Expanding Europe’s top automotive eCommerce into 4 countries

About the brand

Withcar is a leading company in the car rubber and trunk mat industry in Slovenia, operating under the manufacturing company Gledring d. o. o., founded in 1949. Withcar has established itself as a reputable and reliable provider of high-quality car accessories.

Our collaboration with Withcar was aimed at boosting sales in the domestic market, where the company already had some traction, and developing strategies for entering new markets. To achieve this goal, we assisted Withcar in identifying which markets had the most potential for growth and helped them capitalize on those opportunities, which ultimately led to increased revenue on some of the new markets.

Our initial activities were focused on building the brand and establishing brand presence online through managing social media profiles. As our collaboration progressed, we adopted more intense sales-focused approach, utilizing Facebook Ads as our primary advertising platform.

"In a long-term collaboration, they were a responsive and proactive partner. They helped us in several aspects of our marketing and growth into new countries and together, we were able to establish successful Facebook advertising in several markets in Europe." - CEO, Withcar

The challenge

We started developing an advertising strategy for Withcar in 2018, and by the following year, revenue had doubled compared to the previous year, indicating that the partnership was off to a strong start.

Over the next two years, we were able to maintain this momentum and further grow the company's revenue to an impressive annual total of 600k with a return on ad spend (ROAS) of up to 5x.

Following our success in the Slovenian online market, Withcar set its sights on driving growth and increasing profitability in promising foreign markets: Croatia, Italy, Hungary, and France. 

However, simply replicating our approach from the domestic market wouldn't suffice. We conducted a research to understand consumer preferences and behavior on target markets, competitors’ efforts, and optimize our advertising efforts to effectively reach and engage with potential customers. Developing a tailored strategy for each market and identifying the most desirable products to promote was the key to our success in these new markets. 

The process

1. Achieving consistent revenue growth in the domestic market

Finding success on the domestic market was a crucial step for us. We established Withcar as a top player in the automotive equipment industry in Slovenia by leveraging its organic reach, and upgrading content strategy. We helped the brand grew a solid base of returning customers, as well as attract new ones through targeted ad campaigns.

We experimented with various ad content types and messaging angles. Later in the collaboration, we organized a video shootings, which included multiple collaborations with high-profile influencers, focused on the local automotive industry, and produced 25+ platform-specific pieces of video content, featuring a local spokesperson as the face of the brand. These videos had a much higher click-through rate compared to other video content we tested.

Apart from leveraging Facebook and Google ad campaigns, we also implemented an email automation strategy to engage with our customer base and improve retention. This involved setting up a series of automated emails to be sent out to different segments of our community and a weekly newsletter, informing customers about our brand, products and promotions.

2. Breaking into new markets

Once we had a strong foothold in the domestic market, we developed a strategy for expanding into foreign markets. We initially focused on four markets (Croatia, Italy, Hungary, and France), but soon realized that not all of them would be suitable for Withcar's expansion. The first three performed well, so we quickly began scaling in there. However, after experimenting with different targeting and creative approaches, we found that France was underperforming and decided to discontinue efforts there.

At first, we replicated the top-performing ads from our domestic campaigns, but later we fine-tuned the messaging to better appeal to the target audience in the specific country.

2. Monthly promotions and other supporting channels

We discovered that achieving consistent growth in sales won’t be possible without a strong and compelling offer. To address this, we have implemented a strategy of running a promotion campaign each month. To maximize the impact of these campaigns, we used a multi-channel approach that included Facebook ads and Google display retargeting. We made adjustments as needed to ensure that they were delivering the desired results.

We worked closely with the client to implement various initiatives that significantly impacted conversions, including email automation, crafting offers, improving conversion rate on the website, researching new markets, and partnering with influencers.

The results

• Doubled revenue in the domestic market in the first year of collaboration.
• Profitably entered 3 new markets (Croatia, Italy and Hungary).
• Created 2k static ad creatives and 500 video ad creatives.
• Established an effective channels mix, leveraging Facebook ads, Google ads and email automation flows.