GWI Automotive helps you understand car buying attitudes, influences and purchase journeys among current and prospective car owners across selected Core markets.
The most important things to know about GWI Automotive are that:
For a complete view of what's covered, you can find the GWI Automotive questionnaire here.
It’s international
GWI Automotive is an international data set, featuring markets from across the world. Details about the markets included, their annual samples as well as what's covered in the data set can be found in our coverage page.
Like all of our international data sets, it’s asked identically everywhere, letting you understand and compare audiences internationally. Surveys are shown to respondents in their local language and brand lists are localized to ensure relevance.
It’s annual
GWI Automotive is run once a year, in Q1. When using the data, you may want to consider that specific questions on driving behaviors may be influenced by seasonality.
It represents car owners and purchasers
GWI Automotive represents internet users aged 18-64, who either currently own a car or are planning to purchase a car in the next 2 years. Starting in Q1 2025, we began including respondents aged 65+ in the US and the UK.
Figuring out exactly what this audience looks like involves a few steps:
In GWI Core we create an audience of ‘car owners or purchasers’ who are invited to take part in GWI Automotive, this consists of internet users aged 18-64 (from Q1 2025, 18+ in the US and the UK) who own at least one car or who are planning to purchase a car.
Before they start the survey respondents are asked if they own a car or if they are planning to purchase a car in the next 2 years. Those that do own a car or are planning to purchase one, qualify. A very small proportion of the overall sample may also qualify for this study if they currently use, have previously used, or plan to use a car subscription service.
By observing the proportion of respondents that qualify from each demographic group and applying this to our original audience in GWI Core, we can calculate exactly how many car owners and purchasers GWI Automotive represents.
It can be used with GWI Core
GWI Automotive respondents have all completed GWI Core (including over 50% of the Brand & Media module respondents as well) at some point in the last 12 months.
For example, respondents from Q1 of GWI Automotive all completed either Q4, Q3, Q2 or Q1 of GWI Core. In rare cases we may make exceptions to this rule and interview respondents who have taken Core longer ago, but these typically make up less than 5% of the sample.
This means questions can be compared across the two data sets, letting you combine the depth of GWI Automotive with the breadth of GWI Core. For further information on how to combine GWI Core with an add-on, click here.
It’s easy to complete
Taking part in GWI Automotive is a straightforward process for our respondents, and it’s quick to do - completing the survey takes a respondent around 20 minutes.