In today’s digital landscape, social media is a must for car dealerships looking to generate more qualified leads and drive showroom traffic. However, simply having social media pages is not enough. Dealers need effective targeting and retargeting social media ad strategies tailored to their audiences and goals. This article explores the latest techniques to optimize social media approaches for maximum conversions.

For hands-on execution of social media optimization, click here to learn more about Dealers United’s Social Ads Solutions.

Laser-Focused Car Shopper Targeting

The major social platforms allow highly customized audience targeting to serve ads. When creating campaigns, dealers should precisely define demographics like age ranges, gender, income levels combined with geographic and behavioral data. For example, target men ages 30-55 with household incomes over $75k who live within 20 miles of your dealership and have searched for pickup trucks in the last 30 days. The tighter your audience focus, the better engagement and downstream conversions.

Lookalike Audiences For Scalability

Lookalike audiences use custom dealership data like existing customer lists or website traffic to find new people who closely resemble your best buyers. Uploading such first-party data to advertising platforms informs their algorithm to seek new leads that share common attributes. With enough source data, lookalikes can effectively model millions of prospects at scale. Aim for at least 100 high-quality customer records for optimal mirroring effects.

While lookalike modeling can be extremely powerful, executing it successfully requires in-depth expertise.

But Dealers United can help you laser-target your ideal audience across social. 

Remarketing Dealership Website Visitors

Installing tracking pixels on your website lets you build audiences of all site visitors for follow-up ads. If a prospect explored SUV pages on your dealer site, you can then serve relevant ads, such as current purchase incentives or specials on SUV models they showed interest in. This technique essentially allows capturing of ‘lost’ prospects for renewed personalized engagement based on their specific research behavior.

You can also choose to target users based on the timeframe in which they visited your website, for example, you can target all website visitors who have visited your site in the past 180 days, and are:

• Located within a 15 mile radius of your dealership
• In-market shoppers
• Owners of competitive makes and models

Optimize Based on Performance Metrics

Analyzing metrics like click-through rates, cost per lead acquisition, sales cycle stage progression, units sold, and ROI enable continuous enhancement of both targeting parameters and creative approaches. 

Determine which audience segments, geographical areas and messaging themes produce the strongest performing prospects for your sales funnel. Select weaker areas and amplify the high-conversion signals. Adapt campaigns rapidly based on measured attribution.

Full Sales Cycle Attribution

Understand exactly how your social media efforts tie not just to lead generation but all the way through assisting prospects during research phases to purchase. Marketing attribution solutions like Facebook’s Conversions API allow tagging leads then tracking them to closed sales, charting how different messages guide buyers across stages. Dial-in messaging matched to each research phase using attribution insights for exponential conversions.

Strategic Social = More Car Sales

In our fragmented media landscape, dealers must employ targeted and retargeted social media strategies tailored for their prospects. Advanced audience segmentation, behavioral analytics, and attribution enable killer campaigns. Click here to find out how Dealers United can help with proven execution of cutting-edge social media advertising.

In today’s digital environment, social media is essential for car dealerships who are looking to build a strong brand identity and connect with car shoppers. With so much competition in the automotive industry and in your backyard, creating differentiated branding on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter can help your dealership stand out. This article will provide car dealers and general managers with tips and best practices for leveraging social media to promote their unique dealership story.

Learn more about Dealers United’s social ads solutions designed specifically for driving more traffic and sales to your dealership.

Defining Your Dealership’s Brand Identity

The first step is to clearly define what sets your dealership apart. What is unique about your dealership, and what makes you different from your competition – aka, why should someone choose YOU? Key elements that make up your brand identity may include:

• Your mission/vision statements
• Core values
• Messaging, voice & tone
• Visual elements like logo and color scheme

Make sure you have clarity around these components before developing social media content. Understanding your intrinsic brand identity will allow you to translate it consistently across different digital channels.

Creating Content Aligned to Your Brand Identity

With your brand identity pillars defined, all social media content should align back to it. For a car dealership, content may include:

• Introducing new inventory with custom images/videos
• Behind-the-scenes posts highlighting dealership facility or staff
• Customer testimonials/reviews
• Personalized offers or specials
• Community events and partnerships

Whatever you share, ensure it feels cohesive with your brand personality and style. This consistency and authenticity will resonate more with your audience.

Optimizing Your Social Media Profile Elements

In addition to content, optimize key social media profile elements to further strengthen brand identity.

• Profile image: Use your logo or imagery that captures the essence of your dealership
• Bio/description: Succinctly explain core focus, competitive differentiators and personality
• Cover image: Hero imagery or branded graphics that represent your dealership
• Hashtags: Brand-centric hashtags to unify content from different platforms

These visual identity markers will help viewers immediately understand and recognize your brand when engaging with your profiles.

