Category Archives: Advertising

How Car Dealers Can Target In-Market Car Shoppers Using Facebook

In the Fourth Quarter of 2015 Facebook had $5.6 billion in ad revenue. Mobile advertising made up a huge portion of their revenue, accounting for 80% of it. If you want to reach out to your customers on mobile devices then Facebook advertising needs to be a part of your dealership’s digital marketing strategy. There are multiple ways you can target your ads in Facebook. You can set up a custom audience (Facebook’s version of retargeting), demographic targeting,  financial resources, interest-based targeting and in-market targeting. In this post we’re going to be discussing Facebook’s In-Market targeting capabilities and how it can be utilized by your dealership.

What Is Facebook In-Market Targeting?

Our online behavior says a lot about our buying intentions. Utilizing data from a variety of sources that may include websites you’ve visited, Facebook is able to tell who is in process or considering buying a specific product. This is a powerful digital marketing tool that will allow you to show ads to people who is interested in or actively looking for your specific product.

How Dealerships Can Utilize In-Market Audience in Facebook

Facebook behavior targeting allows you to target people in-market for specific vehicle brands such as Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet or Ford. You can even target people who are in-market for certain vehicle types such as SUVs or trucks. Below is a table showing the potential reach for various in-market target audiences within a 30 mile radius around the Seattle market.

There are multiple ways a dealer can utilize in-market audiences to target potential car shoppers. Here are some potential ideas:

Target Competing Brands. Show your ads to people interesting in competing brands to try to sway them into your sales funnel. Example: A Honda dealership could target ads to people who are in-market for Ford, Hyundai, or Kia cars.

Combine In-Market Audience for competing brands with people who have liked your page. As a dealership brand loyalty plays a big part in your bottom line. You don’t want past customers to switch over to a different car brand when it’s time for them to get a new car. By targeting people who have liked your page with In-Market competing brands you can target past customers who may be thinking of jumping ship from your brand.

Target your own brand. This one is rather straight forward. Target people who are actually interested in your product.

Target In-Market off brand interest. Target high sales funnel shoppers who are interested in a specific type of vehicle, but haven’t quite decided which brand yet.

These are only just a few ideas to get you started in targeting potential car shoppers using in-market Facebook audiences. It’ll definitely get you started in the right track in targeting the right people with your Facebook ad campaign.

Google recently released their Vehicle Dealer vertical report for the Q4 of 2015. The data yielded some interesting data that shed some new light on the vertical and reinforced past trends. According to the report search queries in the Vehicle Dealers Category grew by 13%. Interestingly, Desktop searches declined by 3 percent and Tablet queries declined by 5 percent, while Mobile queries grew by 33%. This is not groundbreaking news, but it does reinforce the fact that mobile traffic is increasingly becoming a larger part of the pie.

The report also shed some light on interesting trends in regards to the paid search auctions on Google search results.

Queries, Impression and Clicks saw huge increases for Mobile on the Adwords search auction. On the contrary, those same metrics saw a decrease on desktop – no surprise there. An interesting trend that I wasn’t aware of was that Ad Depth decreased quite significantly for desktop queries, a drop of 8.79%. The Ad Depth refers to the number of ad placement spots for a particular search query. A near 10% drop in Ad Depth means that a search term that used to yield 10 search ad spots may only be showing 9 ad spots now. One less ad spot on the search results page means a decrease in impressions and a rise in CPC as the same number of advertisers competes for even less ad space. If your dealership Adwords campaign saw a rise in CPC in the past 3 months then this may be a contributing factor.

The big takeaway from Google’s report is that mobile traffic and desktop traffic is trending in opposite directions. In fact 62% of all searches in the Vehicle Dealers vertical are made on mobile or tablet devices. So what does this mean for car dealerships? Well, it means having a mobile responsive website and a digital advertising strategy to reach mobile users is even more important and increasing by the day.

