The car’s the star in our final insight feature deep diving into some of Q1’s biggest areas of consumer focus. With 2024’s new car registrations coming up in March and September, we delve into our Automotive category and the content consumption and audience trends we’ve seen in the last 12 months to help fuel your premium web campaign plans in the year ahead.

The UK motoring industry enjoyed something of a bounceback year in 2023 after a challenging three years. Since 2020, the pandemic, the challenging switch to electrification, supply chain issues and the cost of living crisis combined to slow sector growth. Despite this mirriad of complications, 1.9m new car registrations in the UK last year grew by almost a fifth, according to Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders data. While that’s down on the 2.5m+ new cars registrations a year from 2015-2018, the road ahead is looking more promising – and with annual reader engagement growth with our Automotive category of almost a quarter in 2023, we see this in our data.

This year’s already looking rosier. With cost of living pressures easing, improving electric uptake and greater investment in infrastructure, such as pothole repairs and more charging points for EVs, more consumers are cautiously optimistic about getting into the driving seat of a new set of wheels. A 2023 survey of online readers across Ozone highlighted how more than 50% of new car buyers said the cost of living crisis would not change their new car choices. Furthermore, 16% of those in-market said they would shop around more or delay their purchase plans. It’s likely those plans have moved into this year.

Reaching engaged car buyers

Looking at reader engagement trends with Automotive category content and editorial, it goes without saying that the spring and autumn new car registration periods are where we typically see interest grow more prominently. 

Overlaying Ozone’s engagement data with Google’s search data, we can begin to understand the cycle from consideration to purchase. Google searches indicate the periods when users are most likely in-market for a car. Looking at searches for terms such as ‘test drive’, ‘PCP’, ‘hire purchase’ and the largest national used car dealers, the months of April and September see by far the highest peaks.

With this in mind, Ozone’s engagement data highlights there is a very clear increase in auto type research across Ozone publishers two months prior to these lower funnel peaks. The most significant spike occurs in February, +20% greater than the H1 average. The second, and most significant spike begins in July – up 23% from June to July and up a further 104% into August. 

For planning and activation across the Ozone platform, campaign weighting should be focused in February and August to maximise exposure as prospective buyers move down the funnel from consideration to purchase.

Reach the most relevant audiences with Ozone

We make it really easy to reach new car researchers during the most significant moment of the year using our unique publisher first-party data to build target audience segments. 

From online readers at the beginning of their car buying journey – those reading editorial related to auto types, auto buying and selling and second hand vehicles – to those further down the funnel ready to take the plunge with a plug who are reading more about electric cars, our segments can be used to broaden reach or hone in on a tighter audience whatever the goal.

Want to know more?

If you want access to MORE unique insight like this at your fingertips, sign up to Ozone Ad Manager FOR FREE to explore the content consumption habits of our nationwide audience of 43m internet users.

Ozone Ad Manager is exclusively available to our agency and advertiser partners. First-time users of the platform can sign up to register to use it here oam.ozoneproject.com.

For more information, contact your Ozone agency sales representative to find out more or email [email protected].

About Ozone Ad Manager

• Explore more than 1,400 audiences from across a wide-range of interest-based categories and understand content trends from across 1,200 topics.

• Activate campaigns using seasonal segments, such as Easter and Christmas, or specially created ones like Cost of Living, Environmentally Conscious and Luxury Lifestyles.

• Create and then share bespoke audiences or deal details with other users within your agency to streamline your campaign processes with us.