Facebook Marketplace ended for dealers on January 30, 2023. What exactly does this mean for your dealership?
- Your dealership business page will no longer be able to post any vehicle listings after January 30, whether manual or automated
- Meta also shut down the “Vehicles” tab and “View Inventory” button from Facebook Business Pages
- All current dealership vehicle listings have been removed from Facebook Marketplace, including manual or automated posts from your Facebook Business Page
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Why is Facebook Making this Change?
The exact reason for this change is unknown, but it is believed that Facebook wants to return to its peer-to-peer selling roots on Marketplace while encouraging more ad spending from dealerships.
How Can Your Dealership Replace These Lost Marketplace Leads?
Be mindful of the use of personal Facebook pages for Marketplace vehicle postings. Allowing employees to be the face of your brand could result in negative consequences for your dealership’s reputation.
Instead, focus on creating a long-term lead generation strategy that is not dependent on one channel.
Look at lead generation the same way you would a stock portfolio. A mix of both high and low-funnel leads from multiple sources will minimize risk if one channel changes or goes away completely.
The first lead generation strategy AutoSweet suggests focuses on obtaining as many low-funnel leads as possible.
Classified Listing Websites
Classified listing platforms like Craigslist, OfferUp, and MSN Autos are a great way to generate more leads with high purchase intent. However, it is important to ensure that proper techniques are used to maximize the benefits of these platforms.
How to make the most of each classified listing:
- Respond quickly to leads
- Use trackable short links and branded image overlays
- Track your calls with unique phone numbers
- Analyze which listing platforms work best for your market
Classified ads are a fantastic way to generate leads at the bottom of your sales funnel, but their effectiveness is restricted by the number of active buyers using them.
To achieve long-term growth, implement other lead generation strategies and expand marketing beyond classifieds. The good news is that our next suggested strategy doesn’t require any advertising budget.
Local SEO
Local SEO is all about making sure your dealership appears at the top of search results when someone is looking for a car dealership near them.
According to Google, three things influence their local SEO rankings:
- Distance: How close you are to the searcher
- Relevance: How relevant your dealership is to their search
- Prominence: How well-known or reputable your dealership is
To improve your dealership’s local SEO performance, AutoSweet recommends the following:
- Keep your Google Business Profile updated with fresh content and information
- Work on getting positive reviews from your customers and make sure to respond to all reviews, even the negative ones
- Get listed on top local directories and make sure your information is up-to-date and consistent across all platforms.
Local SEO is a valuable growth strategy, but it requires patience. And eventually, it will reach a point of limited growth, just like classified listings.
To really expand your business, you’ll need to focus on creating demand at the top of the funnel, where the largest number of shoppers are. This is where a paid growth strategy comes in…
Paid Growth
Our final strategy targets shoppers who are beginning their car shopping journey. We recommend advertising where the most shoppers are: Google and Facebook.
Your paid growth ad strategy should have two goals:
- Build Traffic and Interest: Get as many potential local shoppers to visit your website, click your ads, and see your cards
- Generate Leads and Sales: Retarget past ad clickers and website visitors with ads that encourage them to fill out a lead form online, contact you, visit your dealership, and buy a vehicle
To get the most out of your paid growth strategy:
- Target local shoppers by focusing on your local area
- Make the car the star- inventory ads tend to perform best
- Don’t ignore traffic ads – they help create more low-funnel traffic
- Use lead-gen ads to find and retarget low-funnel shoppers
- Highlight any deals or pricing discounts
- Include as many photos of the vehicle as possible (we recommend 16)
- Be patient – most new campaigns don’t see peak results until 3 months in
While paid growth offers great potential for lead generation, be aware that many of these leads are top-of-funnel and may not be ready to purchase for several months.
To maximize results, continue to supplement paid growth with other strategies like classified listings and local SEO for a comprehensive approach.
Start Replacing Your Lost Marketplace Leads Today
In summary, to replace any lost leads from Facebook Marketplace, AutoSweet recommends:
- Diversifying your marketing strategy by winning leads from multiple channels
- Capturing as many low-funnel leads as possible on classified listing platforms
- Improving your visibility with a solid local SEO foundation
- Generating more traffic with unique paid ad features
Need help replacing your lost Facebook Marketplace leads?
AutoSweet is a Meta Business Partner and our team of digital marketing experts are standing by to help!
Plus, learn how you can unlock the power of transparency in Facebook advertising with AutoSweet. Our matched sales feature matches real names to sales to show you exactly which campaigns are driving growth.
Fill out the form below to see the AutoSweet difference for yourself! Join the ranks of hundreds of dealerships who continue to trust AutoSweet to give them an edge in an ever-changing market.
