HOUSE Automotive

The Challenge

HOUSE needs Porsche owners to call or book a service appointment online before they bring their cars in. Most of our work for HOUSE focuses on increasing calls and online bookings. An owner reading about maintenance needs useful advice, while someone ready to arrange service needs a nearby shop and a way to book it.

The three shops don't compete in one market. Encino has far more local listings competing for Porsche owners, while Thousand Oaks has fewer nearby Porsche competitors. Each address needed its own local plan, with a listing that accurately described the shop's services and a way to check its visibility in the surrounding area.

Cost was another concern. HOUSE's owner tracks the cost of bringing in each new customer, so traffic alone wasn't enough to judge the work. Calls from ads cost far more before MKG took over the accounts, and the shops' records were needed to assess what happened beyond an ad response.

The Solution

Calls from ads rose 36% and cost per call fell 75% compared with the same quarter a year earlier, before MKG managed the account. In its first eight months under MKG, the account posted the lowest cost per call of any eight-month stretch in its history.

We set up the ad account to measure phone calls and online bookings instead of traffic. We took over the social ads at the same time and counted link clicks and landing page views, keeping those visits separate from appointments.

Search work covered both the website and local listings. We rewrote service pages and model-by-model maintenance guides, giving owners advice about their cars and pages about the work they could book at HOUSE.

We merged a duplicate listing with the Pasadena shop's profile. Each shop got a more precise category and a service list that named the jobs owners search for. Repeated map scans tracked the same searches around all three shops, so the comparison kept the locations and search terms consistent.

We've managed the email program from its first send. The emails explain topics like brake service and pre-purchase inspections, with a booking link for readers who are ready to schedule.

What the Dashboards Don't Show

Ad accounts report clicks and calls. The shops' records show the bookings made and how new customers found HOUSE. The table uses those business records to describe appointments and paid-media cost per new customer, rather than treating ad traffic as shop visits.

Online bookings compare May to September. Total bookings and paid-media cost per new customer compare the third quarter. Each is measured against the same period a year earlier.

MKG built the current website and rebuilt it twice. The site also has maintenance guides, social posts and the Porsche maintenance cost calculator. Owners can use the guides for questions about their model's upkeep and the calculator for a cost estimate before deciding whether to contact a shop.

The calculator estimates upkeep costs for a given model, variant, year and mileage. It gives an owner a more specific starting point than a general maintenance article. None of that has a tile of its own.