Every decision made in your dealership revolves around money. Each day, questions like “What is the margin in that deal?”, “How should I allocate my coop funds?” and “What’s the cost of the part the porter just broke?” require careful consideration. The decision to implement Conversions API (CAPI) is no exception, and this article explains why.
Let’s first review how marketing attribution and behavioral retargeting through audience segmentation are two ways to ensure your advertising dollars are being spent in the most cost-effective way.
Accurate attribution tracking allows you to see which marketing campaigns are driving real results like showroom visits and lead submissions. With that visibility, you can focus investments in the top-performing sources instead of wasting your money on ads that aren’t as effective.
Advertising Targets
Behavioral retargeting takes efficiency a step further by letting you customize your message to specific audiences based on their online actions and interests. For example, you could show tailored ads to buyers who built a vehicle on your custom order tool but didn’t submit a lead yet. This level of personalized, relevant marketing consistently outperforms generic mass advertisements.
By utilizing these attribution and segmentation capabilities, you ensure your advertising budget is being maximized to target your most promising prospects with the right messaging at the right time.
Okay, accurately tracking attribution and shopping behaviors are obviously important things for dealers to consider, but what if you can’t? In early 2021, Apple rolled out its iOS 14 update which introduced privacy restrictions that severely limited advertisers’ ability to leverage user data for targeting and measurement purposes.
The key impacts for automotive dealers advertising on platforms like Facebook included losing data tracking across apps/websites, limitations on conversion event tracking, and shorter attribution windows for connecting ads to sales/leads.
The Force of Facebook
How widespread was this impact? Facebook has grown to become the world’s largest social media platform with over 3 billion monthly active users. With 98.5% of Facebook’s user accounts accessing the platform via mobile, this iOS user segment represents a sizable portion that could face reduced ad personalization and targeting effectiveness due to Apple’s privacy push.
Specifically, around 14.8% of Facebook’s mobile users aged 18 and over use the iOS app to access the platform. When combined with the 3.4% who use mobile web browsers on Apple devices, nearly one out of every five Facebook users, or around 19.2% of its massive audience, are impacted by the iOS 14 data and tracking limitations.
This means that roughly one-fifth of Facebook’s mobile user base are currently using iOS devices and apps where data tracking and ad personalization capabilities are being curtailed.
CAPI to the Rescue
Luckily for us, Meta has a solution to offer with CAPI, that can be easily explained with a simple analogy.
When you are selling a car, there is typically a loan process customers go through with your finance department. Details like credit information, Vehicle pricing/fees, Negotiated interest rates, Warranty/protection plans, and Trade-in value are collected and combined into a complete and unified loan package that is sent off to the banks and lenders for approval. The bank needs this information in order to properly evaluate the customer’s creditworthiness, structure the correct loan terms, and fund the deal.
The Conversions API functions in a similar way—it packages up all the critical customer data from your business systems into one unified feed that is sent directly to Facebook’s ad platform for processing.
This data packaging includes website events (like VDP visits, and finance form submissions), offline CRM data (like customer info, purchases, and service history), and mobile app activity (like browsing inventory, and messaging).
Just as the loan package gives lenders a complete profile to make real-time financing decisions, this CAPI data feed gives Facebook’s ad system a comprehensive view into each customer’s real-time activities and journey with your dealership.
Maximizing Profit
With this first-party data packaged neatly through the API integration, Facebook’s ad platform can then leverage that intelligence. Essentially, it acts as your integrated data processor—bundling all your vital customer intelligence into one constant stream that Facebook’s ad engine can readily process and act upon.
Much like how lenders wouldn’t approve deals without receiving those proper loan packages, the CAPI ensures Facebook’s ad system has all the right customer data points packaged together for making effective paid marketing decisions.
At the end of the day, the name of the game is maximizing profit. While dealers are usually expected to wear all the hats of the business and it is easy to see the financial importance of implementing CAPI here, the technical integration of these concepts can present significant challenges and complexities.
Consider seeking the assistance of expert professionals to ensure a seamless implementation of CAPI so you can focus on moving more metal and dominating your DMA!