Search Engine Marketing. Search Advertising. Paid Search. Dig Ad. PPC. Whatever you call it — placing online advertisements in search engine results has been a strategy embraced by car dealers for about as long as there have been search engines to place ads on.
That said, because search engine advertising has been a tried and true tactic in a holistic digital marketing strategy, it can come with a false sense of security that it “just works” all on its own. Unfortunately that’s not true in today’s digital environment. In fact, if you’re not actively monitoring and adjusting your campaigns, you could end up wasting an extraordinary amount of your budget on unoptimized or poorly targeted campaigns.
Also, if you’ve only been focused on Google Ads all these years, you’re missing out on reaching a significant, local, in-market car shopping audience that uses other search engines to find their next vehicle and dealer to buy from (more on that below).
A great example of what can happen when you’re not actively inspecting your SEM campaigns was revealed by Brian Pasch back in 2021 when he dropped a comprehensive report exposing that stunningly few sales opportunities were being generated from the massive amounts of money car dealers are investing in their search engine marketing efforts.
The biggest revelation was that, after analyzing 1 million phone calls which originated from call extensions on sales-focused Google Search Ads, only 12.8% of those hard conversions turned out to be actual sales opportunities — with the vast majority going to dealerships’ service or parts departments.
Considering that the report estimates that nearly 93% of all Google Ads budgets are paid for by variable operations (sales), and not fixed operations (service & parts), you can see how uncovering this data would have an unnerving impact on car dealers.
HOW DOES DEALER INSPIRE COMPARE?
At Dealer Inspire we take a lot of pride in our ability to maximize ROI for dealers on search — we started out as a search marketing agency after all — and it’s something we take pride in to this day. Our team and tech are known for effectively turning our dealers’ investments in sales campaigns into sales opportunities. In fact, our results were totally flipped from the report with 88% of the engagement on our new and used sales campaigns leading to new and used sales actions.
This isn’t about bragging rights though. Brian’s report was, as usual, a really insightful and important look at how dealer budgets are being wasted by poor digital marketing execution — and whether you’re with us or not, we want to help you execute the most effective search engine marketing strategy possible.
So let’s break down why these wasteful campaigns exist, how you can fix them, and then how you can expand your search presence beyond Google’s walled garden.
WHAT AGENCIES ARE DOING WRONG
There’s a lot to unpack here. We’re going to stay high-level and talk about the broad keyword targeting that burns through budgets, but there are many variables throughout the journey that add up — from ongoing campaign optimization, to the relevancy and quality of the ads themselves, to the landing page experience, to your website’s engagement tracking, to your “conversion” reporting, and then back to the beginning as those “conversions” feed back into your optimization.
Bottomline: you need a partner that:
Handles your campaigns with love and care
Has the technology to target ready-to-buy shoppers
Can ensure seamless experiences and attribution from your ads to your website
Can transparently report on the real-world outcomes of your investment.
Let’s get into the specifics.
GOING BROAD IS BURNING BUDGETS
So what does a wasteful search ad look like? It probably looks like the one below.
On the surface, this ad seems pretty legit, right? That’s because it is. It’s not the ad itself that’s the problem here. When you dive deeper into the campaign, you’ll see that this dealer is bidding on the very broad term Hyundai Dealer Near Me. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s a keyword you’d want coverage for if you can meet the following conditions:
You’re already maximizing your paid search budget for low-funnel, ready-to-buy keywords
Your Fixed Operations department is helping cover the budget for that campaign.
Because you don’t know the intent behind a broad search like that, you need to understand that the searcher could be looking to buy a car, but they’re just as likely to have a service related question.
With over half of the calls from the ads in these broad “dealer near me” campaigns going to service, running a 100% sales focused ad, powered only by the budget of your sales department, reduces your ROI by taking away valuable sales opportunities from your sales team.
You obviously want to be present in the SERP for broad queries like {OEM} Dealer {City} or {OEM} Dealer Near Me, but unless you can afford to pay for all those searches forever, the top of the funnel is where you want to rely on strong SEO and Local SEO services to earn those clicks for free.
With a holistic SEO Strategy in play, you can achieve top rankings in Google’s Local Map Pack and Organic Rankings, giving you the highest level of visibility possible for applicable queries without running ads. The more you invest in your organic presence, the more efficient you can be over the long-term.
WE HAVE THE ANTIDOTE FOR WASTED GOOGLE AD SPEND
So you’re probably wondering, when it comes to paid search advertising, what is Dealer Inspire doing different from everyone else? Well, it really comes down to the fact that our tech and team are able to dynamically focus on really low-funnel searches that indicate a shopper is ready to buy, and then match them with vin-specific vehicles in your inventory, in real time.
We’re so dialed in with the intent behind what a searcher is trying to accomplish with their query, that there’s very little room to mistakenly have a conversion result in anything other than a sales opportunity or engagement.
“Sales campaigns should be optimized for your cost per sales opportunity (CSO). So wait at the bottom of the funnel for shoppers that are just about to buy a vehicle that you have in stock, and then pounce. Our tech makes that snap decision in real-time. ”
Cara Garvey, Director, Media Enablement @ Dealer Inspire
Our tech can even make instant strategic bidding decisions based on factors like how long a specific vehicle has been in your inventory to efficiently accelerate your turn rate.
SEARCH SMARTER THAN GOOGLE WITH INVENTORY SEARCH ADS ON CARS.COM
Look, Google is smart. But it’s not that smart. It can only provide answers to questions that users specifically ask. It can’t read your mind…at least not yet (and hopefully never). Meaning, if a consumer searches for a Ford Dealer Near Me, Google can’t tell you if that searcher’s intent is sales or service related. But it can serve the searcher a dealer’s available ad and entice that person to tap to call. Again, as we just stated above, this is why there’s so much wasted search advertising spend in auto.
The real opportunity to expand your search presence lies outside of Google. We know that when consumers visit Cars.com, they’re searching to buy a vehicle, not to service one. Because Dealer Inspire is part of the Cars.com family, when you choose us as your digital advertising partner, we’re able to expand your dealership’s search presence beyond Google to showcase your relevant inventory as the first result for Cars.com shoppers who are searching to buy your make and model.
With Inventory Search Ads, not only will you be displaying your most relevant VINs at the top of the search results, but you’ll also be accessing a local, in-market audience of car shoppers that are twice as more likely to buy1 than all other audiences. Plus, when a Cars.com shopper clicks or taps on your inventory search ad, they’ll be taken directly to your VDP on your website.
Combine that with the knowledge that almost half of the shoppers on Cars.com plan to buy within the next 30 days2, and you have the most powerful way to get more bang for your search bucks. How much bang can you expect? Early adopters of Inventory Search Ads on Cars.com, like our partners at Fred Martin Nissan, have experienced impressive results that have yielded a significantly lower cost per click and cost per lead compared to their Google Ads campaigns.
