Category Archives: PPC

Remarketing and how it works.

Retargeting display campaigns with banner ads is one of the most effective forms of online marketing. Banner advertisements are great at driving traffic and increasing brand awareness. It seems everyone is using, or at least should be, banner advertising as part of their PPC campaign. So what can you do to make your banner ad stand out from the rest? Here are some tips to help your banner ads perform their best.

Use Buttons Appropriately
Buttons are know to increase CTR and should be used if it’s appropriate for the banner ad. If you’re going to use them, place them after the copy, on the lower right side, and in a contrasting color.

Use Clearly Defined Frames On The Banner Ad
People’s eyes are naturally drawn to a subject inside of a frame. Take advantage of this natural inclination by framing the ad. If your ad is white, it’s quite common practice to put a 1 pixel gray border around the ad.

Keep The File Size Small
You ad needs to load fast. It would be a shame to miss out on an conversion because the user scrolled down to fast, before your ad could load. According to Google Adwords the file size should be under 150kb, and the smaller the better.

Is your PPC or Retargeting Campaigns under performing?  Let us at Integrated PPC use our professional automotive graphics designers increase your banner ads click through rates.

In our fast paced life, users are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access information while on the go. This is especially true for local search. According to a recent survey finding 63 percent of people are now using multiple devices to find local business. Of that, 79 percent of them are mobile phones users and 81 percent are tablet owners.

The study finds that these following businesses are the most popular in local searches on mobile devices:

– According to the survey restaurants are searched 23 percent of the time.
– The auto industry, including auto service shops and dealerships, account for 10 percent of local search.
– Art and entertainment came in at 9 percent.

If your business falls in the above mentioned categories, what can you do to appeal to mobile users and give them a quality on-the-go web experience? According to the survey, 65 percent of smartphone users said the driving force behind their mobile search was a “need for information on the go”. Mobile users don’t want to be overwhelmed with content. They want quick access to details like addresses, phone number, and basic product/service information.

For those businesses running PPC campaigns, it should be noted that mobile visitors tend to be on the higher end of the sales funnel and in a browsing state-of-mind. However, numerous case studies show that many users will start their search on their mobile when they have some down time, but will continue and possibly initiate the conversion on the desktop.

If this study is any indication of whats to come, optimizing your PPC campaign and/or website for mobile should be on the top of every business’s to do list.

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!

The old adage goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. That saying holds very true for the bidding war that is PPC. Knowing what your competition is doing is key in coming on top of paid and organic search results. A tool that should be in every search engine marketers arsenal of tricks is SpyFu. SpyFu is a free tool, though you can subscribe for even more features, that is great for keyword research and competitive analysis.

A quick search in SpyFu reveals a treasure trove of intel. Key metrics such as search volume, CPC, CTR, and ranking difficulty are great for performing keyword research. However, it should be noted that the data is not real-time. SpyFu obtains the data via web-scraping and it is refreshed on a monthly basis. As a result, the data is better used as a guide to track larger trends in SEM/SEO rather than a real-time keyword tracker.

As the name implies, SpyFu also reveals valuable information on your competitors PPC ad copy, projected monthly budget, and ad position. For SEO purposes, SpyFu reveals what domains dominate a search term with information such as the domain strength and estimated monthly clicks. Knowing what you’re up against is vital in determining your overall PPC and SEO strategy.

Let us figure out your strategy for your dealership.  Here at Integrated PPC and at Content Motive we have a cohesive strategy that leads the automotive industry.

Like Michael Jordan & Scottie Pippen, peanut butter & jelly, and under appreciated R&B 70′s duo Herbs & Peaches – reunited and it feels so good – SEO & PPC together is greater than the sum of its parts.

Some people may disagree with that statement and make this analogy, “Why should I pay for the milk (PPC) when I have a cow that will give it away for free (SEO)”. This argument might be valid if we’re talking about bovines and dairy products. However, we’re not talking about free milk; we’re talking clicks and conversions. Those who treat SEO and PPC as two mutually exclusive online marketing tactics will be missing out on tremendous digital marketing opportunities.

Here are some reasons why you should be utilizing both SEO and PPC in your digital marketing campaign.
 