Terrestrial radio ad spots have long been a foundation of many car dealerships marketing efforts. In the past couple of years digital radio, on platforms such as Pandora and Spotify, has increased in popularity and taken listeners away from terrestrial radio. With that shift comes a shift in ad dollars as dealerships look to reach their target audience on the new frontier of digital radio. Before dealers sign up for a digital radio campaign they need to be aware of the returns that they’ll most likely get from the campaign.

In the past, a couple of dealerships have reached out to us to investigate a rise in bounce rate on their site. In more than a few occasions I’ve poked into their analytics account to find that the culprit of the rise in bounce rate was a digital radio campaign that the dealership was running. In one case, I saw a site’s bounce rate nearly double on the days that their digital radio campaign ran.

In the analytics accounts that I’ve seen, the engagement metrics for digital radio advertising leaves a lot to be desired. You may expect to see these kinds of results:
• Bounce rate in the low 90’s
• Time on site less than 40 seconds
• Pages/Session less than 1.5

Also, you’ll see very little goal conversions, if any. With these dismal engagement metrics you’ve got to really question the quality of traffic that these campaigns are bringing to your site.

The majority of digital radio users are on mobile devices. With mobile banner ads comes the peril of the accidental clicks from fat finger syndrome. The accidental click rate on mobile banner ads is typically 65%. For digital radio campaigns I expect the accidental click rate to be much higher when you consider that oftentimes the banner ad placement is typically above the radio navigation buttons. A person who accidentally clicked on your ad when they intended to ‘Skip’ that One Direction song on their Taylor Swift Pandora station is not a likely car shopper and will most likely bounce from your site faster than Taylor Swift goes through boyfriends.

Digital radio campaigns aren’t without its benefits. The campaigns will yield lots of impressions at a pretty decent CPM (cost per thousand impressions), which has its benefits when it comes to branding. As a dealership you’ll have to weigh on whether this benefits outweighs the bounce rate hit that your site will take.

A lot of dealerships I work with are reluctant to spend their ad budget on service department related keywords for various reasons. Competing with national service brands such as Jiffy Lube or Pep Boys for high CPC service keywords such as ‘oil change’ and ‘engine repairs’ can seem daunting. Also, why spend money on the service department when they’re in the business of selling cars. Those are valid reason, but here are some call analytics stats from Marchex that may make you think twice about ignoring PPC advertising for your service department.

– 74% of inbound calls to a dealership are to inquire about parts and services.
– 77% of phone calls to dealerships are from new customers.
– Only 14% of calls to dealerships are from customer inquiring about a new or used vehicle.

Obviously, calls regarding inquiries about new or used vehicles are considered the most valuable type of call. However, they only make up a small percentage of incoming calls to a dealership. The data suggests that there’s great opportunity to increase profits with incoming calls for parts and services. In addition to increased profits, capturing leads for the parts & services department puts your dealership in a position to increase customer loyalty that will lead to sales later on. If your maintenance & service department does their job well, then those customers will return.

Customers arriving to your dealership from the parts & services channel provides a prime opportunity to bring in loyal customers to the sales lot. Eventually, the car that your repeat customer has been bringing into the service department is going to be put to the pasture. When that happens your service customer will be looking for a new vehicle and become a sales customer. It’s much easier to sell to a satisfied repeat customer who is already familiar with your dealership than to try to pry a customer away from a competing dealership.

Learn more about how a service campaign can be implemented into your PPC campaign by contacting your Integrated PPC representative today.

In our current digital age there is no shortage of ways for prospective car buyers to connect with businesses. Consumers can fill out an online form or communicate with your site’s chat function. These forms of communication provide great value to a business; however, the tried and true act of picking up a phone is still considered the most valuable conversion. In our mobile obsessed society, making a phone call is a matter of reaching out to one’s pockets.

