Automotive Internet Media

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Strategic Marketing Choices

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Strategic Marketing Choices

Do you know that every dollar spent on advertising does not generate the same results? With so much uncertainty in the world today, dealerships need to make the best choices possible when managing their marketing budget. Making changes to your marketing plan can be a daunting thought but considering the amount of ambiguity over the next couple months, it’s important not to discard marketing that works while retaining the redundant marketing overlap.

Data Driven Decisions

Dealers have always had to build their dealership brand, advertise inventory and sales promotions and build customer loyalty. In today’s turbulent environment, dealers must play a critical new role, they must be strategists, allocating their budget to marketing resources that produce the strongest results.

Rather than “going with your gut,” the better operators are embracing performance data when making budgetary decisions to improve efficiency and create opportunities.

Dealers are used to making savvy business decisions. They understand dealership performance data at a gut level, because that’s what they do every day. They may not know exactly how Google Analytics works and may have never looked at that data, but almost all dealerships have it setup on their website. By putting in the work required to access and understand website metrics, every dealership can make better marketing decisions. There is mounting evidence pointing to a simple fact: data-driven dealerships perform better.

The first step is to acknowledge the effectiveness of using data driven decisions in making marketing decisions. Making decisions using data is not new concept. Dealers have been using their financial statement to make decisions for years but leveraging marking data from tools like Google Analytics when making strategic marketing decisions and allocating marketing budgets is new for most dealers.

Here are just a few of the many questions about your various marketing campaigns that you can answer using tools like Google Analytics:

  • How many visitors did the campaign send to my website?
  • How many vehicles did those visitors look at? Were they visitors or auto shoppers?
  • How engaged where those visitors?
  • Did an increase a budget with a vendor produce better results?
  • What was the conversion rate for that campaign? Was it better than other campaigns?

 

There are many other additional questions that tools like Google Analytics can answer, but these are a few to help you consider the benefits of data driven decision making. Also, dealers don’t need to become experts in Google Analytics, but need to know enough to help them make the best marketing decisions possible.

Law of Diminishing “Third Party Listing Sites” Return

Leveraging third party listing sites like Autotrader.com, Cars.com, CarGurus.com, etc. will get your inventory in front of more auto shoppers. Each of these sites spend millions in paid advertising to bring visitors to their website. Many of those millions are spent buying dealership make and model keywords in the search engines, making your online advertising costs much higher.

Many dealerships leverage several of these listing sites, while ignoring the digital fundamentals of building their own online presence. They believe the more they spend in these sites, the better results they will receive. It may be true that allocating more budget to these sites will produce better visibility, but will the dealerships sell more vehicles?

We need to remember how most shoppers use these sites and how these sites work. They all vary to a certain degree, but for the most part, they are all operate with a similar model. A consumer either searches by style or by a specific make and model (miles, price, equipment, etc.). Then vehicle results are displayed by zip code. Do dealerships need to pay for extra programs like “Dealer Showcase” or “Elite” to get their inventory found by the website shoppers? Is the “upsell” juice worth the squeeze?

At some point, the dealership will find that getting the right visibility will yield the maximum number of leads from each site. If the dealership pays for more visibility, the budget will be less efficient because the proportional increase in cost will not produce more leads or vehicle sales.

This same principal works for third-party sites collectively as well. Do dealerships need to pay to have their inventory listed in Autotrader.com, Cars.com and CarGurus.com? Are these sites hitting the same consumers and not really increasing a dealership overall reach? Since most dealerships don’t have an unlimited adverting budget, it’s always a good idea to measure each channel to ensure that you are getting optimal results for your advertising budget. If you keep pumping more money into multiple third-party sites and you are not reaching different in-market shoppers, at some point your conversion rate will go down and cost per acquisition will go up. It’s probably already too high. As a result, many dealerships have elected to eliminate major third-party listing sites if they are not reaching new and different in-market shoppers.

Summary

Making strategic marketing decisions based on the right data are the specific steps dealerships need to take to deploy the right marketing campaigns. Understanding your highest returning marketing channels helps dealerships make the hard decisions on what to keep and what to let go.

As dealerships look to cut costs and improve operations, many dealership operators are turning to inventory marketing products to increase efficiencies and sell more vehicles. CarClicks Inventory Marketing products leverage multiple marketing platforms to promote the dealership’s inventory and brand. The CarClicks platform allows dealerships to build their online brand and spend less while increasing the visibility of a dealership’s inventory to in-market auto shoppers. All results are 100% trackable in Google Analytics or other analytic platforms and produce high ROI results.

3 Reasons Why Classified Sites Still Matter

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3 Reasons Why Classified Sites Still Matter

