Europcar Case Study

Europcar is a Paris-based car rental company founded in 1949. Europcar today operates a fleet of over 200,000 vehicles at 2,825 locations in 143 different countries covering Europe, USA, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and Asia Pacific.

The brand is best recognised in the larger European economies, particularly Germany, France, Spain and the UK. Their core markets are in leisure and corporate rentals.

With a large majority of bookings coming via its website, Europcar wanted to increase AOV (average order value) and conversion, to ensure it got as much value as possible from online sales. Increasing the number of car bookings and driving the upsell of extras and add-ons at checkout were the primary goals of the campaign.

Europcar selected Webtrends Optimize for its CRO expertise and intuitive testing and targeting solution that uncovers the best combination of content to drive conversion and increase AOV.

Webtrends Optimize combines a complete selection of test types, including AB testing and multivariate testing. Advanced segmentation enables companies to identify and target their most valuable audience with customised campaigns, offering the most relevant content in real-time.

The Webtrends Optimize team worked closely with Europcar to identify the areas, from landing page through purchase process, presenting the largest and most likely opportunities to increase AOV and conversions.

Recommendations were then made with regard to areas to test, and the Optimize platform then took all test ideas and presented multiple digital variations to subset visitors, thereby gathering statistical proof about how the audience was reacting to the content.

Webtrends Optimize then introduced segmentation, during which, tests were conducted across multiple regions, ultimately segmenting Europcar’s target audience to identify further revenue opportunities.

Europcar worked alongside optimisation experts from Webtrends Optimize to create, run and analyse the tests. The landing page and ‘book-and-pay’ page were identified as the core focus of the campaign. The main .com website receives the largest traffic, so Europcar wanted to explore the cultural differences between the ways consumers in Europe engaged with the website compared to those in the United States.

By running tests on both sides of the Atlantic, Europcar and Webtrends Optimize found that there was a huge difference in the preferences of European visitors to their U.S. counterparts. This led the team on to exploring the European audience in more detail and running tests in multiple languages across the UK, Germany, Spain and France.

The results highlighted the importance of colours and the impact they had on different nationalities. Subtle changes such as the colour of call to action (CTA) buttons, which were traditionally green, showed significant returns.

To increase AOV and achieve the goals, Europcar set about trying to answer the question: Should optional extras, such as a sat nav, be visible with every car by default or be hidden with a link to expand them if desired by the user? The team set about testing and the results showed an increase in the AOV, but a decrease in conversion. This data helped answer the question without causing any loss in sales.

Other tests carried out included displaying discount information, reorganising the personal details form, changing the way extras and add-ons were collected, and making changes to symbols and words on action buttons.

Europcar experienced a 15% increase in online car bookings and a 12 percent increase in the sale of extras and add-ons thanks to Webtrends Optimize testing and targeting.

“This entire optimisation process has been a real team effort from both parties.” said Catrena Blanco, Head of User Experience at Europcar.

“To see an uplift of 15% in conversions and a 12% rise in add-ons is more than we had expected when we started optimisation. It’s proof that AB and multivariate testing works and delivers a healthy ROI for online sales.

We look forward to continuing to work with Webtrends Optimize and running further testing campaigns to improve the Europcar websites and the experience of our online customers.”