To properly evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns, tracking your phone conversions is very important. Here are some numbers to consider to highlight the importance of tracking calls from your digital marketing campaigns:

• By the end of 2014 there will be 2 billion smartphones globally
• Google found that nearly half of mobile consumers searching on their smartphones are more likely to explore other brands when they can’t call a business directly from their search results.
• Click-to-call usage on mobile devices has increased exponentially in recent years. The call tracking analytics company Marchex now drive over 40 million calls per month from Google Adwords.
• 71% of most advertisers search engine conversions occur over the phone.

Tracking phone call is important for every business in every industry. However, it is especially important for business involved high investment purchases such as car buying. Integrated PPC offers call tracking solutions with your digital marketing campaign that allows you to track every one of your phone conversions. Phone call data will be available 24/7 through your dealer dashboard and you’ll even be able to listen to the phone calls.

The key to marketing is targeting where your customers are. In the 1930’s during the golden age of radio that place would be the radio. With the decline in radio and the rise in television during the 60’s you’d want your ad to be seen on TV. With the rise of the internet in the late 90’s and early 2000’s you’d want you ad to be seen online. The next frontier for marketers and advertisers is on mobile.

The next time you’re out in public, take some time to notice your surroundings. You’ll most likely see more than a handful of individuals with their attention occupied by their smartphones. A Pew research study found that 61 percent of adults now have smartphones and that number is expected to rise as the price of smartphones decreases.

A new way to reach these mobile users is through geo-fencing. Smartphones are GPS enabled devices and geo-fencing allows you to target your ads to users based on their location. Geo-fencing establishes a virtual perimeter around a location. The targeted location could be as small as a city block or as large as a couple miles. When a user breaches the virtual barrier your ads can be shown to them on their smartphone.

For the marketing savvy dealership there are several applications for geo-fencing. One application is upselling customers that enter your dealership. You could set up geo-fencing campaign to show ads featuring a coupon for 100K mileage service. A customer coming in for an oil change may possibly see that deal and decide to do the 100K mileage service as well.

Another application could be to set up a geo-fence around your competition. This way you could steal potential customers. Let’s say Joe Car Buyer is shopping at the Toyota dealership next door. He’s in the middle of negotiations and when the salesmen leaves to “talk to his manager” Joe Car Buyer kills some time on his smartphone. While on his smartphone Joe Car Buyer sees your geo-targeted ad that offers a 0% APR special offer. Joe Car Buyer is intrigued and crosses the street to your dealership.

Earlier in the month Google announced the roll out of Callouts, a new ad extension in Adwords that allows you to highlight unique benefits and offers of your dealership with an additional line of text. The Callout extension joins Sitelink extensions, Call extensions, and Location extensions to Adwords ad extension family.

Car dealerships can use Callout extensions to promote special offers, price matching guarantees, award-winning customer service, and more. You can easily add Callout extensions at the campaign and ad group level and even schedule the dates that they’ll run. On the campaign level you can add general Callout extensions that highlight your award-winning sales staff or your no hassle sales policy. On the ad group level you can get more specific and highlight special promotion and offers for specific vehicles. Is your dealership running a 0.9% APR on 2014 car models until the end of the month? If so, that’s a perfect opportunity to use Callout extensions.

Callouts appear below the standard ad copy and, most importantly, they can be displayed along with other ad extensions. You can feature up to four Callouts in your ad, each limited to 25 characters each. This means that your ad can utilize even more real estate on search results page if they’re utilizing numerous ad extensions.

If you’re not using Callout extensions in your ads then you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to increase your CTR and highlight what makes your dealership unique. Is your dealership PPC campaign using Callout extensions.

With the FIFA World Cup just starting a couple days ago, be prepared for World Cup mania to reach all ends of the world. As you read this your Facebook news feed is probably saturated with World Cup talk and your favorite sports bar is probably already packed with crazed soccer fanatics. Every 4 years Google Trends shows a huge spike in search volume for the term “World Cup”. However, one place where the World Cup will be limited is on the paid search section of Google search results. The reason for this is because FIFA, the organization that puts on the World Cup, has trademarked terms such as “World Cup”, “FIFA”, and even “Brazil 2014”.

