Zipcar is the UK's biggest and most popular car-sharing club.

Following a turbulent period during Covid, rising costs, and lower customer usage rates, Zipcar turned to Tug with ambitious growth targets as they looked to grow brand awareness and drive customer acquisition. They also wanted to be more responsive to the changing economic landscape of the UK while positioning Zipcar as an affordable and sustainable solution.

In response to this, Tug implemented a cross-channel strategy that drove awareness, acquisition, and retention. A blend of SEO, Paid Media, and innovative technology delivered a successful campaign that surpassed Zipcar’s KPIs.

Approach

30% of new joiners cite the branding on Zipcar vehicles as the reason they discovered Zipcar, but with fewer people out and about post-covid, Zipcar needed to take a different approach. Tug’s media strategy provided a high-return digital awareness campaign by testing new audiences aligned with the Zipcar demographic across Paid Social and Programmatic, e.g. sports fans, cyclists and young families. Leveraging video formats across social channels, tailoring creative to relevant audiences and promoting Zipcar to those looking to travel to or from airports by producing organic content about airport travel, directed relevant target audiences to the site and informing them about Zipcar. 

Utilising Performance Max campaigns reached users in new places, such as Google Maps which amplified customer story and USP-focused content to introduce more searchers to the Zipcar brand.

An additional challenge was the introduction of a £10 joining fee, Tug devised a Programmatic and Video strategy which included tailored ads for users relocating homes, crafting proactive campaigns in response to frequent train strikes, implementing machine learning strategies, including auction time bidding and optimising individual city pages.

To Address the challenge of one-time usage, Paid Social strategies encourage members to drive more frequently, including segmented CRM targeting, app campaigns, and seasonal inspirational campaigns.

Technology played a crucial role in making the wider campaign successful. Tug’s Lift Analytics tool helps us identify the efficacy of a Zipcar campaign and its impact on brand-led KPIs whilst Search Uncut lets Tug quickly and efficiently optimise PPC and SEO as one channel.

Results