Facebook data reveals that out of every five minutes people spend online with mobile devices, one is spent on Facebook. That’s 20 percent of mobile web use, and it can be a gold mine for dealers – if they leverage CRM data and it’s done methodically. It’s amazing how crafty marketers can take advantage of CRM data to blow up business in the showroom, on the service drive, and at the parts counter with some strategic social media marketing.
Facebook ad spends skyrocketed in the second quarter this year to more than $9 Billion – that’s with a ‘B.’ It increased nearly 50 percent from the same period last year. As the dollars have risen, so have the complexities of reaching the right people. To Facebook’s credit, the number of tools available to dealers to connect with existing and future customers have also risen. Our session at Digital Dealer 23 will show you how to combine that with the big data in CRM tools and magically boost car sales, as well as your service and parts business.
Facebook has grown to be the second-largest source of paid traffic behind Google AdWords. And it can cost WAY LESS, for now. One of the greatest marketing tools to come along in a great while is the ability to build custom audiences in Facebook. There are four ways to target your ad to specific Facebook users on a granular level. These include:
- Upload a customer file – that can be used to target everything from unsold leads to customers due for vehicle maintenance
- Retarget people who visited your website – by installing Facebook’s Pixel tracking code
- App activity – people who used an app in various ways (not common to auto industry)
- Facebook engagement – connect with people who liked or commented on your content, or attended an event
Although Facebook doesn’t share email or other contact details about users, you can use YOUR data to connect with users. This is a huge opportunity, as nearly everyone is on Facebook, and most are also using it on mobile devices.
Go one or two steps further
Not only can you target exact people on Facebook based on several criteria, but you can also ask Facebook to serve your ads to SIMILAR users. This is called a lookalike audience, and can be created based on a custom audience, pixel data or fans of your page. Facebook will connect your content with users who share interests, demographics and behaviors. This may be people who attend little league games, drive pickups or post about baby diapers.
If you opt to target website page visitors, you can build a lookalike audience like ALL the visitors, or just those that visit a specific page, like service specials, or something like ‘Truck Month’ – you DO have a Truck Month page, don’t you?
You can just click the button and let Facebook use its digital magic to choose the metrics by which the audience is selected, or you can use parameters of your choosing. A key Facebook tool that can be a great information source is AUDIENCE INSIGHTS. Some of these include:
- Gender and age
- Status of relationship
- Level of education
- Job Role
- Top categories
- Page likes
- Top Cities
- Frequency of activities
- Device users
This data is actually matched with third party info to reveal if someone is an IN-MARKET CAR BUYER, their income, home ownership and value, spending habits, and much more.
Dealers can also reach beyond just the data within their CRM and extend it out to a ‘lookalike’ audience, with traits similar to those brought in from CRM. In fact, Facebook itself recommends this as the most effective way to connect advertising with both a high quality audience (from a targeting standpoint) as well as a high scale of interest compared to other web advertising options.
Our session will give attendees a real, actionable ‘how-to’ for pulling data from CRM and targeting these prospects or customers through social media. It will have step-by-step instructions to launch extremely effective Facebook campaigns. Not only is it a ‘how-to’, but just as important, it is a ‘WHAT TO.’ We will share specific data sets to pull from CRM, as well as where and when to use them. As a bonus, we’ll show how targeted messages from CRM can also make a dramatic improvement in online review scores. Don’t miss this session!
Register now for Digital Dealer 23 (Sept. 18-20th in Las Vegas) to start building your agenda by choosing from more than 100 educational sessions!
Tom LaPointe is a dynamic presenter who started out building websites at Johns Hopkins University in the 90’s. Tom’s diverse background includes more than a decade of dealership internet experience, as well as marketing work in the military and academia. His high-energy style and background in retail make him uniquely qualified to help dealers understand the potential of digital marketing tools. An accomplished magazine writer, Tom is also the author of “Modern Sport Cars” and contributor in two “Chicken Soup for the Soul” editions. Tom has worked as a manager in both the sales and service departments, and has been a part of the CarChat24 team for more than four years, where he handles marketing and social media. He has a master’s degree in marketing, and extensive digital marketing experience.
Jarrod Kilway is Director of Digital Strategy and Solutions at Germain Automotive Partnerships. He has extensive automotive experience in dealerships, and with VinSolutions, gives him unique insights into sales and digital marketing. With more than a decade in retail management, he has a strong grasp of the latest technologies that connect the dealership to shoppers, as well as the processes within a store that generate more sales. He is a high-energy speaker who connects with audiences.