The Rules of Real Estate
Think of the SERP (search engine results page) as valuable real estate. Any screen space above the fold can be considered valuable waterfront property. Screen space below the fold on the first page is a rather nice neighborhood with a few gated communities and a Whole Foods. While anything on the second page and beyond is the wrong side of the tracks. Just as in real estate, getting clicks and impressions is all about location location location. Having top positions in both SEO and PPC greatly increases the chance that your home page or landing page will become a popular destination.

Shared Keyword Data
Running an SEO and PPC campaign gives you double the data to analyze. Determine which organic and paid keywords have the highest conversion rate, and use that data to optimize your overall strategy.

Greater Authority Figure On a Subject
Studies have shown that when businesses hold top spots in both SEO and PPC they are seen as a more trusted authority figure on a subject. So when Joe Car Repair holds top positions in both organic and paid search, he is going to be viewed as a much more competent mechanic than Gary Car Repair – yelp reviews withstanding – and much more likely to be clicked on.

Test Organic Keywords with PPC
Using PPC is a great way to refine your organic keyword strategy. As you evolve your long term keyword strategy, you can test the conversion rate of words that you want to rank for with PPC ads. You’ll get immediate feedback on the success, or failure, of organic keywords you’d like to rank for.

Greater than the sum of its parts – Content Motive and Integrated PPC when used together will help maximize your dealership’s leads and sales potential.

When managing a campaign, you usually only find out about a problem after it’s too late. If you’re watching accounts closely you should be able to minimize the damage though. It’s all about having a plan based on what indicator tells you there’s a problem.

For instance, if you suddenly see a dip in traffic, here are some thing to investigate:

• Has something fundamentally changed in the site structure? if landing page URLs have changed and the ads have not been updated, your quality score will take a hit, reducing your ad exposure.
• Check recent keyword changes. Sometimes if someone added the wrong negative keyword, it can suddenly prevent your ads from showing at all.
• Are you making first page bids? Ensure all of your bids are high enough to show up on the first page of search results. There’s a good SEO joke that says “Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? Page 2 of Google.”
• Does your landing page content match your ads? This is a factor in determining quality score, and if that score is too low, the ad might not show.

If your ad spend is too high:

• Review the daily budget. First and foremost, bust out the calculator and make sure the campaign wasn’t already setup to spend more than you intended.

If CPC is too high:

• What kind of bid management do you have set? If you’re using enhanced CPC, your CPC may be getting bumped up over time and you might want to switch over to manual bidding.
• What is the competition like on your keywords? If you’re going after highly competitive keywords, you might have a hard time keeping up with the average CPC.
• Does your landing page content match your ads? Again, if your quality score is low, you may have to pay more per click to have a decent ad position.

If leads aren’t coming in:

• Are you advertising anything out of stock? If someone clicks on an ad for a vacuum cleaner and you don’t have one to sell them, they’re sure not going to buy something else, they’re going to bounce.
• Are sales historically down this time of year? If sales are usually down in January, it may not the fault of PPC. Consider lowering spend until your busy months.
• What is the competition offering? If your competitors are offering lower prices or nicer incentives, you might need to evaluate what you offer to stay in the game.

PPC can be very confusing, so why not let our professionals take over your existing Google Adwords account.  Our PPC and car dealer industry experts can dramatically improve your ROI.

Kevin Drongowski
PPC Manager
[email protected]

Digital marketing is continuing to grow in all industries and now accounts for 1.5 out of every 4 dollars spent in the auto industry. That being said, we also know that 90% of all customers that enter dealerships have done some sort of browsing on the Internet before purchasing a car. Google is predicting that digital advertising in the auto industry will quadruple over the next few years.

