Wave2 Provides Self-Service-Plus for Trader

Wave2 Media Solutions, the UK-based publishing software specialist, has announced that it has provided Trader Media Ltd with a fully integrated “self-service” ad solution that goes further than any previous such software produced by the Whitchurch, Aylesbury business. The products currently supported by the Wave2 solution include Auto Trader and Truck Trader.

Wave2’s AdPortal automated software package provides the publisher with an enhanced solution for its motor dealers to create their own advertisements with the absolute minimum of human intervention, with the software helping to define the ad content before it creates the ad layout.

Chris Hodges, Managing Director of Wave2, takes up the story: “The issue for Trader Media was that motor dealers are used to a very personal level of service from the publisher, where a sales person would help to compile a new advert for the customer for every edition of the publication. Ad content is also likely to change up to the very last minute, with new cars or trucks coming into stock all the time. Our software needed to mimic this high level of customer service, whilst reducing the costs of creating an ad.”

The final software solution, which Chris Hodges believes is at the vanguard of advertisement automation, takes a feed of vehicle details from the dealer, as these are updated during the course of the week for online advertising, and through an enhanced set of pre-agreed ad building rules, the Wave2 Publishing Platform (W2PP) decides which vehicles are most suited to be included in the advert.

The Wave2 Publishing Platform (W2PP) is the “engine” that sits beneath the Wave2 software product. It is a powerful tool that requires minimal skills to consistently produce professional, high quality communications. By providing the W2PP with a set of styles and design rules it can quickly and automatically construct a complete advert, image or document.

“The software that we have installed at Trader Media integrates with the central stock database, which houses the details of vehicles supplied by the dealer for online promotion. We extract the details of each vehicle, along with an image if available. Our software then sorts the basic vehicle descriptions via a number of elements that it expects to find. These might include, for example, the make of vehicle, the model, the age, or the price. Depending on the individual motor dealer’s preferences, the advert can be created by managing a combination of these variables and ordering the cars in question,” explains Chris Hodges. “This might mean that the priority vehicles for a BMW specialist are BMW’s, which will rank above any other makes. Order might then be determined by the price of the car, with higher priced vehicles in his stock taking priority to appear in the ad. The highest value BMW manufactured within the last three years could even be highlighted as the star product of the week – the Wave2 software will add the relevant typographic detail to this particular part of the advert to make this product stand out from the rest of the vehicles.”

Once the ad has been created by the Wave2 system an e-mail is automatically sent to the motor dealer providing him with the option to make manual changes to the advert if required. If the deadline passes with no changes from the dealer then the advert is deemed acceptable. For the publisher, this process saves considerable production time, as well as time spent chasing the dealer for final approval.

The system was initially trialled on the flagship Auto Trader publication, and Wave2 has now also moved on to Truck Trader. Further products from Trader Media’s suite of publications are likely to follow.