Mazda Austria GmbH drives demand for its first electric car with contextual intelligence

Mazda has been providing vehicles known for innovation, reliability, and style for more than a century. In 2020, the company launched its first all-electric car in Europe, the Mazda MX-30. Mazda Austria GmbH’s digital campaign goals included increasing awareness of the company’s new electric vehicle and using targeted display ads to generate high-quality traffic to the Mazda MX-30 landing page.

The approach

As part of an overarching launch strategy, Mazda Austria GmbH and marketing agency adverserve developed a Mazda MX-30 advertising campaign targeting individuals and families in urban areas who are active online, support environmental issues, and whose interests include design/art.

To reach the appropriate target groups in the right contexts, adverserve used Oracle Advertising’s Contextual Intelligence, which helps enable brands to reach potential customers online through relevant and tailored custom contextual segments. Mazda Austria GmbH used this capability to deliver timely content based on customer persona needs and lifestyle attributes across desktop and mobile environments.

Oracle Contextual Intelligence analyzes the relationship of key terms and phrases online to determine the true context of a news article or web page. Additionally, Oracle Predicts—part of Oracle Contextual Intelligence—uses real-time automated optimization to help advertisers capitalize on trending content and the associated inventory.

Using machine learning, Oracle Predicts makes daily automated updates based on trending content associated with a given topic. In addition to saving time, Oracle Predicts also helps align your brand’s message with relevant content as stories evolve or expand into new topics. 

The campaign used four custom segments to target users and served relevant ads via a programmatic, open-auction approach. adverserve chose Oracle Advertising for contextual targeting because:

• Mazda is already using Oracle Contextual Intelligence successfully and is integrated into the Oracle BlueKai Data Management Platform (DMP)
• adverserve and Mazda aspire to use a single data supplier to streamline and accelerate digital campaign setup and management

Short-term impact and long-term electric car strategy

The contextual intelligence portion of the campaign played a key role in raising awareness and generating sales for the Mazda MX-30. Results include:

• Achieving a higher click-through rate (CTR) than the overall campaign (10% higher for desktop; 5% higher for mobile)
• Reducing the cost-per-click (CPC) by 9% compared to the overall campaign (on average) because Oracle Contextual Intelligence enabled Mazda Austria GmbH to bid on newly published inventory before the competition
• Generating more than 500,000 ad impressions in three weeks

Introducing the MX-30 in Austria reflects Mazda’s broader electrification strategy and corporate focus. Mazda announced plans in June 2021 to launch 13 new hybrid and electric vehicles beginning in 2025.

And the automaker continues to make significant technology and product advances to support its “Sustainable Zoom-Zoom 2030” initiative to reduce average “well-to-wheel” CO2 emissions 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 compared to the company’s 2010 fleet emission levels.

Read our Digital Marketer's Guide to Contextual Insights and Trends for more insights.