Looking at the numbers, 50% of all visitors that come to ANY car dealer’s website from any source, click on the “Search Used Cars” button.  This is great information to know, but doesn’t necessarily tell the complete story when it comes to helping customers find the right car they are searching for. The story and question I would like to discuss is this; what is your “used car digital strategy” to get customers’ eyeballs on all of the different brands of inventory you carry? For example, when I look at most Chevrolet dealers’ inventories, I see that at least 40 to 60 % of the used cars on the ground are not Chevrolets! So again, my question is this; how do you plan on selling those 15 Fords, 9 Nissans, 8 GMCs, etc. from your inventory when most customers look at your dealership as a “Chevrolet Dealership? see the screenshot below for a typical dealership’s used car inventory (Chevrolet Dealer)

Please don’t tell me you are hoping that the 50% of the customers clicking on your “Search Used Cars” button is your strategy? Or let me guess, you have “a guy” who does search engine marketing for your dealership?

This is where strategy comes into play, and where NO dealership can pull off the feat that DIGITAL AMMP can. If I were to tell you that I could write 10 different ads per used car unit, start and stop these ads when cars leave or enter your inventory (or when too much is being spent per car), while only showing these ads to consumers on Google when looking for that exact vehicle, would you be interested? Of course you would!

Let’s put in perspective what this does for your dealership on numerous levels.

• 122 used cars in stock = 1220 new ads written daily on Google based on the data
• Know the dollars spent per used car until sold
• Know how may VDP views per car as a result of digital marketing
• Know how many leads,  calls & chats were generated per car as a result of Digital AMMP
• Maximize budget – stretch your dollar further than ever before
• Landing pages determined by inventory make, model, price, inventory count, age of vehicle

 Here’s the Tip:  If you want to move your used car inventory, let Digital AMMP do the heavy lifting. Displaying the right ad at the right time to the right person is the ONLY digital marketing used car strategy you should have! Your “guy” cant do that!

Dave Page
Owner of Dealer e Process

Digital marketing is continuing to grow in all industries and now accounts for 1.5 out of every 4 dollars spent in the auto industry. That being said, we also know that 90% of all customers that enter dealerships have done some sort of browsing on the Internet before purchasing a car. Google is predicting that digital advertising in the auto industry will quadruple over the next few years.

Looking at the numbers, 50% of all visitors that come to ANY car dealer’s website from any source, click on the “Search Used Cars” button.  This is great information to know, but doesn’t necessarily tell the complete story when it comes to helping customers find the right car they are searching for. The story and question I would like to discuss is this; what is your “used car digital strategy” to get customers’ eyeballs on all of the different brands of inventory you carry? For example, when I look at most Chevrolet dealers’ inventories, I see that at least 40 to 60 % of the used cars on the ground are not Chevrolets! So again, my question is this; how do you plan on selling those 15 Fords, 9 Nissans, 8 GMCs, etc. from your inventory when most customers look at your dealership as a “Chevrolet Dealership? see the screenshot below for a typical dealership’s used car inventory (Chevrolet Dealer)

Please don’t tell me you are hoping that the 50% of the customers clicking on your “Search Used Cars” button is your strategy? Or let me guess, you have “a guy” who does search engine marketing for your dealership?

This is where strategy comes into play, and where NO dealership can pull off the feat that DIGITAL AMMP can. If I were to tell you that I could write 10 different ads per used car unit, start and stop these ads when cars leave or enter your inventory (or when too much is being spent per car), while only showing these ads to consumers on Google when looking for that exact vehicle, would you be interested? Of course you would!

Let’s put in perspective what this does for your dealership on numerous levels.

• 122 used cars in stock = 1220 new ads written daily on Google based on the data
• Know the dollars spent per used car until sold
• Know how may VDP views per car as a result of digital marketing
• Know how many leads,  calls & chats were generated per car as a result of Digital AMMP
• Maximize budget – stretch your dollar further than ever before
• Landing pages determined by inventory make, model, price, inventory count, age of vehicle

 Here’s the Tip:  If you want to move your used car inventory, let Digital AMMP do the heavy lifting. Displaying the right ad at the right time to the right person is the ONLY digital marketing used car strategy you should have! Your “guy” cant do that!

Dave Page
Owner of Dealer e Process

By definition, geofencing is a technology that can register when someone enters a predefined geographical area. This is measured by GPS or RFID. Some marketers have begun using geofencing as a way to target coupons and ads at people within a certain distance of their dealership.

Google currently does not offer a direct way to advertise using this through adwords. They do, however, offer developers an API for creating geofences. Since use of geofences is currently limited to user-installed apps, the possibilities are still somewhat limited, but 3rd party companies offer ways to make use of geofencing to deliver deals to nearby customers.

