Background

Chery had re-entered the Australian market after a long absence in March 2023. They harboured high ambitions, with a desire to grow rapidly and hit aggressive sales targets.

whiteGREY was engaged in June to help them meet this ambition. Prior to whiteGREY taking over, the previous agency was generating c.300 leads per month (30% test drive requests, 70% brochure orders) at a CPL of >$400. We needed to overhaul the performance media strategy and deliver increased results quickly.

Tension

How do we convince potential car buyers to test drive a Chery vehicle, when it has a dubious safety record and there are hundreds of other options?

Approach

whiteGREY developed a full funnel performance marketing across paid search, Meta, and Google Display Network, along with a test & learn stream that included other channels.

We developed a new performance media strategy, which optimised budget allocation by funnel stage and channel mix to improve performance and reduce wastage. We overhauled the audience targeting approach, and added a series of remarketing audiences, which we used to nurture prospects through the funnel. We optimised the key landing pages and key action elements on the Chery website, and we removed brochure orders from the leads count, turning them instead into part of the consideration stage.

To support the new strategy, we built a full suite of performance media assets, including 60-100 assets per model to deliver the messaging required at each stage of the funnel, and allow for optimisation.

When the campaign went live, we monitored and optimised daily, while providing weekly and monthly reporting. We used a combination of Google Ads, Google Analytics, Meta Analytics and Hotjar to measure and optimise the campaign, and also undertook analysis using Chery’s CRM system to improve the quality of leads.

As Chery launched more models, we refined the audience targeting for each model to drive leads across the range.

Impact

After implementing our new strategy and campaign implementation at the end of June, whiteGREY delivered 3,000 leads in July, and 10x increase on previous performance for the same media budget.

We continued to deliver at this increased, with over 23,000 test drive requests generated in 8 months, at a CPL significantly under industry benchmarks. During this time we also launched 3 new models, introduced new audiences and channels, and continually optimised performance.

These leads resulted in Chery gaining 4.5% market share in the small SUV category. They sold an average of c.700 cars/month, with a conversion rate of c.25% from online test drive lead to sale, showing the quality of leads delivered for a new brand to market.