Mexico d
)
GMC cover

GMC

Capitalizing on the un-branded opportunity to intercept undecided shoppers at search engines to drive consideration.

The Challenge

By taking a fresh perspective on content strategy, our team devised a different and better approach that capitalized on un-branded content.  GMC was the first automotive OEM to go live with this kind of content-driven, lifestyle-themed SEO strategy. Their success has strengthened their position as a leader and now other automotive brands are beginning to emulate the GMC campaign.


Misty Locke President of the Americas and CMO, iProspect
GMC and iProspect decided to test whether un-branded lifestyle content would drive organic traffic to GMC.com. Without a benchmark, GMC and iProspect approached the project with an experimental mindset. The team was not certain if GMC could rank well with un-branded content, or – if they did – whether it would drive meaningful, qualified traffic. For this pilot campaign, the primary KPI was quantity of visits to the un-branded content pages. Overall, however, the team was most interested to learn what was possible with un-branded content.

The Results

  • 1st

    page rankings for 70% of targeted unbranded terms

  • 14K

    incremental organic site visits per month

  • 300%

    lift in monthly traffic with paid amplification 

  • 6:30

    Average time spent on new un-branded lifestyle pages

 
GMC and iProspect ideas and execution
GMC and iProspect results
“With innovative thinking and collaboration, iProspect and GMC improved un-branded SEO ranking and drove traffic. GMC also gained some surprising and valuable insights about that traffic.”
Tim Aten, GMC Website Manager
Tim Aten GMC Website Manager

The Strategy

GMC - Content Research

​1
 

Content Category Research: Based on a variety of data, the team identified three topic categories at the intersection of the most popular queries, least comptetive topics, and existing content gaps: towing and trailering, fuel efficency and vehicle performance.
 

​2
  

Content Development : While GMC’s creative agency developed thirteen “core” content pages for the three categories, iProspect and partner Skyword created ninety supporting lifestyle articles. Skyword’s content platform enabled the team to assess the content against preset goals, and to coordinate the extensive and formal multi-party review process.


 

​3
  

Content Syndication:  To augment the initial organic search success, iProspect engaged Outbrain (a paid media syndication partner) to promote the content via their network of more than 100,000 blogs and sites. Links to GMC’s content appeared at the bottom of native content on highly trafficked sites (Huffington Post, CNN, etc.) under headings like “Related stories from around the web.”

Services Used

Contact Us

Leverage digital performance best practices to power your automotive campaigns. Start your partnership with iProspect today!

Contact Us