According to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), auto dealership service and parts sales in the U.S. grew to more than $91 billion in 2014, and service revenue averaged nearly $6 million per dealership. At 46 percent gross profit, this business was extremely profitable for many dealer groups.

So, when I am speaking to dealers throughout the country, I am often surprised by how little attention they devote to this important part of their business in their digital marketing strategy.

Here are a few of the tips to capitalize on service revenue opportunities:

Develop a unique service landing page

Measurement – Without a landing page, it is very difficult to measure the results of any digital marketing effort. However, a service landing page immediately creates the opportunity to measure unique visitors, bounce rates and many other key performance indicators (KPIs) through free tools such as Google Analytics.

Segmentation – Web analytics can be overwhelming, and can quickly lead to data overload. By creating unique landing pages for each functional area of the dealership (service, new car sales, etc.), the data can actually be tied to KPIs and business goals. This segmented data can now be connected to the business goals and objectives of each profit center to tell the digital marketing return-on-investment (ROI) story.

Testing – A unique landing page creates new opportunities for A/B testing, which allows a company to split the traffic for a web page into two user groups. User group A is sent to one version of the page, while user group B is sent to another. This allows the dealership to test potential improvements to the site by comparing the analytics of each version of the page. For example, a dealer could test customer interest in a seasonal tune-up special versus an oil change special by featuring each on different versions of the page.

Utilize Pay-Per-Click

Once the dealer creates a unique landing page, pay-per-click (PPC) digital marketing campaigns offer the opportunity to take their results to the next level. Popular PPC services such as Google AdWords drive additional traffic to the service landing page through paid listings on search engine results pages. The popularity of PPC ties back to the classic three R’s of marketing: Relevance, Reach and ROI. Since PPC is completely scalable to any of these.

Develop an All-Makes Strategy and Message

In addition to the $91 billion of service performed by franchised new car dealers last year, more than $200 billion in service is completed each year in the independent aftermarket. The good news is that it is more affordable than ever for dealers to target these service channels with effective digital marketing.

Dealerships that add an all-makes strategy into their digital marketing plan to capture just a fraction of this market will be well-positioned for growth. An all-makes digital marketing strategy also support new vehicle sales conquest opportunities, as well as pre-owned sales.

For more information, visit strongautomotive.com.