In today’s digital age, most car buyers start their search for a new vehicle online. In fact, studies show that the majority of vehicle shoppers now use the internet in their research process before ever setting foot in a dealership. As a car dealership, you need to make sure your online presence captures this huge audience and drives them to your store through multiple channels – like Dealers United’s Full-Service digital solutions do for dealerships…

Implementing the right online advertising strategies can help you connect with more prospective buyers, increase leads and sales, and grow your business in a competitive marketplace. This article explores the most effective types of online ads for car dealerships and how to optimize each one.

Fast track your online advertising presence with Dealers United’s Full-Service digital solutions. 

Paid Search Ads

Paid search ads, also called pay-per-click or PPC ads, should form the foundation of your dealership’s online strategy. These small text ads appear alongside organic search engine results when a user enters a relevant keyword search.

For example, when someone searches for “Toyota RAV4 for sale,” your PPC ad can appear as one of the first results with your store name, discounted pricing offers, and a link to drive traffic to your website or special landing page.

Benefits of PPC ads for dealerships:

• Highly targeted based on search keywords
• Appear high in search rankings, above organic results
• Get instant results and can measure ROI accurately
• Control your budget and spend only when ads are clicked
• Flexible, make changes to improve results

Follow these tips to maximize your PPC campaigns:

• Research high-volume, relevant search keywords
• Create targeted ad copy and landing pages
• A/B test different ads to improve CTR
• Set up conversion tracking to optimize efforts

Facebook and Instagram Advertising For Car Sales

80% of surveyed U.S. car buyers use Facebook for auto research. Facebook and Instagram  offer extensive targeting capabilities, allowing you to serve ads to users more likely to buy based on demographics, interests, behaviors and more.

For a dealership, effective Facebook advertising strategies include:

• Retargeting ads for website visitors
• Local ads for area shoppers
• Offer-based ads like discounts on leases
• Carousel image ads displaying latest inventory

Facebook and Instagram make it easy to create professional, eye-catching ads then monitor performance and capitalize on what’s working best.

Display & Video Ads

Beyond search and social, display advertising reaches car buyers as they browse sites across the web. These visually compelling ads appear on premium websites, news pages, informational content sites and more.

Video ads also capture attention as shoppers engage with interesting video content. You can retarget people who have watched certain videos with your dealership’s ads.

Benefits of offsite display and video ads:

• Broad reach to an engaged audience
• Innovative ad formats like 360-degree interactive
• Frequency to drive brand awareness
• Retargeting warm prospective leads
• High visual impact
• The key is placing these ads where your target audience is most likely to see them through strategic website partnerships and managed ad exchanges.

Track KPIs & Optimize Efforts

Implementing an online advertising strategy takes consistent measurement and optimization. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

• Impressions
• Click-through-rate (CTR)
• Cost per lead
• Lead quality
• Inventory views
• Sales conversions

Analyze this data regularly to determine what’s working and what’s not. Shift budget toward highest performing platforms, targets, and ad creative. Continual testing and improvement will maximize your dealership’s online advertising ROI.

Work With Dealers United for Proven Car Dealership Marketing

As you build an impactful digital advertising program, leverage the expertise of Dealers United – our dedicated team focuses on driving leads and sales for car dealerships like yours.

We handle setting up and managing your search and social campaigns while providing complete transparency into the results. With Dealers United, you get decades of dealership marketing experience focused on one goal—growing your business.

Click here to learn more about how Dealers United can help optimize your online advertising strategy and exceed your lead generation goals this year.

Incorporating videos into your content strategy has become an essential component of any successful dealership. For car dealerships looking to boost sales, video provides an unparalleled opportunity to showcase inventory while building trust and credibility with customers. The opportunities are endless…and with the right video marketing approach, your dealership can drive more qualified traffic, increase lead conversion, and ultimately sell more cars.

Dealers United can help you incorporate custom social media video ads into your campaigns. 

Craft Compelling Dealership Videos

Well-produced video allows customers to experience your dealership and inventory in an engaging, low-pressure environment. Rather than salesy commercials, focus on crafting relevant, valuable videos designed to inform, educate, entertain or otherwise provide value for viewers.

For example, create walkaround videos highlighting key features of popular models on your lot. Produce explanatory videos answering common questions buyers have about financing, leasing, or how to use modern vehicle technologies. Share behind-the-scenes videos giving customers a feel for your service center and staff.

Brief video clips work well for social media, while in-depth videos are better suited for your YouTube channel or website. In all cases, high-quality video production is a must to convey professionalism and boost view rates.