Inventory Search Ads & Google SEM vehicle campaign data 11/15/22 – 11/30/22
In addition, it’s worth stating that in the previously mentioned report regarding wasted Google Ad spend, Brian Pasch provides comprehensive and in-depth coverage detailing how a third party marketplace like Cars.com is going to consist of an audience that is ready, and more likely to buy, than those who are using Google search — so why not make that connection?
START WINNING SALES OPPORTUNITIES
Dealer Inspire is your trusted partner for implementing a search strategy that maximizes your ROI. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you improve your search campaigns, reduce wasted spend, and connect with more local, in-market shoppers — please drop us a line. We’d love to connect with you!
As we head toward the end of 2022, it’s time to look ahead and see what industry factors may continue to affect car dealer inventory levels headed into the new year. With the global chip shortage being a main driver of reduced inventory, it is positive to see that chip production is expected to increase by 20% in 2023. However, even with the increased output, the automotive industry will still lose up to 3 million units of planned production1.
With only small inventory gains to be made via your new vehicle channel, that means there is no room to relax your vehicle acquisition efforts. Even though you may have been prioritizing vehicle acquisition during the shortage, there are always new tool and tactics that you can add to your overarching strategy to make it more effective, and increase your ROI.
So with that in mind, we’ve updated our Ultimate Vehicle Acquisition Strategy Guide with our newest and best tips to help ensure you’re not missing out on any opportunity to keep your lot stocked with fresh vehicles.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Be sure you keep this guide bookmarked — not just for easy access when you need it, but also because we constantly update it with fresh tech + tactics that’ll help ensure your vehicle acquisition game is always on point.
THE POWER OF “WHY SELL”
A trend that has been steadily climbing upwards all year long is consumer interest in selling their vehicle. This is mostly due to market conditions raising the value of pre-owned vehicles across the board, thus allowing consumers the ability to off-load or consolidate the number of vehicles in their family fleet and get paid handsomely for it.
When we look at the monthly estimated search volume for the most popular keywords related to selling your vehicle, the trend is evident. This is absolutely something that you can capitalize on to ensure your dealership is top of mind for local consumers who are thinking about selling their current ride.
With just a little effort, your dealership can provide the perfect local selling experience, backed by a connected marketing campaign to drive awareness which leads to more successful vehicle acquisitions.
PROVIDE REAL CASH OFFERS WITH ACCU-TRADE
In order to be successful (and profitable!) with your vehicle acquisition efforts, you have to provide the right experience on your website that builds trust and confidence with the vehicle owners that you’re targeting.
While providing your website visitors with an estimated value range of what their vehicle might be worth has been the standard dealer experience for years, technology combined with the sheer amount of available market data has evolved to the point where you can give more than an estimate — you can give consumers a real cash offer for their vehicle.
Accu-Trade has the technology that integrates across the Dealer Inspire Connected Platform in addition to your Cars.com vehicle listings — giving you everything you need to enable instant offers and accelerate your appraisal engine.
When you combine Accu-Trade’s powerful appraisal and instant offer technology with your local customer service, the result will be more profitable acquisitions because you’ve removed the back and forth negotiation on price with your customer, while also removing any of your own doubt about reconditioning. It truly is a selling experience no one can beat.
Don’t just take our word for it. Jim Ellis Chevrolet uses Accu-Trade to remove all doubt, generating Instant Offers with comprehensive detail — including OBD-II scans of the physical vehicle — to build trust and transparency for a fantastic (and much faster) customer experience.
And the best part? No need to stress about the offers, because in the very unlikely event that you don’t see the opportunity to turn a vehicle for a profit, Accu-Trade will buy the vehicle back from you at the exact price of the offer, guaranteed.
Accu-Trade’s unprecedented vehicle appraisal technology gives you everything you need to capture more cars anywhere and everywhere, and Brian Kramer (GM, Accu-Trade) set out to prove it by hitting the streets of Naples, FL to ask total strangers if he could appraise and buy their cars on the spot.
When you can give your customer a real cash offer ANYWHERE — in the dealership, on the go, or on your website — you make it even easier for your customers to say, “YES”.
Aside from having your appraisal process and experience dialed in, your “why sell” message also needs to be backed up on your website, and amplified on your other marketing channels. Let’s take a look at how you can make that happen…
MAXIMIZE TRADE/SELL ENGAGEMENT ON YOUR WEBSITE
If you want your website visitors to know your dealership will buy their car, you have to tell them. Your trade and sell messaging should be front and center making the path to engaging with your trade-in experience just a click or tap away.
If you haven’t already, be sure to add a link to your trade/sell landing page to your main menu and place a prominent CTA above the fold to maximize impressions — especially on mobile.
#ProTip: If you’re a Dealer Inspire Website client, be sure to take advantage of our Personalizer technology to serve an actionable Trade-In message to your returning website visitors when they land on your homepage.
Check out the demo below to see how a website visitor can jump right from your homepage into an online appraisal that generates an instant and exact offer for their specific VIN — guaranteed by Accu-Trade.
PROVIDE CONSISTENT VALUES ACROSS YOUR PLATFORM
With the proliferation of trade-in, digital retailing, and chat widgets being mixed and matched on dealer websites, there’s a growing (and very real) problem of consumers receiving different values for their vehicle on your website depending on the experience they’re engaging in.
For example, you may have a trade-in widget embedded on a landing page which provides shoppers with an estimated value of their vehicle. However the trade-in phase in your digital retailing tool uses a different data source that the trade-in widget on your website, and thus returns a different value range for the exact same vehicle. Instead of helping your customer, you’ve only made the selling or trading experience more confusing.
By providing a consistent appraisal experience no matter where shopper’s are interacting with your trade-in experience, you can build trust and increase your chances of acquiring their car.
Accu-Trade now powers the vehicle appraisal experience in both Online Shopper and Conversations.
To help you achieve that consistent and trustworthy experience, Accu-Trade now powers the online vehicle appraisal experience within Online Shopper and Conversations. It all flows together and allows your customer to transparently understand how much their vehicle is worth while they choose their payment for their next vehicle, or while engaging with your team via online chat.
OPTIMIZE YOUR TRADE-IN PAGE FOR LOCAL SEO RANKINGS
It’s critical to understand that your dealership can claim top localized rankings in the search results for “Trade/Sell My Car” type queries if you have relevant content published on your website.
For example, the Dealer Inspire SEO team recently optimized all of the trade-in landing pages for a 39 rooftop automotive group. After just 30 days the client saw a dramatic increase in average search ranking position for those pages, along with a dramatic increase in organic impressions for related trade/sell queries3.
