The car market was rewritten. We drive the demand.
Marketing and data, built for the new automotive market
The specialist growth partner for car brands in a market that just changed shape. More brands than ever, an electric shift, and a buyer who researches for weeks online before ever setting foot in a showroom. We build and run the full-funnel demand engine that keeps you on the shortlist and turns it into test drives and sales.
Deep specialists in our own market, and built to scale: run a single country or a worldwide footprint on one connected engine.
More leads, better quality, from traffic you already pay for.
In most of our engagements the win comes from the same proven core. Creative performance marketing that understands what triggers each persona, tight day-to-day campaign management, and conversion-rate optimisation on the landing pages, so lead volume climbs and quality score stays acceptable to strong. On top of that we build durable visibility with SEO, GEO and reputation management, so demand keeps coming without paying for every click.
The acquisition core
Creative that performs
Scroll-stopping creative built for the platform and the model, not generic templates. Ideas that earn attention, then earn the click.
Persona triggers
We map what actually moves each buyer, price, range, design, status or safety, and build the message around that trigger.
Campaign management
Hands-on management across search, social, video and marketplaces, optimised daily against cost per qualified lead.
CRO on landing pages
Landing pages and forms tuned continuously, so more of the same traffic becomes leads without paying for more clicks.
The outcome we optimise for is simple: more qualified leads, at an acceptable to strong quality score, at a falling cost per lead.
Built to last, on top
SEO
Durable organic visibility for the searches that signal real buying intent, so demand keeps arriving without paying per click.
GEO
Generative engine optimisation, so your brand and models are represented correctly when buyers ask AI assistants for recommendations.
Reputation management
Reviews, ratings and brand mentions actively managed, because trust is decisive in a purchase this large and this considered.
In five years, what people drive off the lot completely changed.
Electrified cars are now the majority of new registrations in Europe. Hybrids have become the single most popular choice, battery-electric share has roughly doubled, and petrol and diesel together have fallen below a third of the market. And the shift is only accelerating: battery-electric is forecast to reach around half of new cars by 2030. The car is changing, and so is everything about how it is sold.
Electrified is the new default
Battery-electric reached about one in five new cars in Europe in 2026, and with hybrids and plug-ins the electrified share is now the majority. The question for buyers has shifted from whether to electrify to which brand.
The product story is more complex
Range, charging, software, connected services and total cost of ownership now sit alongside design and performance. There is far more to explain, and far more that can win or lose a sale online.
Launch cadence has accelerated
New models and facelifts arrive faster, often software-defined. Marketing has to keep pace with a product that keeps changing after it reaches the road.
Price and incentives move the market
Incentives, tariffs and fast-moving pricing reshape demand quarter to quarter. Brands need always-on presence and the agility to react, not a fixed annual plan.
More brands than ever. A shortlist that barely grew.
Electric lowered the barrier to entry, and the field grew fast. A European buyer now chooses from dozens of credible brands, established names and new electric-first ones alike. But no shopper compares forty brands. They keep a shortlist of three to five, and once they buy, more than half are open to switching next time.
The field grew fast
The number of brands on sale has climbed quickly, as a wave of electric-first entrants joined the established players. Wider choice is good for buyers, and it means every brand, long-established or brand-new, has to work harder to be seen and remembered.
Loyalty is up for grabs
With so many credible options, switching is easy and common. That is a risk if you are complacent and a once-in-a-generation opening if you are present, distinctive and easy to buy at the moment a shopper enters the market.
The classic science still applies, and it applies hard here. At any given moment only a small share of people are actually buying a car, so growth comes from mental availability, being the brand a buyer already remembers and trusts when they finally enter the market. Choice exploded. The shortlist did not.
Between the spark and the signature sits a very messy middle.
Google named it the messy middle. Between the first trigger and the actual purchase, a car buyer loops through two modes again and again: exploration, opening up options, and evaluation, narrowing them down. They can circle for weeks across search, video, reviews, configurators and marketplaces until one brand feels like the confident choice. Our job is to be present in that loop and make the way out easy.
We run a specialised automotive team, people who live in this category every day and know the models, the incentives and the shopper. They stay inside the messy middle for your brand, present at every loop, so exploration and evaluation keep leading back to you.
Be present in exploration
When buyers are opening up options, we keep your brand and models showing up across search, video, social and marketplaces, so you make it into the set.
Win the evaluation
When buyers narrow down, we give them what convinces: clear answers, strong reviews, easy comparison and a configurator that converts.
Make the exit easy
Confidence is what ends the loop. Fast pages, honest information and an obvious next step help a buyer feel sure enough to choose you and act.
Measure the whole loop
We connect these scattered moments to real outcomes, so we know which parts of the messy middle actually move your sales.
Strip out the noise and the signals point the same way.
We track the research and the data across this sector constantly. Read together, they point in one direction. These are the conclusions we build on, and act on.
More than half of buyers are open to switching brands. A strong badge no longer guarantees the next purchase, so consideration has to be earned every single time.
Research, configuration, financing and comparison now happen online first. Buyers judge a brand on the whole digital experience, not only the drive.
There are more credible brands than ever. Standing out and staying memorable is harder, and it matters more, for everyone in the market.
The shortlist is shaped in digital moments long before any showroom visit. What you do not measure back to real sales, you are guessing.
The conclusions are not the hard part. Acting on them is. We are the specialists who build and run the machine that turns these signals into demand, and prove it against your real sales.
Own the shortlist. Prove it drove the sale.
In a flooded market, a car brand has to stay on a shrinking shortlist across weeks of online research, turn that attention into booked test drives and sales, and prove it worked against real registrations, often across markets where it does not control the dealer.
