Marketplace platform Gumtree has opted out of offline marketing for its latest campaign as it focuses on driving new users to the site.
Recently the company identified several "pain points" for customers, which led to its latest campaign 'Keep Gumtree Real'.
Gumtree senior marketing manager James Walmsley tells AdNews the company needed to "continue to educate" new and existing users, believing social and owned channels were the best way to do so.
"We really see our own channels are key for that. We've got a multitude of channels that we are also live in. Obviously, for this campaign, it is about looking at the messaging and where we will see the bigger cut through," he says.
"When it comes to this specific education piece, once users have already engaged with our site and are on it, that gives us a great opportunity to talk to them and educate them in the process in using the tool."
Walmsley didn't rule out a return to traditional advertising for this campaign but highlighted that the company had made great strides in its strategy by constantly adjusting its marketing mix to suit a variety of channels.
He said the 'Keep Gumtree Real' campaign was better suited to channels that allowed for a more focused message, indicating that it may not have had the same "cut through" if it have been created for broad-based marketing.
"Obviously different channels have different roles to play and I think if we are looking at broad-based marketing there might be a different message there," Walmsley says.
"Test and learn is in everything we do here at Gumtree and that is from our product standpoint, and improving that experience, but it is all the way through to marketing as well, so that we are constantly iterating and testing on which are the best channels."
Despite not appearing across TV, the campaign has launched with a series of creative videos hosted by Jason Dundas, who has previously worked with Gumtree. The videos offer tips on buyer and seller best practice in a light-hearted way.
These include writing an honest description, be respectful of people's time both on and offline, negotiate fairly and be responsive.
Walmsley says these tips came off the back of customer insights.
However, these customer complaints and issues have not slowed the progress of Gumtree, which is now forced to compete in a market made up of Facebook and Amazon's own marketplaces.
Walmsley welcomes the competition into the local market, holding firm in the face of the two tech giants, relying on a long-standing presence in Australia, which he says "kicked off the sharing economy before the likes of Airbnb and Uber."
"Gumtree has been around for a long time now and we have seven million people come to our site every month," he says.
"We've had strong results across a wide variety of metrics, even from a basic 'visits' perspective all the way through to our brand health, so we have been really impressed by the results."
Walmsley says one of the biggest takeaways from the recent local rebranding, launched in July 2017, was the double-digit growth in brand health, alongside the success of its newest area of the site 'Gumtree Cars'.
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