As you look to optimize your own trade-in landing page, keep in mind that simply embedding your trade-in tool on the page isn’t enough. You need to add additional content to the page that explains your process and builds confidence with consumers by showing them that they can expect a real instant offer for their vehicle along with a convenient, trustworthy experience from your local team.
FUEL YOUR VIDEO & DISPLAY ADVERTISING
After you’ve laid the groundwork on your website for maximizing the trade/sell engagement from your visitors, next you can put your superior “Why Sell” message in front of the most valuable in-market audience — from big screen OTT to small screen social.
Car dealers who use FUEL: In-MarketVideoto power their vehicle acquisition campaigns are seeing amazing results. Website visitors who were influenced by these video advertisements were 4x more likely to submit a trade/sell lead vs. all other traffic sources2.
Because FUEL: IMV is powered by Cars.com audience data, that means you’re able to serve your message to a pure, in-market audience across platforms and devices.
In addition to your video advertising, your can also run in-market display campaigns that are served across the Cars.com marketplace in key positions letting high-funnel shoppers know that your dealership has an easy, instant offer experience waiting for them on your website.
One of our clients recently activated an in-market display campaign for their vehicle acquisition efforts, and saw a 182% increase to their trade-in landing page in just two weeks4.
BE THE ANSWER FOR TRADE/SELL QUESTIONS
Aside from targeting in-market buyers and sellers with your video and display advertising, you should also focus on other digital marketing channels to be the answer for those looking to learn more about their options for selling or trading their vehicle.
Search Engine Marketing
Whether a local consumer is using a search engine to get more info about selling or trading their vehicle for something new, the value of their vehicle is going to be a big part of that transaction. Your dealership can be there in the SERP by setting-up a search engine marketing campaign targeted toward local shoppers who are showing intent to sell or trade.
It’s worth noting that we see impressive results for our Digital Advertising clients running search campaigns specifically for vehicle acquisition. The average cost per conversion for this type of campaign is $37.325, making it a very efficient way for your dealership to acquire the vehicles of local consumers.
We’ve also seen these ad campaigns have a measurable impact in foot traffic to the showroom floor with a 3.4% increase in actual dealership visits6 by those who engaged with these ads.
Aside from creating ad groups targeted to people explicitly looking to trade-in or sell their vehicle, you can also incorporate a related sitelink in your location or dynamic new & used campaigns. We’ve found that ads that include this sitelink extension lead to a 45% increase in conversion rate!
Discovery Ads for Vehicle Acquisition
Google’s Discovery Campaigns are another way to get your vehicle acquisition message in front of an audience that is likely to take action. If you aren’t familiar, a single Discovery Campaign will allow your dealership’s messaging to appear on a consumer’s mobile device in three different placements — YouTube, Gmail, and the Google Discover Tab.
Dealer Inspire Internal Data July 1, 2021 — September 20, 2021
Unlike search ads which are intent based, Discovery Ads are served to users based on what Google’s automated systems believe to be a good match with their interests. We’ve found that your budget will go the farthest with sell & trade-In messaging for these campaigns as we see a 138% higher conversion rate compared to Discover Ad Campaigns focused on inventory and incentive based messaging.
PROVIDE MULTIPLE PATHS TO CONVERSION
The secret to any successful campaign is ensuring that you’re providing your target audience with alternative ways to convert should they not engage with your preferred experience.
Conversations offers the one-two punch of providing an automated messaging based trade-in experience combined with the ability to launch that experience from a web based CTA button or external link.
What’s nice about the automated experience within Conversations is that once the value of the vehicle is provided, your customer has the opportunity to connect with your team right in the same chat window to schedule an in-person visit, or ask you any questions they may have in the moment.
GET INSTANT TRADE-IN LEADS ON FACEBOOK
Because Conversations integrates directly with Facebook Messenger, you can help local in-market shoppers discover your dealership and get an offer for their vehicle without having to venture outside of the Facebook ecosystem.
This tactic has worked well for our clients as 63% of all the clicks and taps on trade/sell ads result in a lead for the dealer. How awesome is that?!
GET TRADES FROM YOUR TRADITIONAL ADS
And if you really want to make sure you’re giving your dealership every opportunity to capture more cars, you can use QR Codeswithin your traditional ad campaigns (newspaper, direct mail, billboard, tv, etc) to tout your Instant Offer Experience to generate genuine digital engagement from otherwise static assets.
MINE YOUR EMAIL DATABASE FOR EVEN MORE OPPORTUNITY
While email has always been a powerful tool in your digital marketing tool box, you can continue to push your vehicle acquisition strategy forward by thinking beyond the CRM based “e-blast”.
Instead of blasting your entire database, implement more refined email marketing campaigns targeted toward specific segments of your database so you can deliver the most relevant message that’s is more likely to generate engagement from the folks who already know you.
Here are just a few email campaigns to consider implementing:
Need an Upgrade?: Send to customers in your database who have financed a vehicle 3-4 years ago. The message here is simple…”a lot has changed, is it time for an upgrade?”.
Treat Yourself: Send to your customers who purchased 5-7 years ago and remind them just how long that is, and say hey…”don’t you deserve something new?”.
Financial Hardship: With rising inflation and uncertain market behavior, it’s not unreasonable to think the financial outlook for a small segment of your customers has recently changed. Send an email to your customers who financed a car the past 1 to 3 years and provide options to reduce payments by trading in their vehicle for something more affordable or to sell it outright.
If It’s Broke, Replace It: Send campaigns targeted towards your customers who recently declined having an expensive service performed. Instead of paying that large repair bill on your 5 year old vehicle, why not skip the repair completely and trade it in as-is for something new?
FUTURE-PROOF YOUR FOLLOW UP
I know we’ve covered a lot of ground so far, so kudos to you for soaking up all the content up to this point. It’s important to understand that everything we’ve discussed so far is going to get you more opportunities to acquire vehicles from your customers and local consumers. But…all of the leads in the world won’t mean a thing if your follow up game isn’t on point.
Let’s start with a quick test:
Question 1: A new Sell My Car Lead just hit your CRM. What do you do first?
A. Call Them – They must have their phone nearby, right? So I’m going to pick up the phone and give them a call.
B. I’ll shoot them a friendly and convenient text message to continue the conversation in a no-pressure kinda way.
C. Nothing. I’ll let my CRM’s automated email follow up process do it’s thing for the next 90 days, or until they contact me.
If you answered A or C… think about this before you make your first move: 90% of text messages are read within three minutes of delivery. So don’t pick up the phone and call. Don’t rely on an automated response system. Instead, immediately follow up with your customer via text to seal the acquisition deal!
Want to know more about how you can perfect the art of follow up? We’ve written an entire guide to help you. Check it out!
LET’S GET TO WORK.
Are you ready to do supercharge your vehicle acquisition strategy? Just say the word and our team will set you up with the technology, audience, and cross-channel creative strategy to that makes vehicle acquisitions happen.
