By Peter Gary, Founder & CEO, Pinnacle Advertising

According to American Statesman, Fredrick Wilcox, “Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base while keeping your foot on first.” This adage can apply to so many aspects of life, but I think it serves best to illustrate advances in communication, particularly, digital communication.

I would like you to think for a moment about progress or, more specifically, how the world would look today without progress. We might be flying on wooden planes instead of commercial airliners, central home heating would be whatever effectiveness we could get out of a fireplace, horsepower would be provided by actual horses, not performance engines, and, most of all, communications might have stalled had the less-efficient telegraph or smoke signals  never progressed to the power of digital messaging we have today.

Today’s auto dealer needs to understand that it is progress that is driving the shift from traditional advertising to digital communication. What worked yesterday does not necessarily work today, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Digital advertisers have been able to confuse smart individuals at the dealership level simply because some of the technology used in digital media is brand new. Dealers need to understand that they have everything in place for cost-effective digital efforts, they just need to utilize the tools effectively.

There are so many ways to track, engage, and reach consumers now that dealers need to decide the right platform to capture their new and existing customer base and then continue the conversation with them.

How? The road to digital messaging is pretty easy to get to, but you have to know where to start:

Understanding your audience

That is, how to use data and analytics to hone in on your true target market. Many forms of digital advertising currently rely on intent-based targeting, but how is this information captured/audited? It is typically not being reviewed by humans and, as such, bots will read and analyze a user’s web activity and try to place it into specific audience groups.

These audience groups will typically consist of many users who have no intentions of purchasing vehicles. For example, an auto enthusiast will regularly search for new models, review the specs, read reviews, even build them online, without having any intent to buy. These users would all be typically identified as being “in-market” and, as a result, would be targeted by many forms of digital advertising. Understanding this, and strategies to combat this, will greatly improve dealerships ROAs.

Understanding your media

Do you truly understand how your digital advertising works? Do you understand how your website functions? Digital advertisers have been able to confuse smart individuals at the dealership level simply because some of the technology media is brand new. I’ll show the audience how easy it will be for them to identify the key metrics that they need to understand and focus on in order to maximize their returns.

Cost Per Click (CPC), Impressions, Frequency, and Reach are all metrics that allow advertisers to refine their campaigns and make necessary changes. Do they really matter? They do if you want to avoid the acronym wormhole. What is needed is a focus on the objective and the objective only. Is the user clicking your ad the same user who is buying a vehicle? Maybe. But a user clicking your ad message, contacting the dealership, and arranging a test drive is a much better indicator. Identify your key objectives (contacts, phone calls, etc.) and hold advertisers to those KPIs. 

Hold EVERYONE/EVERYTHING accountable

Coming from a marketing perspective, I can tell you that sometimes the media isn’t the issue. Embracing digital transformation means tracking every call and having them all recorded so you can see if the leads are quality and if your sales team is handling these calls properly. If you are directing traffic to your website, monitor this traffic closely. How quickly does your website load? A high bounce rate could indicate a poorly optimized website. Look at how users are flowing through your website. High page drop-off rates could also indicate areas of weakness.

There is more to it than this, but when it comes to digital communications, it is a question of how efficient you want to get. Traditional advertising is down, and digital platforms are coming up. You have new platforms and new ways to begin and continue customer engagement, as well as new ways to convert leads into sales. However, in order to grab this ring, you need to move towards it. In the end, there are really only two options; make progress or make excuses.