Success stories

Challenge: Finding new ways to engage and convert their audience

Volkswagen's messaging strategy solves the challenges automotive marketers face with digital buyer journeys and lead generation.

Engaging vehicle buyers now starts online, not in the car dealerships. 

But fierce competition for attention, increasing ad fatigue and privacy updates challenge marketers to find new ways to engage and convert their audience.

The solution: a 1:1 conversational journey across the customer lifecycle

So how did messaging help auto marketers at Volkswagen connect with their audiences and accelerate purchase decisions?  

• Reduce long sales cycle: simplify digital touchpoints into one easy to track conversation to accelerate the purchase journey
• Customer signals: collect zero party data signals to improve lead quality, build segments, and reduce your cost per action
• Buyer education: engage in a two way conversation that adds value and educates buyers about new models.
• On-going engagement: book more test drives by converting users to message channel with higher reachability than phone or email
• Lead activation: grow new seed audiences and active existing lead lists on their preferred channel
  
  

Here’s how Volkswagen transformed their customer journey from start to finish – from sending audiences into Messenger from Facebook ads, engaging, qualifying and converting them, and then re-engaging them to increase customer lifetime value.

How it works: zero-party data capture via Facebook Messenger

Volkswagen captures zero party data in a privacy-safe channel to improve customer profiles, segment audiences, and reach them directly 

Bringing the physical car dealership experience online via messaging helps Volkswagen capture zero party data from one to one Messenger chat conversations. They use this to personalize the buyer journey in real-time and send a private offer.

Below is an example of how Volkswagen structures the data from chat to build audience segments and re-engage customers one to one with push notifications from Messenger.

Impact: high engagement and positive customer feedback

Facebook Messenger enabled Volkswagen to overcome the challenges automotive companies often face. Using an automated Messenger bot, the company grew their online audience and simplified digital touchpoints into one easy to track conversation.

This allowed Volkswagen to capture valuable customer insights and send personalized offers based on customer needs. 

High value items, such as vehicles, require customer education. Volkswagen’s Messenger bot provides prospects with assistive shopping experiences. This enabled the company to accelerate consideration phases and purchase decisions. 

Volkswagen also managed to convert their customers online, by encouraging them to easily book a test drive and find their dream car via Messenger. 

Using the Messenger bot, Volkswagen achieved:

1. 68% of people who started the configurator experience completed it
2. 3x higher CTR vs. website configurator
3. 6.2-points increase in people agreeing that “Volkswagen offers helpful information on choosing an ID.3”*
   
   

*percentage points, results from a Meta brand lift study