While the flying cars that The Jetsons promised are still decades away, the futurism of yesteryear is arriving today thanks to the rapidly expanding Electric Vehicle (EV) segment. The US automotive industry has been challenged to make half of its fleet electric by 2030, and OEMs have responded as we’re expecting to see at least 50 EV’s hit the market by 2025!
That means whether you’re ready-or-not, having a marketing strategy in place to influence and acquire EV shoppers is going to be a vital piece to future-proofing your dealership. And listen, you don’t have to have an EV in your lineup today in order to begin preparing for the all-electric future. In fact, the earlier you adopt and implement an EV marketing strategy, the better off you’ll be in the long run.
The best way to power up your EV marketing strategy is to watch Electron: Future EV Legacyover on Inspire+ where our team of experts will show you how you can start marketing toward the EV future, today!
That said, you don’t have to watch the show right away to get what you need to inform your EV marketing strategy. I’m more than happy to get you started off in the right direction, and then you can watch the show on Inspire+ at your convenience.
FINDING THE EV BUYER
So how do you develop a marketing plan geared toward EV buyers when there just isn’t a whole lot of data available to inform your decision making?
Well, you can start by developing buyer personas, which are a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research, and they’re typically made up of demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals.
When I think of EV buyer personas, there are three types of early adopters that will make up your initial audience from the outset.
The Environmentalist: This persona is extremely concerned about the environment, and typically feels that their personal choices make a difference on the macro level. They see EVs as a way to make a big environmental impact, however they may not be a fan of the traditional car shopping experience.
The Reformed Gas Guzzler: While this persona somewhat overlaps with The Environmentalist in terms of how important environmental and climate concerns are, they’re typically more accepting of current EV limitations, while also not being shy about visiting the dealership — meaning they’re ready to spend now on what’s available.
The Technologist: This last early adopter sees EVs almost like they see the latest and greatest iPhone or tech gadget. It’s about the style, the tech, the performance, and being “first”. The environmental impact is “neat”, but to this persona the vehicle is more of a status symbol than anything else.
The purpose of defining your buyer personas is so that you can then begin to identify where these types of people may reside in your area. Start by mapping out the surrounding areas that align with early adopter characteristics such as, age group, gender, and income range.
Then, check your own sales data history to see which of these areas you already have a customer base in. You can also check out your Location Report within Google Analytics, or your district sales report for additional insights.
Once you do that, you should have a pretty solid understanding of where potential EV buyers are located in your area, which will ultimately inform your targeting for your EV marketing strategy.
STUDY THE EV BUYING GUIDE
In addition to understanding the personas of early EV adopters (and where to find them) it’s also super important you and your team understand the the EV resources that they’ll be using to inform their decision making.
One of the top resources available to EV intenders on the web right now is the Cars.com EV Buying Guide. This detailed resource is informed by more than a decade of EV expertise and leadership, created specifically to help consumers make an educated purchase decision that fits their needs, preferences and budgets.
By studying this guide, not only will you as a car dealer be better informed about all the different choices and considerations that go hand in hand with purchasing an electric vehicle, but it can also get you started on pursuing your own EV content strategy specifically tailored to your OEM and market (more on that below, and on Inspire+).
Now available to watch on demand, the same Cars.com editors that created the aforementioned EV Buying Guide gathered together to address all of the questions EV shoppers had around the different types of chargers, home installation, and the needs and realities around EV range.
While this event was geared to consumers, car dealers should check it out as well to not only learn more about the EV segment in general, but to also understand the types of questions shoppers are asking that they’ll expect you as their local dealership to have the expert answer to.
ADVERTISING TO EV INTENDERS
When it comes to actively advertising to EV intenders, there are tactics your can implement right now (literally, right now) even if you don’t have any EVs to sell, as well as some tactics that you can keep in your back pocket until you have electric vehicles to sell.
START WITH SEO
It’s not often that a business is able to be proactive with an SEO strategy. Usually SEO is about shoring up your current rankings, or filling in the keyword gaps that exist between your dealership and your competitors.
In general, SEO takes time. So when it comes to EVs, you actually have the opportunity to start establishing your website’s authority on the subject well before your first EV hits your lot.
A properly developed EV content plan will cover all the stages of the shopping journey from awareness and consideration, all the way down to deciding what to buy, and who to buy it from.
ADD YOUR EV CHARGING STATION TO GOOGLE MAPS
If you plan on making your EV charging station available for public use, then you’ll want to add it to Google Maps so both local EV drivers, and those just passing through, are aware of your convenient service offerings.
To make your charging station discoverable on Google, follow these simple steps:
Click “Claim The Business” and complete the follow-up steps
While filling in the blanks in Step 4, Be sure to use Electric Vehicle Charging Station for the category, and also make sure you add your dealership in the Located In section so your charging station will appear as a department in your dealership’s main Google Business Profile.
BUILD AN EV-MAIL LIST
EVs are certainly exciting, and it might be tempting to “blast” your entire customer database with an email every time you have something new to share.
A better approach, however, is to start a separate email list just for those folks who specifically want to be kept in the EV loop. This serves two purposes. For starters, the list will mature into a critical asset that’ll aid in the targeting of your paid EV advertising down the road. And secondly, by having a list solely made up of people who are interested in EVs, you lessen the risk of email unsubscribes and spam reports from your customers who aren’t interested in those topics.
The easiest way to start building your list is to send one email to all your current customers which asks them if they’d like to opt-in to start receiving EV specific email content. From there you can add a signup form on your website, and even promote it on your social networks.
CREATE EV AWARENESS ON SOCIAL
Something else you can start doing before you even have EVs to sell is to utilize your social channels to organically engage your followers, while also attracting new ones, with your EV related content.
Educating your audience on the benefits of EVs, and providing EV ownership tips can help get people used to seeing and hearing about the electric future in their newsfeeds from a trusted source.
If you already have an EV in your lineup, embrace short form video as a way to generate interest and awareness for specific models. TikTok for example is seeing a ton of engagement on EV related content with over 1.9 billion views for videos that were shared using the #ev hashtag.
CAPTURE ORDERING & BUYING INTENT
Once your EVs are nearing the point of arrival, then you can start investing your digital advertising dollars to capture the buying intent of local shoppers. From search ads targeted to those searching for how to order the latest and greatest EV, to social ads targeted toward those in your email list as well as those who’ve viewed your EV related content on your website.
You can go even further from there. What about having exclusive access to a pure in-market audience of EV intenders located in the zip codes that you identified when creating your buyer personas which you can then target your video advertising to?
That’s real, and it’s exactly the kind of power thatFUEL: In-Market Video gives you. Once you claim your zips, they’re exclusively yours, and now you can reach real in-market EV shoppers who were on Cars.com with your specific video advertising across the most popular social and OTT video platforms.