Optimize Video for Search Visibility

The right optimization and promotion strategy can help your videos appear prominently in relevant YouTube or Google search results. For each video:

• Carefully target keywords and organically work them into the title, description and captions.
• Include your dealership name, location and other relevant identifying information prominently in metadata.
• Insert links back to your website within video descriptions driving viewers to take action.
• Promote videos across all your dealership social channels, email campaigns, and websites.
• Monitoring analytics to see which videos gain traction, then doubling down on production of more content around popular themes or vehicles.

Build a Multichannel Video Strategy

While a YouTube channel serves as your video hub, extend the reach of video content by cross-promoting it across other marketing channels:

Email Campaigns: Share new vehicle walkaround or dealership videos via email outreach. Insert clickable thumbnail images linking to full videos.

Social Media: All major platforms now emphasize video content in their algorithms. Develop brief, engaging video clips tailored to each network.

Website: Embed relevant videos on inventory, financing or service pages. Videos can boost time-on-site metrics for better SEO.

In-Person: Install video displays in high-visibility areas of your dealership, showcasing current inventory vehicles, customer testimonials or other relevant content.

A cohesive video marketing approach connecting these channels will amplify viewership and overall impact on prospects and customers alike.

Why Dealers United for Your Video Marketing

As leading social media ad experts for car dealerships, Dealers United has helped our clients drive countless sales through custom created video initiatives optimized for today’s most popular channels. Our team can handle all aspects of ideation, production, optimization and analytics/reporting so you focus on selling.

Trust Dealers United as your dealership video marketing partner and start converting browsers into car buyers today!

Finding the best advertising agency can make all the difference for a car dealership looking to increase sales. With so many options to choose from, it can be quite the challenge when determining which agency is best suited to meet your dealership’s unique needs and goals. Dealers United is an advertising agency specializing in helping car dealerships boost their sales through customized marketing strategies. Dealers United brings you this article that explores what car dealerships should look for when vetting potential ad agencies to partner with.

Defining Your Dealership’s Goals

Before beginning the agency search, car dealerships need to clearly define their goals and what they hope to achieve through advertising. Common objectives may include:

• Increasing monthly or yearly unit sales
• Driving more foot traffic to the retail location
• Boosting leads across digital channels
• Improving brand awareness in your local market
• Highlighting current inventory or promotions

Once you’ve outlined realistic, measurable goals, these become the benchmark to evaluate agencies against.

Seek Automotive Industry Experience

The car business is incredibly unique; for this reason, dealerships should seek out agencies with specific experience in the automotive space. No one understands the intricacies of your business quite like those who have dedicated themselves solely to this niche.

Vet agencies on their experience across areas like:

• Digital marketing strategies for car dealerships
• Inventory management systems knowledge
• Creative campaign production expertise
• Long-term agency-dealer relationships

Going with an established automotive specialist likely yields better results than generalist agencies without the same level of focus.

Assess The Agency’s Creative Portfolio

An advertising agency’s portfolio reveals their creative capabilities and potential fit for a car dealership. When reviewing portfolios, look for:

• Fresh, contemporary automotive creative concepts
• Flexibility across multiple formats and channels
• Campaigns that balance branding with hard sales messaging
• Strong calls-to-action that drive conversions
• Familiarity with digital and print advertising best practices

Agencies that are hesitant to share examples of past work may raise some red flags…So be sure to take note and use what you see in their books as a determining factor throughout the selection process.

Vet Their Media Buying Capabilities

Car dealerships invest heavily in paid media, so choosing an agency with proven media buying experience is vital. More specifically, look for:

• Expertise in buying display, video, native advertising and paid search
• Leveraging attribution modeling to optimize budgets
• Targeting key demographic and geographic segments
• Launching retargeting campaigns to past site visitors
• Providing monthly campaign performance reports

Evaluating their strategic capabilities in this area gives you confidence they can plan and execute paid media that delivers.

Compare Agency Pricing and Contracts

Like most significant business investments, it pays off in the end to gather proposals from multiple advertising agencies before committing long-term. Different agencies will offer different services and charge different fees. 

Dealers United prides itself on having 100% transparency with all features included plus management fees. 

Key items to compare include:

• Monthly or annual agency retainer fees
• Mark-up percentages on media buys and outside vendor costs
• Contract terms like length, opt-out clauses, fees
• Incentive structures regarding performance metrics
• Insights from checking agency references

This due diligence allows dealerships to secure fair, competitive pricing in a transparent way. Be wary of rates that seem too good to be true.

Choose a True Marketing Partner

While weighing all these factors, the most essential criteria comes down to choosing an advertising agency who operates as an extension of your dealership. The agency should:

• Maintain clear, responsive communication
• Geek out over your business, inventory and customers
• Proactively inform you industry changes or competitive intel
• Suggest new ideas to accomplish goals while respecting budgets
• Support internal team members collaboratively

You want an agency, like Dealers United, who cares as much about performance as you do. Identifying that partnership mindset during the vetting process helps set the relationship up for long-term success. We cannot stress this enough.