If I want to check airline ticket prices for a trip I usually start my search on Expedia. I compare flights and prices then go to the airline site and buy the ticket direct. If I’m shopping for some obscure product I usually start at Amazon. Sometimes I buy the product from Amazon. Other times I just use Amazon as a search tool and buy direct from the company’s website.
Multiple studies and stock prices indicate that I’m not alone.
The same is true for car shopping. Today’s sales funnel has arguably evolved over the years but one thing is constant. When the typical auto shopper gets low in the funnel and ready to buy, they shop automotive classified sites.
Automotive classified sites provide consumers a place to shop and compare thousands of vehicles, models, equipment and price. It’s just easier for the consumer.
Many car dealers and their team members believe Autotrader.com and Cars.com are the only sites consumers shop. Sure these two sites have built good brands in the automotive industry but they are by far not the only sites consumers shop. Actually, because of Google’s constant algorithm changes, other sites are becoming increasingly important and relevant.
Advertising only on Autotrader.com or Cars.com is like only advertising on ABC or NBC and ignoring the other 500 plus television channels. The other channels have solid audiences as well. Same with many other automotive classified sites.
Actually, there are a number of automotive classified sites that perform great.
Here are three key reasons that classified sites should be a part of every dealer’s online marketing efforts:
1. Be Everywhere
Inventory distribution to multiple automotive shopping sites allows your vehicles to be promoted to millions of more auto shoppers. Limiting your exposure to only a couple classified sites reduces the chances of a shopper finding the exact vehicle you have on your lot that meets their needs. As long as the site is sending your traffic and/or leads that are interested in your inventory there is no downside, all upside. Only more exposure.
2. Affordable
OK, I understand the escalating costs of a couple of the more well-known classified sites. However, that shouldn’t stop you from having a dedicated budget for classified advertising. It’s important to just manage your budget wisely. After getting your inventory listed in a category that actually gets it viewed, do you need to spend more? In most cases I don’t believe you do. The law of diminishing returns kicks in when you devote too much budget to one site. Spread the love. Get more sites working for you. CarClicks inventory marketing program distributes your inventory to many automotive sites and only charges you when a customer is interested in your car. You only get charged when a client is sent to your vehicle detail page on your website. This gets your inventory
3. Inventory Turn
Increasing inventory turn is just a fancy way of saying more sales. Three pillars of increasing sales are having the right inventory, at the right price, with the right exposure. Automotive classified sites provide dealers the ability to promote their inventory to millions of monthly online shoppers. The average vehicle is in stock for 53 days and gets looked at online less than 20 times but if you can get your inventory viewed online between 20 to 30 times it will turn 29% faster. And, if you can get your inventory viewed over 30 times it will turn 44% faster. Getting more visibility on your inventory is the single most important factor in making a sale.
Now for the pitch. CarClicks marketing program will pull your inventory from your website daily and promote your vehicles to a network of automotive sites that get over 20 million monthly auto shoppers. Dealerships are only charged when we link a shopper from an automotive classified site directly to your website.
I encourage dealerships to determine if their advertising budget is being leveraged properly to get the most exposure without spending more budget.

Top 3 Tips to Take Your Email Marketing from 0 to 60

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Email marketing is an important tool for dealerships to utilize to reach customers. Here are the top 3 tips from Automotive Internet Media to get the most out of your email marketing.
1. Consider your Subject Line
What would entice someone to open your email? The subject should describe the contents, but also be appealing to make the recipient want to read more. It is also important to avoid words that may make your message seem like spam.
2. Update your Database
Make sure your email list isn’t stale. This will ensure a majority of your emails are deliverable and do not bounce. Thresholds regarding bounce rates, unsubscribes, and abuse complaints have been set by Internet Service Providers. If these are exceeded, your email account may be suspended.
3. Include Thoughtful Content
Send your subscribers interesting relevant content. Featuring the month’s specials is great for advertising. However, think about including other unique sections. Some ideas include pictures from a recent community event your dealership participated in or an article about the latest cool car on the market. Providing valuable clickable links and buttons will attract the recipient to interact with your content.
If you are interested in taking your dealership’s marketing to the next level, contact Automotive Internet Media for more information about email newsletters and advertising.

How to Take Control of Your Online Presence

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When you search for your company or brand online, what pops up? Chances are, your social accounts and reviews show up first. What are people saying about you and how can you change this? Well, here’s the bad news: it’s harder and more time consuming than just a click of a mouse, but the good news is that there are steps you can take over time to improve your digital presence. Here are some tips.
1. Have a plan
Before you take a step to better your digital presence, it’s important to first have an action plan. What is the message you are trying to convey? What is your company’s mission? How are you different from your competition? What makes you better? These are all good questions to ask yourself before you begin any advertising or content creation. Otherwise, your brand could be confusing to customers and will eventually get lost in a sea of competitors.
2. Content creation
There are many different forms of content that should be used online, such as blog articles packed with links and keywords, social media posts that engage your followers, online advertising that leads the right kind of customers to your inventory or brand, and website content that ranks organically.
Blog articles should have completely original content so your site is not penalized for plagiarism or duplicate content. The articles should also include relevant keywords in order to rank organically in Google for those keywords. If images are included, make sure they have alt text associated with them so bots can scan the image and know what it is (since they cannot read images).
Social media posts should be personal, timely, and engaging. Be sure to respond to all customer comments, even negative, as this presents you in a personable light instead of as a large company with no face. Facebook advertising is also beneficial if you would like to target a specific audience with your advertisement for a very reasonable CPC.
If your online advertisements are not eye-catching and unique, they’ll be lost in the clutter. If they are search ads, they should have the proper text for a small space that will effectively attract a customer. If they are display or retargeting ads, they should stand out from the webpage and entice the customer to click the link. Focus on being creative but not going too over-the-top graphically. Oh, and don’t forget to triple check the text for spelling mistakes!
The content on your website is just as important, if more important than everything we discussed above. Your website needs to convey to Google what you do and where you do it clearly so your site will rank organically. Outdated content with mistakes and a disorganized order will harm you in the long run.
3. Packaging your message
Communicating the right message is essential across all channels so your customers know what to expect, what your mission is, and are able to decide if they would like to do business with you. With a plethora of options for customers to go to, you need to make sure you are definitely different from your peers, whether that be through pricing, customer service, or the overall customer experience at your store. In addition, be sure this message is consistent across all of your marketing channels and that your staff is educated and able to deliver this message to customers.

All of this may seem like it would take a couple of full-time employees to handle. No need to worry, though. AIM has you covered. Give us a call today to see how we can help you improve your digital presence better than you thought possible – you won’t have to worry about a thing.