SUPERCHARGE YOUR SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Electric vehicles are a different kind of beast compared to their gasoline powered counterparts. They have different service needs, different driving dynamics, and thanks to Tesla being pretty much the only mainstream EV option for the past few years – a different shopping experience.
As EVs come to market, they’re going to be a bit more expensive than the typical vehicle. Consumers, by nature, will want to understand if they can actually afford the EV they’re interested in prior to taking the next steps and contacting a dealership.
That’s where having a modern retailing solution like Online Shopper on your website can really play a critical role in helping consumers answer the all important “Can I afford it?” question.
By giving shoppers the ability to compare an EV model side by side with a traditional gas powered vehicle to compare different finance scenarios is kind of a big deal. That will allow your website visitors to start selling themselves on the feasibility of owning an EV.
BE THE PRODUCT EXPERT IN STORE AND ONLINE
Speaking of experts, the early adopter buyer personas will undoubtedly want to make sure they have as much knowledge about their purchase as possible prior to finalizing their decision. And while you’ll be publishing plenty of content on EVs, and your OEMs will be doing their part to educate consumers as well, sometimes it’s a lot quicker and easier to just ask an expert.
The reality is that in-market EV shoppers are going to turn to their local dealership to get all of the answers to their questions. And for the most part, they’re probably not going to make a special trip, or even pick up the phone to call. Instead, they’ll do what the behavior profile of the early adopters suggests they’ll do, and that’s start a chat with you on your website.
But it’s not the chat tool that’s the important piece to consider here. It’s who’s answering the chats that is key. Remember, when a consumer starts a chat, they think they’re talking to you. So if you’re still not answering your own chats during business hours, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to provide a superior level of customer service.
This is particularly important when it comes to EV’s. If you’re not handling your own chats, and are relying on managed chat, when these types of detailed questions pop up, the managed chat agent isn’t going to be able to provide helpful information. They’ll only be able to attempt to get the lead for someone at the dealership to follow up with them later, which is the polar opposite of the experience that type of shopper wants.
LET’S AMP IT UP TOGETHER
From upgrading service bays, to training your sales team — when it comes to preparing your dealership for the soon-to-arrive EV future, you already have plenty on your plate. While we can’t retrofit a service bay for you (although we’re totally willing to try), we can help you implement an effective marketing strategy that’ll allow you to grow your EV business right from the start. We’d love to connect with you and power-up together!
Long before we ever built our first website, Dealer Inspire started out as an SEO Agency. It was through those early experiences when it became clear that trying to implement SEO best practices on websites built with other automotive web platforms was not very efficient, and oftentimes not as effective as it could have been due to technical limitations. The natural next step for our company to take was clear — we needed to build our own web platform so we could provide our partners with optimal SEO, UX, and conversion optimization.
So whether you’re receiving our SEO services through an OEM partnership, or you’ve signed up à la carte, you can rest assured knowing that you’ll be receiving a holistic SEO strategy that’s tailored specifically for your dealership, your region, and your goals. This is super important, because when it comes to SEO, there are two truths that you can count on:.
You can’t be cookie-cutter with your approach to SEO. Each dealership is unique, and what works for one, may not work for another.
There are no shortcuts or magic bullets that’ll instantly shoot you to the top of the SERP. Effective SEO that returns a positive ROI requires research, market analysis, and patience.
So with that out of the way, I want to share six real and timely case studies from our dealer partners that show how our collaborative and custom approach to SEO provides proven results that drive a positive ROI.
1. CAPTURE ORGANIC PRE-ORDER INTENT
With the ongoing inventory shortage affecting the entire automotive industry, our client at Dependable CDJR wanted to fill their sales pipeline by taking more pre-orders from in-market shoppers. The only problem was they didn’t have the proper content or site structure for search engines to understand that their dealership was the most relevant answer to related “order” searches for their brand of vehicles.
In an effort to establish their authority for these keywords, our team created and published a pre-order landing page on their website that explained in detail how the process worked and why a car shopper would want to customize their vehicle and order it directly through their dealership.
60% increase in order keywords 30 days after page was published 65% increase in conversions YoY
After publishing the new landing page, the next step was to ensure that it was easily discoverable by both search engines and real people by linking to it in the main navigation menu, in addition to creating other carefully selected internal links to the page.
The results of implementing this pre-order focused SEO tactic was impressive. Dependable CDJR saw a 60% increase in keywords containing the word “order” driving traffic to their website, in addition to a 65% increase in conversions year over year!
2. BE THE VEHICLE ACQUISITION SOURCE
Aside from increasing the importance of having a pre-order strategy in place at your dealership, having a comprehensive vehicle acquisition campaign is pretty much required during the prolonged inventory shortage.
Morrie’s Auto Group was on the forefront of implementing this strategy, and they took it to the next level by opening up dedicated car buying centers across three states. To help build their website’s authority for related “sell my car” and “trade-in my car” keywords, we started with a singular landing page that explained the process and allowed consumers to get a value for their vehicle.
237% Increase in keywords 30 days after page was published 296% increase in organic traffic since location pages were added (Jan 20, 2022)
Because Morrie’s had three buying centers in three different states, we wanted to make sure each center could have hyper-local relevance to consumers in those areas who are searching for where they should trade-in or sell their vehicle. To accomplish this, we created locations pages for each of their buying centers using the primary page as the parent.
Since we added those location pages, organic traffic to all of the pages, including the parent page, is up 296% and they’ve also enjoyed a 237% increase in total keywords that their website now ranks for.
3. ENHANCE YOUR CONTENT WITH ORIGINAL VIDEO
When the Dealer Inspire SEO Teams plans future content with a client, we always try to align our recommendations with the dealer’s stated goals and missions. For Triple J Guam, one of their missions was to enhance the relevance of the content we were creating for them even more by including their own custom created videos.
To that end, we now collaborate heavily with Triple J team based on what models they have in stock or what new models are arriving soon so they can go out and physically shoot videos on those vehicles that can be embedded on the page at the time of publishing.
20% increase in total website keywords MoM 11% increase in total organic traffic YoY 18% increase in total organic ROI YoY
The chef’s kiss to this model specific content strategy is making sure that all of the content is easily found (and crawlable) for users (and search engines too!). To do that we created an informational hub page that neatly organizes the content that’s available on the site by OEM.
Since implementing this collaboration and overall technical structure, Triple J Guam is seeing a 20% increase in keywords, an 11% increase in organic traffic, and an 18% increase in organic ROI.
4. FLEX YOUR FIXED-OPS ADVANTAGE
For years, the most progressive car dealers in the industry have partnered with Dealer Inspire so they could achieve their goals using the most flexible platform on the planet. Sussex Honda is one of those dealers who is constantly looking to do things differently, and we’re always thrilled to partner with them to see those goals to fruition.
