In the following interview, Bob Lanham, Facebook’s head of automotive retail, takes us inside of their Dealer Playbook, sharing what the resource is, what prompted it, and the focus behind its core strategies. They also share best practices for measuring success, offer a look into trends, as well as new features for 2020 dealer ad campaigns, and provide an overview of their different ad formats.
Dealer Magazine: Before diving in, we’d like to start with a brief intro for readers. After numerous responses to Facebook’s editorial in Dealer Magazine, and a growing number of questions and requests for insight into specific topic areas, we thought, what could be better than taking you right to the source each month. So, with great excitement, we’re pleased to introduce you to the first of an ongoing column where we sit down with Facebook each month to tackle key topics and interests of readers.
Lastly, a special “thank you” to Facebook for their ongoing partnership with Digital Dealer and Dealer Magazine, as a brand leader who continues to lend valuable educational insight to support dealerships.
Facebook’s Automotive Playbook for Dealers
Dealer Magazine: We noticed Facebook recently released a Dealer Playbook. Can you tell us more about this and what prompted the initiative?
Facebook: As we spent more time talking to dealers and hearing about their challenges, we recognized that most dealers were very interested in using Facebook to meet their marketing objectives, but they often didn’t know how to get started.
We’ve created the Facebook Dealer Playbook specifically for the dealer community. It provides the essential resources and marketing strategies to help drive awareness of the dealership and move metal.
Foundational Dealer Strategies
Dealer Magazine: How did you come up with the four core strategies that the Dealer Playbook focuses on?
Facebook: These strategies are not new strategies that Facebook created — they are strategies that dealers have been running for years against their marketing campaigns. However, many dealers weren’t aware of the Facebook solutions available that can be mapped back to their strategies, so the Dealer Playbook guides them through how they can drive business on our platforms.
The Dealer Playbook is organized into four industry-proven strategies to help dealers:
- Why Buy Here … the dealership’s brand
- Ready to Buy … reaching in-market shoppers
- Customers for Life …
retention/loyalty using CRM remarketing - Events … promoting your events
Measuring Success
Dealer Magazine: How can dealers track Facebook ad performance to ensure ads are driving the business metrics they care most about?
Facebook: We like to say, measure to profitability, not proxies. And for dealers, we know that sales and repair orders are the key metrics they’re looking to drive. We can tell a dealer how many people saw their ads, how much they spent to deliver those ads, and of those people who saw their ads, how many of them came into the dealership to purchase a vehicle or service their car, click or no click. This real ROI approach allows the dealer to truly understand their profitability of ad spend, one of their top expenses, to sales and/or repair orders.
Trends & New Features for 2020 Ad Campaigns
Dealer Magazine: Are there any new products or features that we can expect to see in 2020?
Facebook: Expect to hear more from us on how dealers can use Facebook products such as Marketplace and Messenger to implement their key strategies. Marketplace is now one of the most popular places in the U.S. to shop online for used vehicles, with more than 20 million people clicking on vehicle listings each month. Messenger ads help people start conversations with dealerships, which is powerful, considering 69% of consumers say that being able to message a business helps them feel more confident about the brand .1
We’ll also be announcing some additional partnerships similar to the CDK Social Connect. These partnerships will enable automation of turnkey solutions such as dealer inventory ads, CRM retargeting, and measuring back to sales or repair orders.
Facebook Ad Formats
Dealer Magazine: What are some different Facebook ad formats/types dealerships should be using?
Facebook: Our ad solutions provide rich ways to drive real business results with ad formats that are designed to inform and engage in a mobile experience. The following are some notable ad formats (check out the Dealer Playbook for a more exhaustive list):
Automotive Inventory Ads (formerly Dynamic Ads): Our system does the heavy lifting and automatically provides the most relevant vehicle from your inventory to an in-market customer that is located near your dealership. CDK, a leading auto dealership technology provider, leveraged Automotive Inventory Ads to boost new vehicle sales for their dealer client by 7% year over year using this ad unit.
- Video: Dealers can create videos that showcase new car models, behind-the-scenes footage or driver case studies to raise awareness about the dealership. When that video is optimized for mobile, we see a greater impact — 1.5X increase in video view time and 1.8X increase in completed views.2
- Facebook Stories / Instagram Stories: Connect with auto consumers in an immersive environment. Findings show that Stories inspire interest and action throughout the consumer journey with 62% of people stating they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.3
- Instant Experience: This full-screen mobile unit provides a rich digital brochure for people to watch videos, swipe through photos in a carousel, and schedule a test drive. Audi saw a 17% increase in brand favorability and a 9% increase across shopping actions using Instant Experiences.
- Event Responses: Create an event from your dealer’s Facebook page, then spread the word about it to ensure it is a success.
Sources:
1. “Motivations, Mindsets and Emotional Experiences in Messaging (vs. Feed)” by Sentient Decision Science (Facebook-commissioned survey of 8,156 people in BR, GB, IN and the US), June 2018. Research refers to people surveyed who use messaging apps daily and have messaged a business in the past three months using one of their most commonly used apps.
2. Facebook internal analysis; Success: Metric showing statistically significant uplift at 90% confidence level; Ad Recall: 60 Studies; Brand Awareness: 18 studies; Message Association: 38 studies.
3. “Why Stories is a Format that Can Help Marketers Promote Brands.” Facebook IQ, 31 Oct. 2018
