How Haymarket Media Group Increased Revenue by 31% with Driftrock

Their Story

Haymarket Media Group sits at the intersection of trusted editorial and high-intent car buyers. Home to Autocar and What Car?, two of the UK's most respected automotive titles, Haymarket has spent decades earning the trust of millions of consumers navigating one of the biggest purchasing decisions of their lives. Their audience does not browse casually. They arrive with intent.

The Problem

Haymarket's audience arrives with genuine purchase intent, and their OEM partners know this too.  The opportunity was clear: scale campaigns, generate more leads, and convert that audience quality into commercial growth. To achieve this, Haymarket needed infrastructure that would enable quick campaign launches, real-time lead validation and end-to-end performance tracking. Haymarket needed a platform that could keep pace with their ambitions.

The Requirements

Haymarket needed a solution that would:

• Scale campaigns and lead volume quickly, without compromising quality
• Increase conversion rates through smarter qualification
• Provide end-to-end reporting to prove lead quality to OEM partners
• Optimise audience targeting to attract higher-value prospects
• Boost revenue by unlocking greater OEM investment

The Solution

Driftrock gave Haymarket the infrastructure to move faster, prove more, and optimise continuously.

• Rapid Campaign Activation: Haymarket can launch and manage multiple campaigns quickly, removing the bottlenecks that had previously slowed growth, re-engaging audiences at scale outside their environments. More live campaigns means more opportunities to generate revenue.

• Lead Validation and Custom Qualification: Driftrock's real-time lead validation filters out low-quality submissions before the sync. Custom qualifying questions have been introduced to specific campaigns, ensuring that only genuinely in-market buyers can progress. The result is a cleaner, more valuable lead pool that OEM partners can trust.
• End-to-End Reporting: Driftrock's reporting suite offers Haymarket full upstream and downstream visibility, from the original ad source through to a qualified lead. With ready-to-use templates, data visualisations, and exportable reports, Haymarket can demonstrate performance to OEM clients with clarity and confidence.

• Audience Sync with CAPI Signals: Driftrock pushes Conversion API signals back to Meta, feeding the platform validated lead data. Lookalike audiences built off "Valid Lead" events mean Meta's algorithm works harder, finding more people who look like Haymarket's best converters, not just anyone who clicked an ad.
• Automotive Strategy Support: Haymarket continues to work closely with Driftrock's automotive experts to continuously refine their approach, ensuring campaigns are aligned with market conditions and OEM objectives.

The Results

The impact was immediate and measurable across every metric that mattered.

• 31.3% revenue growth quarter-on-quarter: Better lead quality and stronger proof of performance directly translated into greater OEM investment.
• 24.1% increase in lead volume and 214% more active campaigns quarter-on-quarter: Faster campaign activation unlocked scale that couldn’t be unlocked before.
• 31.8% reduction in cost per lead: Smarter targeting and validated audiences drove down acquisition costs whilst improving quality.
• Conversion rate from 1% to 5%: Introducing qualifying questions to a specific campaign delivered a fivefold improvement in conversion rate, proving that quality and volume are not mutually exclusive.

"Driftrock has been instrumental in helping us maximise the value of our high-intent audience. Our primary focus was on scaling lead generation campaigns without compromising quality and delivering clear performance data to our OEM partners. Driftrock’s advanced infrastructure has enabled What Car? And Autocar to move faster, achieve better results, and continuously optimise. Its rapid campaign activation and management capabilities streamlined our processes, allowing us to scale quickly with impressive results.

The platform's real-time lead validation and custom qualification capabilities ensure that only genuinely in-market buyers can progress. For example, introducing qualifying questions to one campaign delivered a fivefold improvement in conversion rate, jumping from 1% to 5%. Finally, Driftrock’s end-to-end reporting gives us comprehensive visibility, enabling us to demonstrate performance to OEM clients with clarity and confidence.

Working with the Driftrock team continues to be an excellent, collaborative experience. Their platform provides the sophisticated tools necessary to consistently convert our strong audience quality into measurable commercial success, making them a valued partner." Chris Daniels, Chief Revenue Officer, Haymarket Automotive, part of Haymarket Media Group