car? Connect, said: “The rise of the importance of digital reach is no surprise – the ability to connect and then take advantage of engagement with potential buyers will go a long way towards determining a manufacturer’s success in the coming years.

“By hosting the first edition of the awards, we again wanted to highlight those who we think are performing most outstandingly in the digital space.”

What Car? Connect was set up as a lead generation service in November 2012. Drawing on rich data collected from the 2.4 million unique monthly visitors to whatcar.com, the service is supported by a call centre capable of 50,000 calls a month to users in the market for a new car.