Automotive is one of the fastest industries to adopt the use of RSS content. Pheedo's marketing VP explains how this technology is opening up a whole new avenue for building loyalty and delivering content-based advertising.

eMarketer predicts that the automotive industry will account for approximately 15 percent of online advertising spending, to the tune of $2.7 billion in 2007. Cars.com has sold 88 percent of their ad inventory for 2007 and is already selling 2008 inventory. This rapid growth and competitive ad buying environment that automotive marketers face has them looking for new and effective media tools that will give them an edge over their competitors. RSS presents several innovative, fresh ways to use existing content as a dynamic marketing message and customer acquisition tool, as well as to reach a very targeted audience.

In the Pheedo network of publishers alone, the automotive category grew 38 percent month over month in the fourth quarter of 2006-- making automotive among the fastest growing industries to adopt the use of RSS content. The rapid adoption of RSS by auto enthusiasts is opening up a whole new channel for auto marketers and should be on the radar of those who have not yet kicked the RSS tires. In fact, even the big dogs are getting involved-- Ford has recently RSS-enabled its content to take advantage of this growing trend, making its content available via RSS at Ford.com and autoshows.ford.com.

An auto enthusiast who subscribes to a website's RSS feed shows both loyalty and a high level of interest in the content. Essentially, a strong relationship is formed between the publisher and the reader who makes that content feed part of his or her everyday reading. For marketers, tapping into this stream of content gives them -- and their content-based advertising -- more credibility and helps them develop and foster new relationships with potential customers.

On the publisher side, take the case of The Car Connection, an award-winning automotive site providing a complete editorial source for news and reviews, shopping guides, tips and expert advice. The Car Connection recognized the growth in RSS for automotive sites early on and began offering its own RSS feeds. Out of several content delivery methods they offer, including website and email, RSS is seeing the highest rate of adoption, giving marketers a highly targeted and loyal auto-enthusiast audience to reach with their advertising. This high rate of adoption can be attributed to auto enthusiasts wanting to be tapped into the latest updates in the auto industry.

The Car Connection then took the next step and launched an effort to monetize its RSS traffic by tapping into the competitive online automotive advertising industry and placing categorically targeted content-based ads in their RSS feeds. The site quickly sold out all of its RSS inventory. In 2007, The Car Connection plans to increase its RSS publishing efforts, creating more inventory in this growing medium, and engage in new programs to increase RSS readership and monetize RSS content.

Whether you are an automotive publisher looking to make money from your content or an advertiser searching for new channels and audiences to target, RSS is growing quickly and presents certain marketing advantages over other online media. Aside from in-feed advertising, new applications of RSS are being used to take feed content, move it around the web and syndicate it as a dynamic marketing message. In addition, RSS makes content-based advertising scalable-- one feed can power the content of thousands of ads on different websites and update them in real time.
2007 has been proclaimed "the year of RSS," and automotive publishers and marketers alike should take it for a test drive.

Bill Flitter is founder and VP of marketing at Pheedo. Read full bio.