The Challenge
A national automotive OEM came to Source Path Digital with a performance question that could not be answered by campaign reporting alone.
The advertiser was running conquesting campaigns across Canada for both its mainstream automotive brand and its luxury brand. The campaigns were built using standard automotive targeting inputs, including demographics, auto ownership and intender data, and geographic constraints.
But the sales attribution reports were showing an unusual pattern. One dominant region in Canada was producing outsized and lopsided sales attribution compared to the rest of the country. An adjacent secondary market with significant population density was underperforming, and tertiary markets were barely making a dent.
The advertiser’s agency asked Source Path Digital to help investigate the anomaly and identify what should change. The added complication was the market itself — Canadian consumer data availability, privacy restrictions, and data usage rules are more limited than in other jurisdictions, making the accuracy of the available targeting inputs even more important.
The Initial Concern
At first glance, the campaign strategy appeared sound. The advertiser was using standard automotive conquesting inputs: demographic qualifiers, auto ownership and intender data, and geography.
But the geographic strategy stood out. The campaigns relied on highly granular micro market targeting. In a market like Canada, where broader consumer data is more limited, Postal Code level targeting can be a powerful way to reach high-value pockets of likely buyers — but it only works when the geography reflects actual buyer behavior.
Source Path Digital focused on one central question: were the campaigns reaching the right local markets, or overinvesting in areas that looked right on paper but missed where buyers were actually coming from?
The Analysis
To answer that question, the advertiser shared sales data with Source Path Digital, who then conducted a detailed analysis comparing the people and places actually producing vehicle sales against the audience profiles and geographic specifications being used in campaign targeting. The analysis reviewed both the mainstream and luxury brands, with attention to:
- National sales distribution
- Regional and market-level attribution patterns
- Postal Code level buyer concentration
- High-propensity and low-propensity purchase areas
- Differences between mainstream and luxury buyer geography
- Gaps between campaign coverage and actual sales locations
The goal was not simply to explain past performance. It was to identify where audience coverage, geographic precision, and campaign activation could be improved.
What We Found
The analysis revealed a clear opportunity to improve coverage, reduce waste, and build more precise audience strategies for each brand. The issue was not simply regional performance imbalance — it was a deeper mismatch between where campaigns were targeting and where actual buyers were coming from.
Key Finding — Almost 40% of national sales occurred in locations outside the campaign audience targeting.
- The secondary market was significantly undercovered. More than 80% of sales in the adjacent secondary market came from areas outside the campaign’s targeting specifications.
- High-propensity micro markets were left out. For the mainstream brand, more than half of the micro markets 2 to 8 times more likely to purchase were not targeted. For the luxury brand, one-third of the micro markets 3 to 15 times more likely to purchase were excluded.
- Lower-likelihood areas were being included. Over 40% of the mainstream brand’s least likely micro markets were included in campaign audiences. For the luxury brand, more than half of the least likely micro markets were included.
- The two brands were being treated too similarly. Both brands were using the same micro market targeting, even though their actual buyer patterns pointed to different opportunities.
Using insights from the customer analysis, market analysis, and legacy targeting benchmark, Source Path Digital created a more comprehensive audience graph for the advertiser — giving the agency and OEM a clearer view of where likely buyers were being missed, where media was being wasted, and how each brand’s conquesting strategy should be adjusted based on real sales propensity.
The Recommendation and Outcome
Source Path Digital turned an attribution anomaly into actionable campaign intelligence. What first appeared to be a regional performance imbalance revealed a deeper issue: the campaigns were not fully aligned with where actual buyers were coming from.
By comparing campaign targeting against real sales behavior, Source Path Digital helped the advertiser and agency identify:
- Where likely buyers were being missed
- Where media was being spent in lower-propensity areas
- How the mainstream and luxury brands should be activated differently
- Which micro markets offered stronger conquesting potential
- How Postal Code level targeting could be refined in a more restrictive data environment
The recommendation was not simply to adjust geography. It was to rebuild the campaign targeting foundation around actual buyer propensity. The advertiser and agency could now prioritize high-propensity micro markets, reduce inefficient coverage, and develop separate geographic strategies for the mainstream and luxury brands.