Auto Trader's investment in Endeca-powered vehicle search returns business results, industry recognition
AUGUST 26, 2008 LONDON AND CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
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Endeca Technologies, Inc., an information access software company, today announced that Auto Trader, the UK's number one motoring website and magazine, has reported significant business gains and technology benefits as a result of its Endeca-powered vehicle search and navigation engine.
Deployed in 2007, the Endeca engine was designed to give Auto Trader new user experience innovation, scalability and performance benefits over its previous database infrastructure (see related news). Since its deployment, Auto Trader has realized a 3.5 million hour increase in time spent on site looking at advertised vehicles and related offers, a 16 percent reduction in searches with 13 percent increase in detail results, and an 8 percent increase in average session length.
The search functionality has been featured in Apple iPhone advertisements in the UK and the Auto Trader team behind it was recently recognized at the Manchester Big Chip Awards for best application of technology.
Now in the top 50 most visited sites in the UK, Auto Trader is a route to market for one quarter of the UK online adult population, who each spends an average of 15 minutes on the site per visit - spending more time on AutoTrader.co.uk than they do on Facebook*. (*Source: Comscore November 2007). Auto Trader is also the number one motoring website visited by women in the UK, with 1,634,000 unique female visitors per month - 34% more women than eBay Motors.
Commenting on the decision to move to Endeca, Jody Goodall, Auto Trader's product manager for search, commented, "Due to our status in the market and the number of visitors we get — which is a significant number of unique users every month, and hundreds of millions of searches every month — we were in a position where online we were beyond the scale of the capacity that current infrastructure could handle. We knew we needed to get a leading edge search product to maintain our momentum as the market leaders for searching for vehicles."
After implementing Endeca, Auto Trader found more users coming to their site, more rapidly finding what they were looking for and spending more time exploring increasingly more related content. Time spent on the site has increased by one minute on average per user, which over the course of a year has meant over 3.5 million hours of increased ad views on the site.
"We're delivering more relevant content quicker, so they're finding what they were looking for through fewer searches" continued Goodall. "The dynamism within the search that we have with no dead ends and the constant updating of our search form, means you're always seeing what's in stock and how each change affects the availability. We allow users to browse and discover things they wouldn't already have known."
Auto Trader makes the world of cars easy, with a one-stop-shop of all things motoring – from new and used cars to insurance and finance – along with advice and solutions to help reduce the cost of motoring for everyone.
Endeca's technology is used to power some of the most popular and highly trafficked sites in Europe, the Americas and Asia, including AutoTrader New Zealand (autotrader.co.nz), CarPoint Australia, Comet, Cox Newspapers, The Food Network, The Guardian, The Home Depot, Lastminute.com, Office Depot, Yellow Pages Singapore, Tesco.com, and Walmart.com.
About Auto Trader
- Ireland, and an expanding online presence through AutoTrader.co.uk, the brand is building a competitive position across all effective channels including print, the web and WAP.
- Auto Trader is owned by Trader Media Group, which also publishes market-leading niche titles such as Top Marques, Bike Trader, Truck & Plant Trader, Ad Trader, Motorhome and Caravan Trader, Farmers Trader, Auto Freeway – all with the largest reach in their sectors, through magazine readership and web visitors.
- Trader Media Group publishes almost 70 titles every week with a combined circulation of 1.5 million and has leading websites for its top titles.
- Trader Media Group, a division of Guardian Media Group, employs over 3,900 people across 40 locations in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Italy and South Africa. The Group is looking to expand on its winning formula: developing a one-stop-shop for motorists; giving trade customers the opportunity to choose all effective channels to market; building the service and relationship with dealers and manufacturers; and strengthening its portfolio of automotive and specialist classified titles.
- Trader Media Group is jointly owned by Guardian Media Group and Apax Partners, with GMG as the majority shareholder.
About Endeca
Endeca's innovative information access software that helps people explore, analyze, and understand complex information, guiding them to unexpected insights and better decisions. The Endeca Information Access Platform, built around a new class of access-optimized database, powers applications that combine the ease of searching and browsing with the analytical power of business intelligence. More than 500 leading global organizations including ABN AMRO, Boeing, Cox Newspapers, the (US) Defense Intelligence Agency, Dell, Ford Motor Company, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, the Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs, and streamline operations.
Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Endeca has operations in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information: endeca.com or info@endeca.com.
Contacts:
Craig VerColen
Endeca
617-674-6190
cvercolen@endeca.com