In light of the global pandemic, Sussex Honda wanted to reinvent the way area residents could visit their service department in a safe and convenient way. To do that, they installed Express Self Service Kiosks outside of their service lane that allowed customers to drop-off their vehicle for service, and also pick it back up when service was completed.
Their SEO Specialist took the information that was provided, and immediately began researching how to best make an impact in the organic SERP. After reviewing the keyword data, it was determined that targeting variations of “service kiosk” keywords would be more effective due to having good search volume and an attainable difficulty score.
23% increase in keywords 30 days after page was published 158% increase in organic goal completions YoY 30% increase in organic sessions YoY
From there we created their Honda Express Self-Service Kiosk landing page that included detailed information teaching customers how to use the kiosk, and the benefits of doing so. We also made sure to include their custom how-to videos that showed folks exactly what to do when they arrived at the dealership.
That page is seeing a 23% keyword increase along with a 30% increase in organic sessions. The total performance of the entire website has benefited as well with a 158% increase in organic goal completions. This is just another great example of how creating content to help educate users already on your website can also turn into a leading source of organic entrances to your site as well.
5. GET MORE TRAFFIC WITH LESS CONTENT
Have you ever wondered to yourself, “is there such a thing as having too much content?”. It’s a fair question to ponder and on the surface it may seem like an easy “no” for an answer — especially if you’ve been taught over the years that “Content is King”.
Well, believe it or not, there is such a thing as having too much content, and it’s something you need to be aware of so you can look for the warning signs and ultimately prevent any deciline in your organic traffic.
While content on your website can be evergreen and still maintain high quality and relevance many years after it’s published, sometimes your content can become outdated and cause your keyword rankings to wildly fluctuate.
That’s what was happening with our client at Biggers Chevrolet. They had years and years of custom content published on their website, but as those pages became less relevant due to age, organic positioning and traffic began to fall off.
42% increase in keywords over a 90 day period $18,000 SEMRush Traffic Cost ROI Calculation
Knowing that there was an opportunity to regain organic impression share, the SEO Strategist assigned to Biggers Chevrolet took a deep dive into their content library to identify which content was no longer driving traffic and could be removed from the site. From there they set up mass redirects of the old content to more relevant pages on the site, and cleaned up all the previous internal links to prevent presenting unnecessary 404 errors to users.
Undertaking the technical audit of their website and implementing the proper fixes has paid off in a real big way. BIgger’s Chevrolet has seen an 42% increase in organic keyword positions 1-3 and enjoy a monthly SEO ROI of $18,000 and climbing. This proves that you don’t necessarily have to add more content to get more organic traffic. Sometimes you can just clean up what you already have and get even better results.
6. IMPROVE YOUR NON-BRANDED PRESENCE
All dealers are going to see a mix of branded (keywords that mention your dealer’s name) and non-branded (keywords that don’t mention your dealer’s name) keywords driving organic traffic to your website when you inspect your analytics.
The goal is to have a solid mix of both so that you’re able to maintain organic visibility both for people explicitly searching for you, and for people searching for the products and services that you provide.
If a majority of your traffic is coming from branded search, that means you’re not providing additional value and relevance to searchers about other aspects of the car buying and ownership experience. And if you skew too far into non-branded search traffic, that could be a signal that you haven’t done an effective job of marketing your dealership in general.
Our amazing partners at Toyota of Cedar Parkfound themselves struggling with their non-branded traffic, and being close to a major metro market like Austin, Texas ranking for non-dealer name terms was a priority.
1114% increase in non-branded traffic Q2 2020 vs. Q4 2021 229% increase in organic conversions YoY 237% increase in organic sessions YoY
To help address this imbalance, we developed a strategy to heavily focus on model research so they could connect with higher funnel shoppers who may not have discovered their dealership yet. In our research we found that the local competition in the Austin area wasn’t doing a very good job of providing informational content about Toyota vehicles in general. So we hyper-focused our content strategy on research and high funnel topics to capture the attention of shoppers early on in the research process.
Taking this collaborative approach to Toyota of Cedar Park’s content strategy worked. When looking at the breakdown of traffic during the most recent quarter compared to when they started SEO services, they have seen a 1114% increase in non-branded traffic, a 237% increase in organic sessions, along with a 229% increase in organic conversions.
GROW YOUR ORGANIC RESULTS
When it comes to choosing a provider for your dealership’s SEO services, be sure to partner with one who provides a holistic and collaborative SEO strategy that aligns with your goals – not some off the shelf, cookie-cutter strategy that’s not tailored to your needs. Our SEO Team at Dealer Inspire would love to collaborate with you on the best approach to start improving your organic presence today. Drop us a line and let’s talk!
Let’s take a little trip back in time. The year was 2012, and as a part of our dealership’s setup at a local summer festival, we were going to give away the hot, new iPad2 to generate more hand-raiser leads than ever using a QR Code.
What actually happened though was we spent way too much time educating people on what that giant, blocky black and white code on the sign was and the app they needed to install on their phone to scan it.
It was like working at the Apple Genius Bar…but only in 90 degree heat…and with people who didn’t really want to be there.
It turned out that people really only wanted to enter to win the iPad if they could do so quickly and easily. Like, you know…by writing their name, email address, and phone number on a little slip of paper and then jamming it into a cardboard box.
No one wanted to download a special app (over a 3G cellular network) just to scan a weird looking code thingy and then have to type their name, email address, and phone number on a tiny virtual keyboard. Who had time for that?!
Looking back on it all these years later, I think it’s pretty clear why this promo didn’t work as intended:
The smartphone was barely 5 years old, and only 45% of adults actually owned one.
Those who had a smartphone saw it as device of utility — not necessity.
There was too much friction in the digital experience compared to the traditional one.
So after that weekend long experience of #qrcodefail, my main takeaway was utilizing QR Codes in your digital marketing strategy may have been the right idea, but it was definitely the wrong time.
THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW
Fast forward to today and things are different now, aren’t they? 94% percent of adults between the ages of 18-49 now own a smartphone. In just a few short years our phones have become physical extensions of our bodies that we can’t live without.
Ten years ago, if I realized that I left the house without my phone, I would have been like “oh well, whatever”. If that were to happen today? Yeah…I’d freak out, and I’m guessing you would too.
So say what you want about the early days of QR Codes, but you can’t deny the fact that they laid the groundwork for some of the tech that’s been implemented inside of today’s most popular apps.
Scanning a digital code with our phone is now near ubiquitous thanks to apps like SnapChat and Spotify where adding a friend or loading up a shared playlist is as simple as pointing your phone at a code.
Then there’s the game changing fact that your phone’s naitive camera app can now instantly recognize a QR Code and prompt you to visit the encoded destination all on its own.
