Taxi ads must show tangible results, specialists insist
“If you’re spending and there is no return, stop. Don’t keep trying. Pivot. Don’t waste money,” Shayna Haddon of Haddon Strategies told the April CTA Zoom webinar.
Haddon has managed Beck Taxi’s advertising in Toronto for many years. On the April 25th Canadian Taxi Association (CTA) Zoom webinar, she shared presentation time with Leo Perez of Kreo Brands, who works with Checker Cabs of Calgary.
Both women are specialists in online marketing with a focus on search optimization and easy-to-use systems designed to get results with a minimal budget.
“I just don’t agree with the way traditional advertising agencies operate,” Perez told participants in a surprising burst of candor. “Why should you, the client, be paying to keep cereal in the kitchen for agency staff breakfasts?”
“Taxi is not like Starbucks or Gap, where you can just go for a halo effect,” Haddon explained.
“We need tangible results. Are the campaigns getting comments, are they getting shares? Is the app being downloaded? What is the order ratio you are after: phone, hail and app orders? You have to look at those specific numbers.”
Adds Perez: “We measure the downloads of the apps, but then the open rate of the app as well and the rights that are booked through the app.
“Every tactic should have its own measurable objective. For example, if you do a Google search campaign, you need to have a very specific objective to it. You shouldn’t expect rides booked right through the app on a search campaign focussed on calls; there’s still a demographic that that likes calling on the phone. Having very specific objectives towards the tactics that you use will help you measure impacts.”
Kristine Hubbard, Operations Manager at Beck Taxi and Layna Segall, Social Media Manager at Checker introduced their respective advertising providers at the top of the Zoom.