As a car dealership how does this news relate to you? Well, it’s a relevant reminder of Google Adword’s trademark policy. Adwords current policy allows advertisers to bid on others’ trademarked keywords; however, advertiser are not permitted to use trademarked terms in the ad text. This means that if you’re a Honda dealer, then you won’t be able to use the terms Ford, Chevy, or Nissan in your ad text. This can be quite the hurdle if you want to use PPC to help sell your used car inventory.

There is a way to circumvent Adword’s trademark policy. Google’s trademark policy regarding resellers states the following:

The ad’s landing page is primarily dedicated to selling (or clearly facilitating the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term.

This means that if you’re a Honda a dealer that wants to write an ad for the 2011 Ford Focus in your used sales lot you’re going to need to make the landing page for your ad the product page for that specific vehicle. You could go through your whole inventory and write sets of trademark compliant ads for each vehicle in your inventory. However, you probably don’t have time for that. You’re too busy selling cars.

With Used Dynamic Inventory Based Ads you can have Adwords trademark compliant ads automatically built for every vehicle in your inventory. Ads are directly linked to vehicles in your inventory and is refreshed daily, so you’ll only advertise vehicles that are currently in your inventory. As vehicles are added to your inventory, ads are automatically generated. Imagine all the time you’ll save. Thus, freeing you up to watch team USA make a miracle run at the Cup. Fingers crossed.

Many auto dealerships that manage their own pay per click aren’t aware of the various guidelines that Google expects their advertisers to follow. That is until they wonder why their ads aren’t getting any traffic and they noticed the dreaded ‘your ad as been disapproved’ icon. Actually, it’s not that dreadful, but knowing what Google’s guidelines are beforehand can save you the effort of having to edit your ad copy later. Here are some of the ad copy guidelines that you need to follow when writing ad copy. For full information Google’s guidelines go to https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1331529?hl=en

A deal you claim in the ad copy has to be on the advertised site.

Example:
Nissan GTR
Be Fast & Furious.
20% Off Vin Diesel’s Stunt Car!
sokittomecars.com

This ad would be disapproved if two of the following things was not present on the site: proof that the GTR was used in a Fast & Furious movie and information about the 20% off a GTR.

Google doesn’t allow misleading or scientifically unverifiable claims.

Example:
Jelly Bean Powered Car
Cut Down On Sweets
And Save Money On Gas!
sokittomecars.com

Common sense and Google would raise a red flag at this ridiculous claim. If you’re going to make claims like these, you need a verification that your claim is accurate and sound from a third party source.

Usage of superlatives such as “best” or “#1”

Example:
Sok It To Me Cars
The #1 Car Dealership.
Best Prices In Soktopia!
sokittomecars.com

This ad would be disapproved for the superlative claims in the ad copy. The words “best” and “#1” are not allowed unless there’s a third party verification listed on the site. In this case, Sok It To Me Cars is neither the best nor #1 dealer in Soktopia.

Understanding conversions is very important in knowing the impact of your pay per click campaign. Within the past year, Google has introduced various conversion metrics to give advertisers even more insight on how their paid ads are directly leading to leads and sales. Below are are some of the conversions that you should be aware of.

Converted Clicks
This is how many clicks resulted in a conversion action. Depending on the conversion tracking set-up, a conversion action could be anything such as an actual sale or a user filling out a contact form that provides leads for your sales, service, or finance department.

Phone Call Conversions
For ads with call extensions, the Phone Call Conversion is the number of phone calls that Adwords drives to the number that is listed on the call extension. In order to track phone call conversions, you must use a Google Call Forwarding Number.

Estimated Cross-Device Conversions
This metric occurs when a user clicks on an ad on one device such as a mobile phone, but then converts on a different device such as a desktop. In the multi-screen world we live, cross-device conversions is a great metric to show how your ads impact across multiple devices.

