In the automotive industry, the influence of social media on car buying decisions is substantial. 44% of car buyers visit a dealership’s social media accounts when deciding which automobile to purchase, and 38% of car shoppers rely on social media to assess the dealership’s friendliness and professionalism. To effectively achieve advertising goals using Facebook advertising, dealerships must have specific requirements. Let’s explore these requirements and gain insights into the automotive industry:
1. Facebook Page
A Facebook Page is an essential tool for reaching your audience across both computers and mobile devices. It allows you to showcase your business information, engage with customers through posts and messages, run targeted advertisements to increase awareness and drive sales, and obtain valuable insights based on user actions.
Facebook Page helps car dealers build a brand and community value. Also, they can execute, monitor and review content performance and set specific permissions for their employees to help manage the dealership’s page.
2. Meta Business Manager
Meta Business Manager enables advertisers to securely share assets, such as Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, audience lists, or product catalogs, among multiple team members. It controls user access and permissions for ad accounts, pages, and apps while efficiently tracking ad spending through comprehensive overviews and detailed views.
3. Meta Ads Manager
Meta Ads Manager is a centralized platform that simplifies the creation, management, and tracking of ads across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Audience Network. To create a successful ad campaign, start by selecting a campaign objective, such as “Catalog Sales” to showcase inventory and generate sales or “Reach” to maximize ad visibility within your target audience. Understanding the three key components of a Facebook ad—Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad—is crucial. At the campaign level, define your advertising objective. Within the ad set, fine-tune your strategy by setting parameters like targeting, budget, and scheduling. Finally, the ad itself consists of creative visuals to captivate and engage your audience.
4. Meta Pixel
By implementing the Meta Pixel on your website, you can target users who have visited your site with automotive inventory ads. The Meta Pixel tracks user actions, such as viewing specific vehicles or entering payment information, allowing for targeted ad delivery to potential customers more likely to purchase. To optimize the effectiveness of these ads, it is essential to integrate custom data events into different website pages. These events should include specific parameters, such as make, model, and year, to enhance the ad’s relevance. Additionally, establishing a connection between your Facebook pixel and the catalog ensures seamless functionality for a successful advertising campaign.
5. Vehicle Catalogue
A vehicle catalog is a comprehensive collection of product information for the inventory you want to advertise. While advertising your complete inventory is recommended for maximum exposure, you can also focus on specific subsets of your offerings using Vehicle Sets. Vehicle Sets allow you to curate particular groups of vehicles to feature in your ads. For example, you can create a Vehicle Catalog with your entire inventory and establish a Vehicle Set exclusively for advertising trucks, while another set can be dedicated to promoting vans.
The approach varies based on the dealership’s size. For dealers with more than 50 vehicles, add inventory by creating and uploading a vehicle feed in Catalog Manager, ensuring all required fields are included. Utilize Vehicle Sets to group vehicles together. For smaller dealers with fewer than 50 vehicles, manually add vehicles to the Vehicle Catalog in Catalog Manager, providing the necessary details for each vehicle. Apart from the size of your car dealership, you need to associate a pixel or mobile SDK with the catalog for tracking and optimization.
6. Attribution and Offline Events
Traditional marketing attribution tools often rely on cookies and last-click attribution, which may not provide a complete and accurate understanding of the impact of your ads on business outcomes. Gain valuable insights into the impact of your ads with Facebook Attribution, a powerful tool that measures and analyzes ad performance across multiple publishers, channels, and devices. Car dealers can understand the actual value of the ads and identify the most effective campaign strategies. Most dealers find a 90-day, even-credit model for vehicle sales effective, providing fair estimates across touchpoints. Also, you can combine Attribution with offline events to connect sales back to your advertising efforts. This integration lets you measure how Meta ads contribute to real-world outcomes, providing a comprehensive understanding of campaign effectiveness.
