Today’s economies and markets are in flux. Everyone can feel this shift in large and small ways, and in the automotive industry, the changes are especially pronounced.
One thing hasn’t changed—dealers want to sell more cars.
So, when you’re looking for partners to help accelerate your growth, it pays to work with vendors who know your space intimately. While some vendors’ consultative skills are transferable from industry to industry, in automotive, you’re better served with a partner who knows it well. Especially a digital marketing vendor.
Here’s how an industry specialist will help…
(1) Stay Consistent Between Ad Channels
Today’s “hybrid customers” interact with a brand across multiple channels and expect a brand’s message to be the same across all of them.
The car buying journey starts online. Your goal is to meet the shopper where they search, and be uniform in every channel. The same vehicle with the same price should appear consistently across Facebook, Google, Craigslist, OfferUp, and third-party platforms.
Note: It’s great to be on a third-party site, but remember that 85% of people start their shopping journey by searching on Google.
While any marketing agency would understand the importance of channel consistency, an industry vendor will better understand each channel’s particulars, and how each ad channel fills the funnel in the car buying journey.
(2) Avoid Stale Ads
Nothing turns off a customer faster than a stale ad. Imagine scrolling Facebook one July day, being targeted, and seeing an ad for your ideal car. But then you notice that the ad is highlighting Memorial Day specials… in July. It tells the customer that this dealer is not on top of its game.
An industry vendor understands the automotive calendar and will keep your ad copy fresh for Facebook and Google ads. That means continually updating copy every 60 days or so.
At AutoSweet, we even have our own in-house creative team who refresh creative regularly, avoiding the dreaded stale ad.
(3) Advertise Current Inventory
Keeping your ads full of available inventory is essential, requiring data feeds that hum along smoothly.
Seamless data integration can be a herculean task for a vendor that’s not in the automotive space. But the right partner—one who understands the integrity of inventory data in automotive marketing—should make it easy, performing data “health checks” to ensure inventory is always current.
(4) Current Pricing Is Imperative
Even with inventory shortages that the industry is still dealing with in 2022, changing your prices to match the market helps you move your vehicles.
Your ads need to reflect your discounts immediately. And, if your advertiser can’t highlight your price changes or worse yet can’t get your ads updated with new pricing immediately, then your advertising dollars aren’t being effectively spent.
Note: At AutoSweet, we include dynamic pricing wherever we can, including our Facebook ads and Google search ads! See the images below for an example of what these look like.
Pick the Right Vendor & Win
Expertise can be found in a variety of verticals, but a partner who knows the particulars of the automotive space will add value.
At AutoSweet, we have decades of deep knowledge and automotive experience. We know how to help independent and franchise dealerships drive high-quality website traffic from a variety of platforms, and our Inventory Marketing service makes it turnkey.
Contact the industry experts at AutoSweet for a free assessment of your inventory marketing and find out how the right partner can make all the difference.
