Automotive Internet Media

Design

4 Ways to Effectively Utilize Paid Social Media Ads to Promote Black Friday Events

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If you have an exciting sale going on for Black Friday an effective way to help spread the word to in-market auto shoppers is through paid social media advertising. Keep reading to learn keys to setting up successful paid social campaigns for events.

1. Identify Your Target Audience(s)

Social Media has become a powerful way to reach consumers because of its abundance of targeting options. Most platforms have the ability to segment by geo, gender, age, interests and more. Many (such as Facebook) will let you upload your own custom audience lists to reach specific platform users. Identifying a key target audience and potentially even a couple sub-audiences will help you use these targeting options efficiently.

2. Make Sure Your Creative is Formatted Properly

You may have a professionally designed poster or newspaper spread for your event that look spectacular. However, on the web that same pieces will appear completely different. It is important to have alternate sizes made for social media in the correct pixel sizes. Also it is ideal to have 20% or less text to be optimized for Facebook. Properly sizing images by placement will prevent logos and text from being cut off and present your event in a professional manner, which will ultimately increase your level of engagement.

3. Consider the Customer Journey

What path will consumers take before they show up at your dealership’s sales event? They may be exposed to some of your other marketing efforts such as print or TV. At what stage of their decision making will they be touched by your social ad? Considering external factors while you are setting up social ad campaigns can help you be strategic. 

4. Don’t Set It and Forget It

Once you have your ad campaigns set up it is important to keep monitoring them. If you leave them running without checking you may miss post comments asking you a question about the sale or the opportunity to reallocate funds from one campaign to a better performing one. Conducting extra optimization and management post-launch will make the campaigns as successful as possible, thus bringing in as many leads and as much foot traffic to you as possible. 

 

A solid paid social media strategy can bring your Black Friday event marketing to the next level. Need social media help? Learn more about our automotive social media services.

The dos and don’ts of creating effective website banners

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With deals changing every few weeks in the automotive world, you have keep your website banners updated by displaying  your offers clearly while using the best graphics. If not, the viewer may be less likely to stay on your website or give you their business. People nowadays start their car search online before anything else, so it’s important to keep all your deals updated.
Be timely.
Although some dealers may not get their monthly deals from the OEM until a few days into each month, it’s important to make sure your dealership is removing deals off your site when they expire. If they aren’t taken down in a timely fashion, customers may get confused if you can’t offer them the same deal they’ve seen on your website. We suggest you let your internet provider (or whoever is in charge of maintaining your site) know when to take down the expired banner deals. It’s also a great idea to have a few generic banners on the site just so there’s something live in between switching out current deals.
Be clear.
The deals should not only be current, but they should be clear and prominent. If you add too much text or distracting items to the banners, then they may get overlooked. Customers are less likely to stay on your website if they don’t easily see or understand what your dealership currently has to offer. Each banner also needs a clear call to action button prompting the shopper to look at your current online inventory.
Be bold.
A banner also needs to have the best graphics variable. If a car is pixilated or a picture is incorrect, you could be pushing a customer away from your dealership and towards your competition. The vibrant colored cars usually look best on banners and they also help draw attention to them.
If you make sure to follow all these simple website banner guidelines, your website will not only flow better, but it will look better. The more appealing your site looks, the more clients you will draw in. At AIM, we make sure to achieve all these points when helping you update your website banners. Give us a call to learn more.