View-Through Conversions
This metric only applies to ads that appear on the Display Network. View-Through conversions occurs when a customer views your ad, but converts without actually clicking on it.

Estimated Total Conversions
This metric condenses various conversion types and bundles them together to give you a better idea of how Adwords is driving conversions. Estimated Total Conversions add up the following conversion types: converted clicks, conversions, estimated cross-device conversions, view through conversions, and phone call conversions.

For many brick-and-mortar businesses, such as car dealerships, conversion tracking is very important in measuring the success of a PPC campaign. In recent years Adwords has introduced various conversion types to give advertisers even more insight into the real impact of their paid search campaigns. The most recent conversion type to be released was cross-device conversions. Cross-device conversions addressed the nature of the multi-screen lifestyle that we currently live in where a user may see an advertisement on their mobile phone, but later complete the conversion on a different screen, such as their desktop PC.

Google is currently testing out a new conversion type to bridge the gap between online advertising and the cash register of a brick-and-mortar business. They launched a pilot program called “In-Store Attribution Transaction Reporting In Adwords” with six advertisers. Essentially, the pilot program tracked conversions from online activity to in-store sales by matching anonymous tracking cookies on users computers to in-store sales information collected by third party providers. Here’s a breakdown of how the process works:

A user clicks on an online ad > Google sends an anonymous “click ID” to the advertiser and that matches the cookie on the user’s computer > Days or weeks later that user may buy the product in the retailer’s store > The third party data company takes that purchase and links it back to the user’s cookie > The cookie is linked to Google’s click ID

With this new conversion tracking type, Google is able to tell Adwords advertisers which ads generated in-store sales and how much they generated. For those worried about Big Brother watching over your shoulder, the system is designed so that Google never knows the identity of the user.

So what does this mean for brick-and-mortar businesses, such as car dealerships, that do online advertising? Well, it means  greater insights into the effectiveness of their online advertising budget. A dealership will be able to get more accurate data on what brought their customers into the showroom floor.

In-store conversion tracking is currently in the testing phase and there’s no word on when it will be added to Adwords. When it is finally released, it’ll be an exciting game changer that will narrow the divide between online ads and the cash register.

By its very nature, which is rooted in a bidding system for premium ad placement, PPC is very competitive form of marketing that breeds competition between brands. A PPC strategy that many business owners use is bidding on their competitor’s branded keywords. Bidding on your competitor’s branded keywords can open your business up to customers who you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. On the other hand, a shot across the bow at your competitor may cause your competitor to retaliate and bid on your branded terms – driving up the CPC for both terms. So before you decide to open the can of worms of bidding on your competition’s keywords, consider the pros and cons.

Pros:

• In general, branded keywords are a great way to attract customers who are high in the sales funnel and still weighing their options between brands. These are customers who may not have known about your brand, otherwise.
• Bidding on your competition doesn’t cannibalize your organic search listing. Chances are that you probably rank pretty high in organic search listings for your own branded terms. By bidding on your own branded terms you may be cannibalizing traffic that you would’ve gotten anyway through organic search listing.

Cons:

• Since the landing page has very little relevance with your competitor’s branded terms, you can expect low quality scores when you bid on your competitor’s branded keywords. This means you’ll have to pay a higher CPC when bidding on the competition.
• If your competitors aren’t bidding on your keywords now, then they will shortly as soon as you start to appear for their search terms.
• Using your competitor’s trademarked brand name in your ad text may draw the attention of Google and get your ad disapproved.

How to turn the “Cons” into “Pros”:  Don’t target exact trademarked names, but instead the city and the make that that dealership sells.  Create custom landing pages with keywords targeted not directly at your competing dealerships, but close to it.  This will raise the quality score of the page, lowering your CPC.

Together Integrated PPC and Content Motive can create great landing pages lowing your cost per click and greatly improving your landing page’s quality score.  What does this mean?  You can save money while maximizing your profits!  Click here to get started!