Marketing tips for electric cars and alternative-fuel auto advertisers
From microchips to lithium batteries, technology is revolutionizing the future of ground transportation. Electric vehicles (EVs) have now become top of mind for many US households. About 40% of new vehicle shoppers are considering purchasing an EV within the next 12 months.1 With the rise of pioneers and challenger automakers, incumbent automakers are off to the races to have fully electric cars available. As more automakers enter the EV space, competition in the industry has grown to new heights. Here are some ways automakers can stand out with their EV marketing.
1. Discover audiences for your electric vehicles with Amazon’s Your Garage
Your Garage is a dedicated portal for car and motorcycle customers across the US, Europe, India, and Japan to help them manage their vehicle’s ownership. Amazon’s Your Garage offers customers a customized set of products and services related to their vehicle based on their personal preferences. The result is a central place where Amazon customers can save time and money and avoid the hassle of vehicle maintenance by getting a timely reminder for their next required service, locating the nearest reliable service center, or finding a wide range of parts and accessories that fit their car or motorcycle.
As more consumers use digital channels to research, browse, and shop for products, auto brands have the opportunity to use digital marketing to help reach relevant audiences during the consideration phase of customers’ journeys.
Since 2017, the number of EVs in Your Garage has grown by ~20x.3 With more than 632,000 EVs registered in Your Garage,2 Amazon Ads can help you reach audiences of EV and hybrid vehicle owners at scale whether they’re streaming their favorite TV shows or browsing in Amazon’s store.
Your Garage share by model year (MY) between electric and hybrid vehicles
Electric vehicles
Hybrid vehicles
Source: Amazon internal, US only, 2017-01-01 to 2022-01-31
Audiences informed by Your Garage insights can help advertisers reach potential future buyers based on their purchase journey stage. Audience insights such as most streamed genres on Amazon Freevee and Amazon Music and product categories of interest can help advertisers understand the messaging and creative that best resonate with their intended audience. For example, if your brand wants to reach audiences who are interested in more-sustainable products, Amazon Ads can help your brand engage with an audience that is purchasing Climate Pledge Friendly products. Amazon Ads can help connect advertisers with the 39% of EV owners and 30% of hybrid vehicle owners that have purchased Climate Pledge Friendly products at least 2x in the past 12 months.3
2. Meet the emerging hybrid vehicle audience
The 2.1 million hybrid vehicles registered in Your Garage is a unique audience.2 Amazon Ads gives advertisers the opportunity to deploy messaging tailored for different personas to help reach audiences interested in transitioning toward an EV. Many hybrid and gas-vehicle audiences are willing to try a new brand. For example, hybrid vehicle owners are likely early alt-fuel adopters.2 As a result, they may be more open to transitioning toward EV ownership when it’s time for them to replace their vehicle. In addition, this large audience offers the ability to reach vehicle owners who may need to buy new parts, accessories, or automotive products for their vehicles.4 And among gas-vehicle owners who registered a hybrid vehicle in Your Garage, 70% of them registered a different brand when adding a new vehicle.2 This provides brands a great opportunity to connect with audiences who aren’t loyal to their current automotive provider.
3. Build shopping interest
Amazon Ads can help brands selling electric and hybrid cars connect with alternative-fuel audiences at the right time. For example, let’s take a look at the composition of EVs in Your Garage. We see that about 9 out of 10 are sedans or coupes, more than 60% are luxury makes, and almost 4 out of 5 are domestic makes.4 From an industry perspective, EV offerings have expanded to address customer demand for SUVs. This presents an opportunity to reach early EV adopters on Your Garage who may want to purchase a new SUV EV that offers more utility and ruggedness compared to their current EV sedan or coupe.2
Alt-fuel vehicle audiences on Amazon are also more likely to be younger adults, more educated, and have a higher income range compared to alt-fuel audiences overall.2 In addition to understanding who your audience is, it’s also important to connect with consumers when they are considering and/or ready to make a purchase. Through Amazon Ads, not only can brands reach alt-fuel owners at large, but they can also connect with their priority audiences based on attributes such as age, income range, and education level, as well as shopping patterns that may indicate that they are in market for a vehicle. For example, if an advertiser wants to connect with this audience via Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier, pop, alternative, dance, and DJ are the most popular genres among the alt-fuel audience based on audience size.2
Insights into the intended audience’s preferences are significant reference points for developing an effective advertising strategy. Amazon Ads can help advertisers reach audiences through services they frequently use such as shopping on Amazon, listening to Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier, or watching live sports on Prime Video. Brands looking to reach alternative-fuel and EV shoppers may want to consider using Amazon Ads solutions like Sponsored Display, Streaming TV ads, and audio ads.
1 Cox Automotive 2021 Path to V Adoption
2 Amazon internal, US only, Aug 2013- Jan 2022
3 Amazon internal, US only, Jan 2017- Dec 2022
4 Amazon internal, US only, Jan 2017- Jan 2022