US: Which Japanese automakers are the best at converting awareness into customers?

There’s often a long journey between making a prospect aware of your brand and then convincing them to buy. Yet some companies have become experts at accelerating this process, while others are stuck in first gear. In this piece, we look at the contrasting performances of three Japanese auto brands as they push their US prospects through the marketing funnel – and towards that all-important purchase intent stage.

Toyota

Toyota demonstrates a high Awareness score, with 89% of US consumers saying they are familiar with the brand.

In addition, Toyota’s Consideration score is the highest of the three Japanese automakers in this analysis: roughly 35% of US consumers say they would consider buying from the brand the next time they’re in the market for a car. This translates to a 39% conversion rate from the Awareness stage to the Consideration stage – the highest of the three brands we’re looking at today.

Toyota’s Purchase Intent score of 15.3%, which asks which car brand consumers would be most likely to purchase, is nearly double that of Honda and Subaru’s scores. The score corresponds to a conversion rate of 44% from the Consideration stage.

Honda

Just as with Toyota, Honda also has a high level of brand recognition among US consumers, with 87% of people saying they’re aware of the brand.

Building upon this, 24.5% of US consumers say they would consider purchasing a vehicle from Honda, representing a conversion rate of 28% from the Awareness stage – much lower than that of Toyota, from a broadly comparable rate of Awareness.

The brand’s Purchase Intent score of 8.4% signifies a conversion rate of 34% from the Consideration Stage to the Purchase Intent stage, meaning that Honda manages to convert only around half the consumers from Awareness to Purchase Intent as its competitor Toyota.

Subaru

While Subaru’s level of Awareness in the US doesn’t match that of Toyota’s or Honda’s, over three-quarters of consumers are familiar with the brand (77.4%).

Subaru’s Consideration score of 17.4% signifies a conversion rate of 22% from the Awareness stage - the lowest of our three selected brands.

But Subaru begins to make up for lower levels of Awareness and Consideration in the final stage of the purchase funnel, especially when compared to Honda’s performance. The brand’s Purchase Intent score of 5.8% translates to a conversion rate of 33% from the Consideration stage, very nearly on par with that of Honda’s conversion rate of 34%.

Summary

Looking at the conversion rates at the Purchase Intent stage, Toyota is the dominant leader with a conversion rate of 44%, followed by nearly dead-even Honda (34%) and Subaru (33%). Toyota’s exceptional performance at the bottom stage of our conversion funnel analysis shows that it tends to have the final word among consumers considering the brand.

Although Subaru has a lower Awareness and Consideration score compared to the other two brands, it shows that it is also effective at converting at the bottom of the funnel. This underscores the brand’s competitiveness among more well-known brands such as Toyota and Honda.

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