How Turo Uses AdQuick to Reinforce Its Category Leadership

Imagine being a user acquisition leader in the peer to peer car sharing industry. It’s an understatement to say that you’re up against a lot of competition.

A handful of companies, over the last decade or so, have become household names in the United States and Europe. Your job can sometimes feel like the story of David battling Goliath.

But here’s a twist to the story that may change your perspective—in the grand scheme of big companies, peer to peer car sharing is a new industry.

That means, there’s a potential to get creative with your user acquisition strategy.

AdQuick is helping companies like Turo do exactly that—reach potential customers with a differentiated value proposition, by appealing to human interest in creative ways. This strategy, led by Turo’s now-former director of user acquisition, Adam Miller, helped the company establish a unique global niche for its marketplace of guests and cars.

“When I’m looking at user acquisition, I focus on a few key imperatives,” says Miller. “On the guest side, for instance, we are always trying to cater to a range of use cases for making mobility easier. For instance, we offer extended test drives to help guests decide whether the make, model, and year of a car is the right fit for their lives. We also offer a bigger variety of cars to appeal to enthusiasts who want to drive something unique. We also deliver, meaning that we bring the car to our guests.”

“Turo is more convenient, is less expensive, and has a greater variety of vehicles than most traditional car sharing or car rental platforms. On the supply side, we’ve continued to gain market share because we’re creating the category by ourselves.”

During his four years at Turo, Miller has been responsible for finding creative, dependable ways to scale up the business.

“We’re using a broad digital strategy that also incorporates offline channels,” Miller says. “We have a core group of channels and focus, especially, on largely untapped platforms that our competitors haven’t carved out.”

Enter out of home—and AdQuick.

The value of out of home (OOH) in a competitive industry

Early on in his career, Miller spent a year and a half working with a local agency in Pennsylvania where he learned how to buy print, television, and outdoor ads. This “stint,” in his words, introduced him to the impact of out of home as an advertising medium—especially in urban centers.

“There’s a lot of criteria to consider whenever we’re buying out of home,” says Miller. “One is placement. For our business in particular, we need to make sure that we are in an urban center, as that’s where a lot of our business takes place today. Another is price—we need to try to figure out how to make the most out of every dollar spent. We look at a variety of these different things to maximize coverage.”

This capability gives Miller and his team the ability to make “a big splash” and to build brand awareness in new markets, very quickly. From his past experiences with OOH, he knew that this market channel was the right fit for Turo’s growth goals—particularly around international expansion.

“In order to shift perceptions in the market, we need to get our brand out there,” Miller says. “Brand awareness has been one of our biggest missions as a company over the last year and a half. Out of home has helped us make strides based on a survey that we run twice a year, to make sure that we’re moving the needle.”

Why AdQuick?

AdQuick gives Miller and his team the ability to move the needle faster, more predictably, and with precision.

“When we test OOH, we try to approach it from two different angles,” Miller says. “The first point we consider is the amount of weight we consider in a given market. The second is what we need to do to create a substantive impact.”

With AdQuick’s platform, Miller has complete transparency into how campaign planning translates into key performance indicators (KPIs) that are valuable to the company overall. He and his team are also able to compare markets and determine the right threshold of inventory to purchase.

“We look to see whether or not we see some sort of systematic lift, especially over the long-term, when we hold everything else constant.”

AdQuick enables a degree of predictability, transparency, and holistic perspective for Turo that would not otherwise be possible. “We’re able to be effective internationally, at a low CPM, with a surprisingly modest budget,” Miller.

Behind the scenes of a sample campaign—and what’s possible

One of Miller’s favorite campaigns was a program that he ran in 2018. It was a “large blitz” in the San Francisco Bay Area with placements facing major highways and transit routes.

“We showed images of cars that people wouldn’t expect like a bright green Mercedes G Wagon,” he says. “We chose out of home visuals based on their abilities to challenge expectations.”

He attributes the campaign’s success to the planning capabilities that AdQuick offered his team—a perspective that traditional out of home channels are unable to offer.

“What really surprised me about the experience of buying media through AdQuick was the platform’s mapping feature,” he says. “I could pinpoint exactly where my ads were going to run, how much I was going to pay, and how long the ad would run. That was a game changer. Having all of this information, aggregated, was huge.”

“Without AdQuick, you’re sitting there with a larger map in front of you and trying to think about where this placement may be. You’re not entirely sure.”

Behind the scenes of Miller’s favorite campaign—and every campaign—was a defined process.

“Even if we come to the platform with a specific market that we want to enter, we don’t always know what that inventory will look like. We don’t know what the right mix is and whether we should use unique placements. AdQuick helps us define these parameters and then helps us determine our ideal reach and frequency. From there, we can figure out where to get the best deal.”

With a methodology in place, marketers and media buyers can focus their finite attention spans on creative efforts.

“As Turo evolves, we’re going to test a lot of copy and new approaches,” Miller says. “We have the footing to test every concept we need.”

AdQuick gives rise to a heightened level of creative intelligence in marketing.

Contributors Statement

This blog post was a collaboration between the AdQuick team. Chris Gadek, John McClung, and Jack Gaylor contributed to this piece. Payton Biddington created the visuals.

If you'd like to learn how out of home can work with your unique marketing campaign and business, send a quick email to [email protected] or call (213) 986-6179. We'll reach out with case studies and recommendations tailored to you.

Disclosure

The opinions expressed are those of the authors. This material has been prepared for educational purposes only. Please be sure to consult with your internal team of stakeholders to assess your specific needs before adapting any practices from this blog, as your own.