Here are a couple of examples of what an optimized social media profile looks like:

Measuring Success on Social Media as a Car Dealership

Finally, your dealership will want to actively monitor social media analytics to benchmark how your online brand identity impacts key performance indicators. Relevant metrics include:

• Brand awareness and reach
• Website referral traffic
• Lead generation/sales inquiries
• Audience engagement and growth

Continuously assess what content best resonates with your followers. This will allow you to refine your social brand strategy over time.

Start Amplifying Your Dealership’s Brand Identity

At Dealers United, we specialize in helping car dealerships showcase their one-of-a-kind identity on social media. Our automotive advertising experts will work closely with you to understand your brand character, voice, and strengths in order to develop an impactful social presence. Click here to learn more about how we can expand your dealership’s reach and influence through custom ads across the most popular social platforms.

Social media advertising is an essential part of any car dealership’s marketing strategy today. And with multiple platforms to choose from, it can be difficult to determine where to focus your efforts. This article examines the pros and cons of five of the most popular social media platforms – Facebook & Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest – to help car dealers make informed decisions about their social campaigns.

Evaluating Facebook & Instagram for Auto Dealerships

With over 250 million monthly active users in the US alone, Facebook and Instagram remain dominant forces in social media. The platforms offer car dealers wide reach, multiple ad placements, dynamic ads, and some of the lowest cost-per-lead metrics across channels…

However, recent data privacy changes have impacted attribution, and restrictions around housing/employment/credit ads limit audience targeting. Let’s dive into the Pros and Cons of Facebook & Instagram Advertising:

Pros of Facebook & Instagram Advertising

• Massive combined US audience
• Flexible ad formats & placements
• Low CPL and conversion costs
• Dynamic ads optimize performance

Cons of Facebook & Instagram Advertising

• Data privacy limits attribution
• Audience restrictions on certain ad types

Examining the Pros and Cons of Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat now boasts over 65 million daily active users aged 15-29 in the US. The platform makes it easy to create targeted, visual ads and flaunt your latest inventory! With that being said, Snapchat caters towards a younger demographic and is focused more on engagement than sales conversions. Here are the benefits and potential drawbacks of Snapchat for auto dealers:

Benefits of Snapchat for Auto Dealers

• Huge Millennial/Gen Z reach (the majority of in-market car shoppers are millennial and Gen Z!)
• Intuitive ad platform
• Creative ad formats stand out

Potential Drawbacks of Snapchat

• Limited age range
• Brand awareness-focused
• Can’t drive direct leads

The strategic experts at Dealers United know how to turn high Snapchat engagement into increased showroom traffic. Learn more about Dealers United’s custom social ad campaigns here.

Analyzing Pinterest as an Emerging Opportunity

Pinterest offers access to a lucrative audience; 52% of users earn $100k+ per year. Dynamic product ads allow dealers to turn browser inspiration into showroom visits. Although, the platform still trails competitors in reach and conversions.There are both advantages and challenges when it comes to advertising on Pinterest:

Pinterest Advertising Advantages

• 87% of Pinterest users use the platform for shopping research
• High-income user base
• Shopping ads drive site traffic

Pinterest Marketing Challenges

• Smaller audience size
• Lower performance/ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend)
• Limited ad formats

Evaluating the Rise of TikTok for Dealerships

As the #1 app by downloads worldwide, TikTok presents a huge growth opportunity for dealers. Short video ads help turn viral moments into visits and purchases thanks to the platforms’ highly engaged, sales-ready user base. The main drawback of TikTok lies in its lower efficacy for direct lead generation relative to other social channels. But nonetheless, TikTok advertising has its strengths and weaknesses:

TikTok’s Strengths for Auto Marketing

• Massive and growing audience
• Fun, engaging video ads
• Audience is ready to purchase

Potential Weaknesses of TikTok Advertising

• More brand-focused metrics
• Fewer clicks/leads
• Limited targeting options

Get Expert Social Media Strategies

Long story short, all major social platforms offer unique benefits, and with a combination of campaigns across each of the most powerful social platforms, dealerships will achieve the highest ROI across key sales funnel metrics like cost-per-click and conversion rates.

Our social media experts at Dealers United employ advanced optimization techniques tailored specifically to the auto industry.

Click here to learn more about our data-driven approach to building successful social ad campaigns.

With strategic targeting, creative testing, and bid adjustments in place, we leverage the sales readiness of platforms like TikTok to complement the proven lead and sale generating power of Meta’s properties. This balanced approach ensures dealers get the best outcome for their marketing budget month after month.