Also, like many other aspects of our lives, COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of technology and irrevocably changed consumer behavior. Today, it’s hard to go somewhere and not see a QR Code — they’re everywhere. From Home Depot to Taco Bell, businesses big and small are using QR Codes to direct people to schedule an appointment, order online, download an app, and so much more.
And you know something has gone mainstream when you see it on a Super Bowl commercial. Coinbase spent $13 million dollars on a 60 second spot that showed nothing more than a QR Code sailing across the screen. Not talking cats. Not expensive celebrities. Just a colorful, blocky code paying homage to the classic DVD screensaver of yesteryear.
That QR Code alone drove over 20 million users to the Coinbase website within that one minute where users were able to claim $15 in free bitcoin for signing up. The traffic and brand awareness benefits alone makes this a #qrcodewin!
Even after all that, if for some reason you still aren’t sold on the viability of QR Codes, then I’ll tell you that ever since version 85 of the Chrome Browser, QR Code generation is a standard feature of the world’s most popular web browser. That means anyone can quickly create a QR Code out of anything that’s loaded up in Chrome with just a couple of clicks or taps.
TIPS FOR USING QR CODES IN THE DEALERSHIP
If you’re ready to revisit the idea of using QR Codes at your dealership, I’ve put together a few creative ways that you can incorporate them into your shopping experience and marketing materials to drive engagement with your customers.
PROVIDE A MORE ENGAGING EXPERIENCE IN THE SHOWROOM
You could create and print QR Codes to place on the vehicles in your showroom so that when scanned would do any number of things, like open a:
Digital brochure for that vehicle
Video review or walkaround of that model
Video highlighting an F&I product such as Appearance Protection
Model landing page on your website
VDP for that specific vehicle
VRP with available inventory for that model
VIRTUALLY CONNECT ON THE LOT
With some folks being more weary of being inside a building for an extended period of time, shoppers might feel more comfortable wandering your lot, especially after hours and on weekends.
Just because these folks are out there alone, that doesn’t mean you can’t virtually be there to assist them. You could certainly use the showroom QR Codes above on the vehicles on your lot — or you could take it up a notch and provide the casual tire-kicker with an even better experience by providing a(n):
Video from your owner or GM welcoming them to your dealership and explaining your health and safety protocols
Easy way to connect with someone inside the dealership via chat
Instant trade-in evaluation experience powered by Conversations™
GENERATE REVIEWS
While we all understand the importance of reviews and the role they play in helping other shoppers choose to work with your dealership over your competition, you may not realize how review recency plays a factor in calculating your overall review score.
The short version is that as reviews age, they become less relevant to shoppers. So it’s not how many total reviews you have that matters most — it’s how often you’re getting reviews. Printing and placing review reminders on the desks of your salespeople and finance managers is an easy way to utilize QR Codes that lead to the specific, positive outcome of increasing your review velocity.
Now, it’s cool if you want to create a QR Code that will take someone directly to Google or DealerRater to leave their review. But it’s always good to have an even distribution of reviews on all the various platform. So a better idea would be to actually create a landing page that contains links to all the platforms where you have a review presence on your website. Then you can use that url to power your QR Code so that when scanned, people can then select their favorite review platform such as Google, Facebook, DealerRater, Cars.com or Yelp.
IN YOUR MARKETING
While QR Codes can definitely play a role in keeping your in-store customers engaged, you can also incorporate them into your traditional marketing channels to drive digital engagement.
For example, if you’re sending a direct mail piece with service coupons to your customers, include a QR Code that links to your service scheduler to easily generate appointments.
For any print advertising you run with new and pre-owned vehicles, include a QR Code that’ll allow someone to get an Instant Trade-In Evaluation via Conversations™, which will also generate a high quality lead for your team to follow up with.
Take it a step further and allow your salespeople to include a QR Code on their business cards that would link to their personal profile page on DealerRater that highlights their personal reviews.
IN YOUR COMMUNITY
And of course you can always use QR Codes just like we did back in the day in your grassroots marketing to drive sign ups for a giveaway or to create brand awareness in your community. The best part is you don’t need to go all Coinbase and spend $13 million to do it!
Think about this idea; do you sponsor any community events? I’m willing to bet you sponsor your local 4th of July fireworks, the high school football team, and/or maybe even a farmer’s market, right?
How about using a QR code on your signage or handouts for a free carwash for everyone at the event? Or maybe 10% off their first oil change or service appointment?
Today all the barriers have been removed, and using a QR Code in your grassroots marketing efforts is a great way to get new folks engaged with your dealership while also showcasing all the good you do within your community.
BONUS #PROTIP: TRACK WITH UTM CODES
Since you can take any text string and turn it into a QR Code, that means you can also incorporate UTM Codes for those times when you want to take a visitor to a landing page on your website. That’s one sure way to track how often your QR Codes are being scanned and which experiences your customers are finding to be the most “scan worthy”.
We’re always up for talking about creative ways to help our clients upgrade their digital marketing game. Want to talk about QR Codes or any other digital marketing strategies and tactics? Just give us a shout!
The combined effects of the pandemic and global chip shortage have drastically (and maybe even irrevocably) changed the landscape of the automotive retail industry. The resulting inventory shortage that began in early 2021 continues into 2022 with no tangible signs of easing up this year.
As a result, we’ve seen a shift in consumer behavior amongst car shoppers. After decades of being able to just show up on a dealership’s lot and then drive off a couple hours later with the exact vehicle (or close enough to it) they wanted, car shoppers are discovering that with the lack of inventory, that just isn’t possible today — unless they’re willing to settle.
And when it comes to the second largest purchase most people will ever make, “settling” is not at the top of a lot of people’s list of things they want to do.
Like many other advancements that became popular as the result of the pandemic — such as curbside pickup and at-home delivery — placing a pre-order for your next set of wheels at your local dealership is the newest trend among car shoppers
What that means for you is that when it comes to your marketing strategy, you can’t just rely on campaigns targeted to shoppers who are displaying active buying intent based on vehicle year, make, and model, or being classified as “in-market”. You also have to expand your reach to make sure you’re able to make an impression with local shoppers who are exhibiting “pre-order intent” too to ensure you’re reaching those people with a highly relevant message that meets their intention.
We recently dropped a new show on Inspire+ called You’ve Got Pre-Orders that’ll walk you through what it takes to execute a holistic marketing strategy focused on filling your sales pipeline with pre-orders.
But if you’re at work right now and can’t kick back to watch the show, don’t sweat it because I’m going to give you some of the best tips from our expert team right here, so keep on reading!
OPTIMIZE THE USER EXPERIENCE ON YOUR WEBSITE
If a shopper is just coming into the market for the first time in four or five years, there’s a real good chance that they may not be aware how much the car shopping experience has changed in the past two years. That’s why it’s important to update your website with pre-order messaging so it’s front and center on all of the most visited shopping pages on your website.