Searching for The Right Advertising Agency

While the process initially requires effort, finding an automotive specialist with proven strategies and passion for driving dealer performance leads to major dividends over years of working together. 

The expertise of an automotive advertising agency gives dealerships an advantage through savvy messaging, expanded inbound leads, and sales driven by data-informed strategies. Consult an agency specializing in car dealership marketing, like Dealers United, whose expertise is in automotive SEO, SEM and Social Advertising to maximize your opportunities for sales growth and marketplace dominance.

Digital marketing agencies, like Dealers United, offer a vast array of services to help businesses promote themselves online and drive more traffic, leads, and sales. As consumers increasingly go online to research products and services before making purchasing decisions, having an effective digital marketing strategy is critical for dealership’s that want to remain competitive and grow their customer base. 

The right digital marketing agency becomes an invaluable asset serving as a dedicated extension of any dealership’s online marketing team. They bring the expertise required to navigate today’s complex digital landscape – helping dealerships boost their brand, engage more customers and sell more vehicles.

Types of Digital Marketing Services Available Today

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
• Social Media Marketing
• Website Design and Development
• CRM & Email Marketing Solutions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of improving a site to rank higher in search engines like Google for relevant keyword searches. Higher rankings means increased visibility and website traffic for your dealership. SEO agencies offer comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) solutions to improve dealerships’ visibility on search engines like Google. 

SEO services digital agencies provide include:

• Keyword research – Identifying high-value keywords and phrases related to the business to target
• On-page optimization – Adding keywords to page titles, headers, content, etc.
• Technical SEO – Ensuring fast load speeds, proper site indexing, fixing errors
• Link building – Getting quality sites to link back to the site to boost rankings
• Local SEO – Optimizing for local searches by city/state
• Reporting – Tracking keyword ranks, traffic from organic searches, etc.

Paid Search Marketing (SEM / PPC) 

Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising allows businesses to promote their site and products across channels like Google through sponsored listings and ads.

PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads are leveraged by agencies to promote dealership ads across the web. Any good search engine marketing campaign will include a solid PPC strategy. Agencies need to handle setting up and managing search and display campaigns to reach local audiences actively searching for vehicles to buy. Advanced tracking, bidding strategies, call tracking numbers and comprehensive analytics provide insight on a particular PPC campaigns’ performance.

PPC management services include:

• PPC campaign setup and optimization
• Granular targeting by location, interests, behaviors
• Writing compelling ad copy that drives clicks
• Monitoring performance and tweaking campaigns to increase ROI

Social Media Marketing

Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn are extremely popular channels for consumers. Building an engaging social media presence on these platforms is key for branding and lead generation. 

Services related to social media marketing include:

• Social media account setup and optimization
• Content creation – visual assets, videos, posts
• Paid social advertising – promoted posts and ads
• Community management – responding to comments, messages
• Performance reporting – tracking engagement, sales from social

Website Design and Development

One of the most basic yet crucial services provided by digital agencies is website design and development. An attractive, easy-to-use website that engages visitors and motivates them to take action (e.g., make a purchase) is the foundation of most digital marketing efforts. 

Services in this category include:

• Designing visually-appealing site layouts and interfaces
• Programming functionally robust and fast-loading websites
• Ensuring sites are mobile-friendly on all devices
• Integrating features like calculators, charts, forums, etc. to increase engagement
• Connecting websites to lead generation and sales tools such as shopping carts

CRM & Email Marketing Solutions

Digital marketing agencies provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and email marketing solutions that allow advanced tracking and segmentation of leads based on engagement. Customers expect a seamless sales process and personalized, relevant communications from dealerships; and automated lead nurturing email campaigns help guide users through the sales funnel.

Email subscription lists can be a valuable marketing asset, allowing businesses to directly reach customers interested in their products/services.

Email marketing services provided by agencies include:

• Email list building – collecting opt-in subscribers
• Designing email templates and call-to-action graphics
• Broadcast email campaigns – sending promotional messages
• Automating drip campaigns – pre-scheduling email series
• Reporting on open rates, click rates, conversions

Overview of Services Digital Marketing Agencies Offer

This overview shows the diverse mix of digital marketing services offered by specialized agencies today.

Partnering with a knowledgeable, experienced. full-service digital marketing agency, like Dealers United, allows companies to tap into these critical areas of expertise rather than trying to manage complex and ever-evolving digital strategies internally. This ultimately helps them cut through the digital noise to reach their target consumers effectively, driving more sales and ROI.