As you already know, Paid Search advertising is a staple of every car dealership’s digital marketing efforts. I don’t need to sit here like Captain Obvious and tell you how important search engine marketing is, or why you should be investing your marketing dollars in Google and Bing to drive more visits, leads and sales.
Also, as you are surely aware, there is no shortage of vendors who will manage your SEM campaigns on your behalf. But just because you have an abundance of choice in providers, that doesn’t mean they all offer equal return on your investment.
When it comes down to it, here at Dealer Inspire, we feel we have the edge over the competition because we have not one, but two! not-so-secret weapons at our disposal that power the ad campaigns for our clients with proven results.
I’m talking about 1) FUEL™, our super-intelligent, dynamic inventory advertising platform and 2) our Paid Search team who uses FUEL℠ to ensure that your dealership is maximizing the ROI of your paid search spend.
In fact, dealers who partner with us see a 154% increase in click thru rate, an 86% increase in total lead rate and a 48% decrease in total cost per lead compared to their previous provider.
Look, I’m not trying to get pitchy with it here, but FUEL is one impressive piece of technology. For those of you who prefer to watch videos over reading, check out this video starring Cara Garvey, DI Paid Search Director, for the lowdown on how FUEL will improve your paid search ROI.
And for those who like to read, lest the volume on the video give the wrong impression to your co-workers that you’re watching hilarious YouTube videos instead of working, here are some words for your consideration…
FUEL YOUR DIGITAL ADVERTISING
FUEL is our dynamic advertising program that maximizes the impact of your ad budget by creating customized, highly-targeted text ads and keyword lists based on real-time inventory data and conditional logic. Here are five ways FUEL can help you improve the ROI of your paid search campaigns.
1. Real-Time Inventory Sync
FUEL is connected to your inventory feed via real-time API. That means once a vehicle is sold and comes off your website, it’s also no longer available in FUEL for use in ad campaigns. That removes the potential of an ad being created on a vehicle that’s no longer available which could lead to waste in your spend.
Conversely, FUEL updates instantly when we receive inventory. That means we can get right to marketing your vehicle without delay!
2. Bid Adjustments Based on Vehicle Age
Have you ever been a part of a birthday celebration for one of the used vehicles in your inventory? Yeah, it’s not fun “celebrating” the fact that one of your vehicles has been sitting on your lot for the past 365 days without a buyer.
FUEL will help you combat the problem of aged inventory by automatically bidding up when a user’s query matches an aged unit in your inventory. Increasing the bid to insure a top placement will drive more traffic to that matching VDP, thus giving it a better chance of selling long before it even turns 90 days old, let alone a year.
3. Bid Adjustments Based on VDP Views
Another way FUEL can positively impact your ROI is by bidding up, or down, based on VDP views. We know that there’s a strong correlation between how often a vehicle is viewed on your website in relation to how quickly it will sell. Because of the real-time Dealer Inspire ecosystem API sync, FUEL has access to inventory analytics to recognize which vehicles have been receiving plenty of views on its own, and which vehicles could use more eyeballs on them.
For those vehicles that naturally have a good VDP view rate, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to dedicate a substantial part of your budget towards marketing these vehicles in search ads. FUEL can be setup to recognize which vehicles meet this threshold, and automatically decrease the bids to make sure that you aren’t overspending on a vehicle that’s probably going to be sold in the next few days.
On the flip side, for those vehicles that just aren’t getting the VDP views they deserve, FUEL can dynamically bid up for searches that match these vehicles. This then gives more exposure to those less seen vehicles by increasing their VDP views, which in turn gives them a better chance to sell. Even though you’re spending more to bid up on these vehicles, your ROI will still be improved because those vehicles will be spending less time on your lot.
4. Increase Bids Based on Keyword Intent
When a user is on Google or Bing and is searching for a vehicle using a string of descriptive keywords in a query, such as 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LTZ Z71 For Sale, that person is VERY specific in what they want. You have that EXACT vehicle on your lot. There is no reason your ad shouldn’t be right in front of them!
FUEL can recognize these queries and will automatically bid up to insure the ad for your matching vehicle is served to that user. Not only is the matching vehicle in your inventory displayed, but the ad copy will also include the information that the customer was searching for (trim, specs, features, mileage, CARFAX One-Owner, etc.) to create a highly relevant and engaging ad.
5. Our Paid Search Team
FUEL℠ is super-intelligent and works on your behalf in all the ways I talked about about above. But make no mistake, your campaigns aren’t automatically created by a machine. Our Paid Search team builds from scratch, monitors, tests and reports on every single campaign for each one of our clients. You can rest assured knowing that our Google Ads Certified teammates are constantly on the job looking to further optimize your campaigns.
We feel the results we see for our clients speak for themself. Want to get the full demo of FUEL™? Fill out the form below, and someone from our team will reach out to you and set up a time to connect. Just make sure your socks are pulled up high, because we’re going to do our best to knock ’em off!
