Pay-per-click is the old faithful of the automotive industry because it works! Since its creation in October of 2000, PPC has provided car dealers the ability to reach shoppers that are actively searching for a new or pre-owned car.
With search engines like Google, Bing (and hey, whatever happened to Ask Jeeves?), dealerships can reach customers who are past the research phase and are ready to buy.
Today, Google is making sure that pay-per-click advertisers have many options and choices when it comes to how and where their ads will appear, but as many of us know, the cost can be high and qualifying the return, at times, can be difficult.
At Dealer Authority, our expert pay-per-click team can custom build the ideal Google Ads account to fit your specific needs and goals. We ensure that your marketing dollars are being well-spent, providing your dealership with the ROI that you are looking for. By having an expert team with over 18 years of experience, that is hand-crafting your account versus automating one, you are building a PPC presence that cannot be replicated by any other dealer in your market – giving you the hometown advantage.
PPC is no longer copy heavy.
Recently, Google released a new option for mobile display ads in Google Ads – called Gallery Ads. This advertising option allows your promotion or ad to populate at the top of mobile search results with an image and copy together as opposed to just copy on its own.
A traditional ad on Google:
Example of new Google Gallery Ad:
Why is this so great?
Google has found that ads perform 25% better when imagery is included in a message. That being said – why wouldn’t you start using Gallery Ads, today? Right now! Luckily, Dealer Authority has been selected as part of the beta-run for Gallery Ads and the results have been – impressive.
What else is new for PPC?
Let’s chat a moment about Discovery Ads. This is where a dealership’s brand awareness can come alive. Discovery Ads purely live in Google’s feed on mobile. These ads populate for Google’s 800 million mobile users, in Google’s social and promotion tabs, and on YouTube mobile home feed.
Discovery ads do not require keyword bidding rather your ad strategy will be similar to Display Ads with in-market, interest and custom audience targeting.
Next up – Local Campaigns
Local campaigns were made for the dealership showroom. Local ads have expanded its reach to show up on Search, Maps, the Display Network, and YouTube. This is where we use a little bit of automation magic from Google (don’t worry, the bots do not have complete control). Once the location of your dealership, copy and creative is submitted in Google Ads, Google will serve your ad to local users that are searching for a new or used car, SUV, truck, ATV, motorcycle or whatever you on the lot.
This is Google’s way of taking a page from their sister company, Waze’s book, which also has a solution to populate ads for individuals searching for businesses of similar industries and close proximity.
Something quick to note is that Waze has a lower price per click, averaging as little as .74¢; however, when you compare the 25 million users base of Waze to Google Maps’ user base of over 154 million, negating Google Local Campaigns may not be the best course of action. If your budget allows it, considering local ads on both Waze and Google could be very beneficial to your dealership and your service department.
PPC offerings are constantly changing.
Google is constantly testing, changing, removing, and adding elements to its platform. It is crucial to have an expert team on your business’ side that is always keeping up with the latest developments and adjusting your PPC account accordingly. PPC is not a plug-n-play solution. Yes, there is automation that can be used to streamline the process but the real key is having someone that is constantly looking out for the performance of your campaigns, testing their effectiveness, and updating you when changes need to be made to give your dealership the best ROI. Does your current provider do that? If not, let’s chat. Dealer Authority’s digital marketing team has an average of 12 years in the automotive industry. We have seen the evolution of pay-per-click over the years and we know that this is a valuable solution for our dealers. How that solution is implemented and managed is what determines whether it is a valuable digital marketing resource or not.