Mercedes-Benz USA — Coordinated Tier-3 SEM Program
How MBUSA coordinated Tier-3 SEM with dealers to reduce branded-search overlap, lower CPCs 27%, and forecast $9M in annual cost efficiencies.
year
2020
industry
Automotive
Services
Paid Search
CHALLENGES
"MBUSA’s national and dealer SEM programs were competing for the same branded search traffic, increasing CPCs and limiting visibility into performance across markets."
OUR APPROACH
Building a Unified SEM Framework for Dealers
sem.co supported a coordinated Tier-3 SEM pilot designed to reduce paid-search overlap across MBUSA and local dealer accounts.
Key initiatives included:
Connecting dealer Google Ads accounts into a centralized performance dashboard
Reducing branded-keyword cannibalization across national and dealer campaigns
Normalizing CPCs and improving geography-based ranking logic
Giving dealers clearer optimization guidance across keywords, bidding, account structure, and ad units
THE RESULTS
Lower CPCs & Cleaner Search Visibility
The 6-month Tier-3 SEM pilot reduced paid-search inefficiency by removing branded-keyword overlap across MBUSA and dealer campaigns, lowering CPCs, and improving how MB dealers appeared in search results relative to third-party auto platforms.
The program delivered a 27% CPC reduction, forecasted $9M in annual cost efficiencies, and achieved 0 brand-keyword overlap across MBUSA and dealer campaigns.
27%
CPC reduction during pilot
$9M
Forecast annual cost efficiencies
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