From your homepage and main menu, to your VRPs and even your chat tool, it’s critical you show your visitors that they can order exactly what they want from you, regardless of where they may be on your website.
But the real question you need to answer is this: What is the user experience going to be like when a shopper on your website engages with your pre-order messaging? Are you going to take them to a landing page that explains the process, along with a CTA to contact you? Or can you provide an even better experience that’ll deepen the connection between the shopper and your dealership?
While a landing page + CTA is a classic marketing combo, that’s not necessarily going to fulfill the need for instant gratification that we’re all accustomed to in our shopping experiences these days.
The preferred solution is to let that customer actually build the exact vehicle in your lineup that they want — right on your website — using the Build & Price tool that’s available to install on your Dealer Inspire website.
If you’ve ever configured anything online, like a new computer, the latest iPhone, or an Ikea kitchen, then you know that feeling you get as you dial in all of the specifications to meet your specific needs. It’s a non-stop dopamine rush as you tick off your options and upgrades. That’s exactly what’s in play when shoppers use our Build & Price tool. With each selection they make, starting from model and working their way down to trim, options, and colors – shoppers are not just getting excited about their next vehicle, they’re mentally committing themselves to seeing the order through to completion.
Once their vehicle is built, a shopper will be able to see the price as configured, and then you’ll be able to reach out to them to confirm their vehicle preferences, and work through the rest of the details for completing the pre-order.
CAPTURE ORDER INTENT IN THE SERP
Once you’ve prepared your website to convert visitors into sales opportunities, then you can begin marketing that experience. Like most questions that need to be answered, a majority of people will turn to search engines to get the information they need to make an informed decision. We can see the increasing trend in searches related to ordering a vehicle steadily increasing year over year, so it only makes sense to make sure that between your SEO and SEM efforts, you’re able to capture the attention of searchers exhibiting both Research and Ready to Act search intent.
ATTRACT THE RIGHT BUYER WITH SEO
Today, car dealers who focus on optimizing their website and related content around pre-orders have a chance to get out to an early lead over their competitors. When it comes to SEO, it’s best to make sure you’re covering both types of intent through your content, on page optimizations, and your off site signals as well.
The SEO team at Dealer Inspire discovered that Google will return top local results for Ready to Act search queries (i.e. Order a new Make) tailored to the specific location of the searcher if there’s relevant content available from a local source (hint: like your dealership’s website).
And that’s why local signals are really important for these types of queries: the proximity of the searcher to your dealership is going to be a top ranking factor. But at the same time, if you don’t have quality and relevant content that answers the shopper’s question, then you won’t show up at all.
So if you don’t already have a landing page that details all aspects of placing an order for a vehicle with your dealership, that’s the first place you’ll want to start. The page should be a comprehensive piece of content that’s optimized not just for keywords and user intent, but provides relevant and engaging content that’ll drive the visitor down the funnel to conversion.
If you want to create a pre-order landing page that cracks the top of the local search results, then follow these best practices:
Match your H1, Title, and Meta Description to user intent
Use visually appealing imagery
Provide a video that explains the process
Embed reviews on the page from customers who’ve ordered from you
Include a comprehensive FAQ that directly answers all related ordering questions
A CTA to engage with your dealership’s order process
Remember, the goal isn’t just to have relevant content that ranks, you want that content to convert those visitors into real sales opportunities. So whether you’re using our Build & Price tool, or have a different user experience, be sure that you have a prominent CTA in place on your landing page to encourage each visitor to take that critical next step toward placing their order.
MAKE A GREAT FIRST IMPRESSION WITH YOUR SEARCH ADS
On the flipside of the SEO coin, is your SEM. Here we’re only going to focus on campaigns that cover the Ready to Act intent versus the Research intent. You’ll want to have search campaigns set up in Google Ads specifically to cover these types of searches.
Again, aligning your ad headline, copy, and sitelinks to match exactly what the searcher is looking for is the best way to encourage the searcher to engage with your dealership’s experience.
Also think about how you can provide a more optimized ad experience. While your ad’s main CTA might take the user to your newly-created, information-rich pre-order landing page, you can also remove that step and use a sitelink like “Build Your Honda” to take that shopper directly to the Build & Price tool with just one tap.
Starting with your base search campaigns in, you can also run your pre-order campaigns across social, display, and video platforms. Check out You’ve Got Pre-Orders on Inspire+ to get the comprehensive breakdown on how effectively reach shoppers looking to order their next vehicle across all channels and devices.
PERFECT YOUR PRE-ORDER FOLLOW-UP
As you effectively implement your pre-order strategy, it’s critical that you design a specific follow-up process for these sales opportunities. While your CRM is probably programmed to automatically follow-up with all leads that originate from your website, I’d highly recommend creating a specific drip campaign for pre-order leads — or even shutting it off entirely.
Remember, your customer just spent quality time on your website building the perfect vehicle of their dreams, so if the first outreach they receive from your dealership is an automated email from your CRM that’s providing basic information about the car they’ve already built and asking when they can come in — well, that’s a fail.
The first thing you should do once you receive that pre-order lead, is to follow up immediately with a text confirmation to continue the conversation while it’s still fresh and exciting in your customer’s mind.
The goal is to confirm the details of the vehicle that they just built, and go over next steps to set expectations for timing and delivery.
Once you have that order placed with your OEM, it’s imperative that you maintain regular contact with your customer as they wait for their vehicle to arrive at your dealership. This is where an email drip campaign can be most effective. Send out weekly or bi-weekly emails that include additional information about your dealership and the vehicle they ordered to keep them excited about its arrival. You can also supplement those emails with additional text or email messages that contain information about the progress of the build as you receive them in your system..
Then lastly, once your customer’s vehicle has been delivered, you’ll want to follow up again and ask them to share their story about pre-ordering a vehicle at your dealership with an online review.
Remember, shoppers just coming into the market for the first time in five years may not know that ordering a vehicle is even an option. But what we do know is that they’re going to read the reviews of dealerships that they’re considering doing business with before deciding whom to contact. That’s why it’s important you get those positive reviews that specifically mention how easy it was to order a vehicle from your dealership.
From there, you can then complete the circle by using quotes from those glowing reviews on your website and in your marketing to drive even more engagement with your pre-order process.
LET’S TALK PRE-ORDER STRATEGY
As placing an order for a new vehicle becomes mainstream, it’s critical that your dealership doesn’t miss the opportunity to make connections with these shoppers. The team at Dealer Inspire is here to help you launch a holistic marketing strategy that drives relevant traffic to your website and convert it into more sales opportunities to fill your pre-order pipeline. Drop us a line and let’s talk about how we can work together.
