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Hedin Bil fuels sales with search

  Article , Automotive , Success stories

Car dealer boosts traffic while achieving high CTR and conversion rate

Hedin Bil logo

A father-and-son partnership

Hedin Bil is one of the Nordic region’s largest marketplaces for autos and auto services. The company began as a family endeavour, with Anders Hedin following in the footsteps of his father, Ingemar Hedin, a car salesman. In 1985, father and son acquired Swedish car selling business Philipson Bil, jumpstarting Hedin Bil’s exciting journey.

Over the years, parent company Hedin Group has grown through acquisitions around Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and later in Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany into a leading dealer and importer of vehicles, with more than 30 brands in its portfolio and thousands of vehicles in stock. Today, the group employs 3,600 people in six European countries and has a yearly turnover of around 30 billion SEK.

We were looking for ways to reach people at home when they couldn’t come to our physical locations…and Microsoft Advertising offers the control, flexibility, and transparency we need.

— Sara Sujka, digital marketing specialist, Hedin Bil

A digital approach to driving leads

Hedin Bil is largely dependent on in-person and face-to-face methods for its sales, but has gradually moved toward digital marketing over the past few years. When the pandemic hit in 2020, the company had to accelerate its digital efforts and shift its mindset on how it does marketing. “We were looking for ways to reach people at home when they couldn’t come to our physical locations,” says Sara Sujka, digital marketing specialist at Hedin Bil.

Luxury car at Hedin Bil

Luxury car at Hedin Bil

As part of its digital marketing strategy, Hedin Bil partnered with Microsoft Advertising to generate leads online, starting with paid search. “Search is the most important channel,” says Sujka. “It’s where customers start looking for information, so it makes sense to invest more in the lower end of the funnel.”

The company then employed Microsoft Advertising features such as Dynamic Search Ads and broad match to reach more customers. “Broad match works well because we have a large negative keyword list, and Microsoft Advertising offers the control, flexibility, and transparency we need,” Sujka says.

Achieving optimum performance

While Hedin Bil caters to a wide range of consumers in Norway and Sweden, it was vital for the company to reach individuals considering luxury auto brands like Mercedes-Benz or Porsche. To tap into such a specific audience, Hedin Bil leveraged the Microsoft Audience Network. “It’s a great platform to reach an older audience of people with higher disposable income to spend on the cars they’ve been dreaming of buying for a long time,” says Sujka.

Within the first 10 days of working with Microsoft Advertising, Hedin Bil experienced a boost in the number of visitors while acquiring a high CTR of 7.96%. “We achieved a significant boost in traffic to our website which translated into a 68% higher e-commerce conversion rate compared to other platforms,” Sujka says.

Hedin Bil storefront

Hedin Bil storefront

Sujka adds that the audience quality with Microsoft is much better. In fact, sessions from Microsoft Bing have an average duration that is 55% higher than all other traffic, with a 29% lower bounce rate and 32% more pages per session.

Switching to high gear

Hedin Bil is looking into further optimising its work with Microsoft Advertising so it can continue to reach new customers and grow the business. The company also aims to expand to other European countries in the coming years and move toward being distributors of high-end car brands.

This transition will involve next-level marketing, and Sujka envisions Microsoft Advertising playing a significant role in it. “We want to own the whole marketing funnel, and Microsoft Advertising is a huge part of that.”

We achieved a significant boost in traffic to our website which translated into a 68% higher e-commerce conversion rate compared to other platforms.

— Sara Sujka, digital marketing specialist, Hedin Bil

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