For years, newspaper ads and trade magazines helped automotive manufacturers and their vast network of dealerships move vehicles from the showroom to buyers’ home garages. Today, the rate of digital proliferation into every facet of our lives means that this traditional way of reaching potential buyers is no longer effective. By implementing Facebook lead generation ads, video ads, boosted posts and traffic ads, dealerships can optimize their digital marketing efforts. These tools can track the leads per ad through the Facebook pixel tool and Google Analytics. More than one million possible targets in small to medium-sized markets can be reached with a conservative Facebook ad budget by using a mixture of auto intenders and custom audiences.
Here are some of the social media and digital advertising tactics to include:
Establish Lead Acquisition Goals & Tracking
Thanks to auto intender data and custom segmentation for audiences in various areas, dealerships large and small can potentially reach over one million users on Facebook. Geolocational-based advertisements are an enormously successful tool and allow dealerships to target and capture individuals that are not only actively engaged in mobile devices but are also in a purchasing mindset. By utilizing trackable links in addition to Google Analytics goals, dealerships are able to record the traffic generated by these ads and capture leads.
Define Targeting: Location, Auto Intenders or Spanish-Speaking
By utilizing Google Analytics and Facebook Insights dealerships can study and analyze the audience within a specific targeted area. Dealerships can use these tools to better understand their demographics within local markets. By analyzing age, gender, income level, occupation, family size, etc., it can be easier to recognize the wants and needs of the local consumers.
By segmenting local markets into groups established by demographic characteristics, dealerships can position ads to precisely influence specific audiences. Through research, many dealerships will find that a bilingual community surrounds them. Before digital marketing, these audiences were challenging to reach through general marketing practices. This information can give dealerships the opportunity to develop an ad campaign specifically designed to influence these otherwise untargeted potential customers through Facebook segmentation. By utilizing Hispanic advertising and serving ads to potential consumers who speak Spanish or who are bilingual, dealerships can provide a more customized user experience via social media and throughout the buying process.
Social Media Content Strategy
After proper information about the various local markets is collected and analyzed, dealerships can integrate their findings into a social media strategy. By having a well-planned strategy that incorporates the values and needs of the local audience, dealerships can notice a significant impression increase on their content. In total, dealerships can earn approximately 2,000 website clicks through a single campaign.
Through the use of a Facebook Pixel, dealerships are able to capture and retarget ads directed at individuals that previously visited the dealership website as well as track leads generated via individual Facebook advertisements. This targeting can be layered with additional descriptors based upon a preexisting client list and sourced individuals that had similar interests to create custom audiences.
Determine Type of Facebook Ads to Use
Launched in 2017, Facebook’s dynamic creative is a tool in the updated Ads Manager that automatically delivers the best combinations of an advertiser’s creative assets. According to Facebook, it works by finding the best ad creative combinations by taking the components of an ad (images, videos, descriptions, titles, CTAs, etc.) and running different combinations of these assets across audiences, ensuring a user’s audience is always served the best performing creative.
Facebook recently began deploying updates to its dynamic creative ads platform for automotive dealerships. These updates give them a lead-gen feature, which feeds leads directly into a given dealership’s CRM system. Specifically, the updated ad product allows auto advertisers to upload vehicle lists that include vehicle details like the make, model, year, price, mileage, trim and vehicle location. This update further refines the creative ad tool, giving dealerships more control over the ad’s lead generation options.
Manage Reputation & Reviews
Customers often post about their experience on social media. Dealerships should use this as an opportunity to increase their brand reputation and awareness. Share positive reviews left online by satisfied customers across all platforms of social media. This creates a sense of appreciation to loyal, happy customers. For negative reviews, dealerships should post public responses and request to get in contact with the customer. This assures future customers that their experience is valued and gives an impression of adequate customer service standards through the use social media.
From seasonal sales to custom events, dealerships that utilize a Facebook advertising and social media strategy can boost visibility and generate interest among auto intenders looking to purchase a new or pre-owned vehicle or schedule a service appointment. Even with a conservative budget, page impressions, and click rates, dealerships can see a significant improvement by optimizing ad tools readily available to dealerships.
About the Author
Valerie Jennings is the CEO and founder of Jennings Social Media Marketing and Viral Bolt Media with offices in the Kansas City area and Irvine, California. Her agency, founded in 2003, specializes in automotive digital marketing and various other industries. She is an early adopter of social media since 2005, started her first agency at age 24 and is a serial entrepreneur. EMAIL: [email protected]