I’m not sure when this technology is going to become available for everyone, but it would be pretty impressive to be able to serve an ad or display a coupon for your dealership when a customer is nearby, or better yet, when they’re in the waiting room for a competitor.

Kevin Drongowski
Integrated PPC

SEO and PPC have very different costs and results. For PPC/search advertising, your ROI is pretty clear. You spent X dollars, you got Y clicks, of which Z people converted. However, when it comes to SEO and content development, the results are much less clear.

When you put the time or money into writing quality content, you might not see any benefits in the first 30 or even 60 days. Over time, though, the more high quality articles you publish, the more your traffic will improve and the more it will benefit your search ranking.

This can make SEO very discouraging to pursue, but the results are far more sustainable. With PPC, you buy a click, and boom, it’s over. You either made a sale or you didn’t. With SEO, you are building authority and relevance, which will continue to drive traffic for months or even years. This makes it hard to convince someone just starting out that it’s worth the time and money, but when it comes to long term results, a strong SEO effort will pay dividends.

To Your Success,

Kevin Drongowski
PPC Manager
PGI Auto
[email protected]

(Special Finance dealer Case Study)

We have a client that is running campaigns with both adwords and bing, using the same keyword strategy, ads, and budget. Over the past 30 days, these are the results we’ve seen for this client. The campaigns are targeting “bad credit auto loans”

Adwords:
Clicks: 154
Impressions: 12,850
CTR: 1.20%
Avg. CPC: $6.69
Avg Pos.: 3.1
Cost: $1030.80

Bing:
Clicks: 183
Impressions: 15,086
CTR: 1.21%
Avg. CPC: $4.61
Avg. Pos.: 1.74
Cost: $844.45

Both campaigns have the same daily budget, so we’re assuming the difference in cost is due to lower search traffic in Bing. The results are consistent with the Bing selling points for providing a higher position at a lower cost per click. The interesting thing that user behavior is very similar in terms of click through rate.

For more detail information about SEO/SEM please contact:

Kevin Drongowski
Senior Account Manager
Integrated PPC
Questions? 425-780-2774 Call or text

The Marketing Report pulls all Pay-Per-Click (PPC) statistics from Google Analytics, Google AdWords, call tracking, and chat leads, and displays them in an easy-to-understand format so you can track the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. This report is the most transparent way to view and analyze the following data:

• The number of clicks your ads have received
• The number of impressions (appearances on a search results page) your ads have gained
• The total number of unique (new) visitors that reached your site from the ad campaigns
• The number of lead conversions that resulted from the ad campaigns
• The total amount of money spent on the campaigns
• Network specific data (Google Search vs. Google Display)

Campaign and AdGroup Breakdown

The information above is then broken down at the Campaign and Ad Group level. Campaign level data gives you an overview of how your campaign is performing based on your objectives for that campaign. For example, you can view how your New Cars campaign is performing relative to your Used Cars campaign. Within the campaign, you can view performance statistics at the Ad Group level, which allows you to get a sense for how the ads in each campaign are being searched. You can also see how much of your traffic is coming from desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, as well as what geographic areas your campaigns are targeting.

Inventory-Based Ad Analytics

If your inventory feed is synced with our Digital AMMP Inventory-Specific Advertising Platform, then the AdWords reporting will include another level of analysis. Since we are pulling vehicle-specific information from your inventory and are placing dynamic ads related to your inventory on Google, we can view exactly what kind of activity those vehicles generate from the time they hit a Google search page until the vehicle is sold. When you click the “Details” button on your inventory-specific campaign, you will be able to see a breakdown of every vehicle that is currently being advertised or that has been on the Google network and has since been sold.

Details Page Statistics

The Details page provides a statistical overview including Total Cost. You can also view the Top-Clicked Vehicle Details Pages, Clicks versus Cost for each vehicle, and whether or not that vehicle is sold or still active in your inventory. The Top 10 Viewed Makes and Models provide a great visual to the overall interest of your customers.

Contact Integrated PPC today and we will grade your PPC Program for free!