Our answer is one connected engine that runs the whole funnel and learns from its own first-party data, deep in a single market and scalable to many. Strategy and execution in the same team, measured against real sales.
The full-funnel demand engine
Presence and performance, top to bottom.
- Brand and reach to build mental availability, so you are on the shortlist before the search begins.
- Always-on presence across search, video, social and marketplaces through the whole research window.
- In-market activation that turns intent into booked test drives and qualified leads for the network.
- Purchase and ownership support, retention, connected services and referral after the sale.
The data and measurement engine
A first-party foundation that proves it.
- First-party data that joins scattered signals into a real view of who is in market.
- Audience and journey intelligence to spend where it moves the shortlist, not vanity reach.
- Closed-loop measurement against real registrations and sales, not clicks alone.
- One backbone across markets, so the same engine scales from local to global.
Run together, the two engines compound: every campaign feeds the data, and the data sharpens the next campaign. That is how you stay on a shrinking shortlist in a flooded market.
The brands that win own the shortlist, and the data behind it.
Most of your future buyers are not shopping today. We plan for both.
At any given moment only a small share of people are actually in the market for a car. The rest are your future buyers. Win only the in-market few and you are renting demand. Build for the many and convert the few, and you own it. That balance, tuned with data and proven against sales, is the core of how we invest a budget.
Build for the 95
Distinctive brand work and always-on presence build mental availability, so you are the name a buyer already trusts when they finally start shopping. This is future demand, and it compounds.
Convert the 5
Precise in-market activation captures the shoppers who are active right now and turns them into configurations, qualified leads and booked test drives for the network.
Prove every euro
Closed-loop measurement against real registrations tells us what to scale and what to cut, so the balance between the many and the few keeps sharpening over time.
The operating system for a modern automotive marketing team.
Six capabilities, run as one connected engine on a single data foundation. Each is strong alone. Together they compound, which is the whole point of a specialist partner instead of a stack of disconnected vendors.
Brand and reach
Distinctive, high-reach brand work that builds mental availability, so you are already on the shortlist when a buyer finally enters the market.
Always-on presence
Continuous, consistent presence across search, video, social and marketplaces through the entire multi-week research window, not just at launch.
Performance and lead generation
In-market activation that turns intent into configurator completions, qualified leads and booked test drives for the retail network.
First-party data and CRM
A consented data foundation that joins scattered signals, identifies who is really in market, and powers lifecycle and retention programs.
Content and creative
Product storytelling for a more complex car: range, charging, software and total cost of ownership, made simple and localised per market.
Measurement and incrementality
Closed-loop measurement against real registrations and sales, so budget moves to what actually drives the shortlist and the sale.
Three ways we put the engine to work.
Anonymised patterns from the last three years, across combustion, hybrid and fully electric brands. Specific names and numbers are shared under engagement.
From an unknown nameplate to a full order book
Build reach and a clear product story before the car arrived.
Convert interest through a configurator and lead flow tuned for pre-orders.
Book test drives so demand landed the moment cars reached the network.
Holding consideration against new entrants
Map where the brand was losing consideration to new names.
Sustain always-on presence across the full research window.
Sharpen targeting with first-party data to lift lead quality.
One engine, several countries
Stand up a shared data and measurement backbone.
Localise creative and media without rebuilding the machine.
Compare markets on one consistent set of metrics.
How an engagement starts
Diagnose
We audit your funnel, data and market position, and pinpoint where the shortlist and the sale are being lost.
Build
We stand up the engine: the data foundation, the media and creative system, and the measurement that proves it.
Run and prove
We operate it always-on, optimise against real sales, and scale the same engine into new markets.
This is where we have spent the last three years.
We are not generalists who happen to have a car client. Automotive, across the full funnel, is where our recent work has lived, from combustion to fully electric, in our home market and beyond.
test drives generated for the car brands we run, turning paid attention into real showroom intent.
Wise Pirates, automotive campaignshigher lead score, so sales teams spend their time on the buyers most likely to sign.
Wise Pirates, automotive campaignslift in lead to purchase, turning more of the leads we generate into signed sales.
Wise Pirates, automotive campaignscar brands driven over the last three years, from mass-market to premium and from combustion to fully electric.
Wise Pirates, automotive practicefunnel coverage, from awareness and reach to lead generation, sale support, ownership and referral.
Data, media and creative in one teamglobal by design: deep in one of Europe's most electrified markets, and built to run larger regions and worldwide.
One connected engine, many marketsA specialist built for exactly this moment.
We live in this shift
Three years, six car brands, the full funnel, through the exact transition the market is going through now. We are not learning automotive on your budget.
One team, no handoffs
Data, media and creative sit together. The insight that finds an in-market buyer is the same team that reaches them and proves the sale, so nothing gets lost between agencies.
Local depth, global reach
We are deep in one of Europe's most electrified markets and built to run larger regions or worldwide on one engine, with local nuance and a common measurement backbone.
The automotive engine runs on the rest of Wise Pirates.
Our automotive work draws on the same connected practices as everything else we do. These are the ones it leans on most.
Tell us your brand and your markets. We will show you the engine.
Automotive marketing, answered.
Why does a car brand need a specialist automotive marketing and data partner in 2026?
How has the car market changed, and why does it matter for marketing?
What is happening in the Portuguese and Iberian car market specifically?
How is the car buying journey different from a few years ago?
Why is brand loyalty falling, and how do you stay on the buyer's shortlist?
Can you run marketing for a single market and for larger regions or worldwide?
What does full-funnel automotive marketing actually include?
How are you different from a strategy consultancy?
Which car segments and markets have you worked in?
Put the engine to work.we drive demand.
Tell us your brand, your models and your markets. We bring the sector fluency, the full-funnel engine and the data to keep you on the shortlist and prove it against real sales.
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