How Much ($$$) Should Car Dealers Spend on Facebook Ads?

How Much ($$$) Should Car Dealers Spend on Facebook Ads?

How Much ($$$) Should Car Dealers Spend on Facebook Ads?

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales A Guide For Dealerships

Social media has fundamentally changed how people shop for vehicles. Your potential customers are scrolling through Facebook and Instagram daily, discovering vehicles, reading reviews, and engaging with dealerships long before they step foot on a lot. 

For car dealers, this shift in consumer behavior means that having an effective Facebook advertising strategy isn’t just an option – it’s essential for staying competitive in today’s digital marketplace.

Understanding Facebook Ad Costs for Car Dealers

Facebook advertising costs vary significantly across industries, but automotive dealers face unique considerations when planning their social media budget. The key metrics that influence your dealership’s Facebook ad spend and the metric benchmarks you should aim for include:

  • Cost Per Click (CPC): $2.08
  • Click Through Rate (CTR): 8.77%
  • Cost per Lead (CPL): $42.52
  • Conversion Rate (CR): 5.72%

Note: These metrics are benchmarks determined by our social ad experts at Dealers United!

Factors Affecting Your Dealership’s Facebook Ad Budget

Several different things influence how much your dealership should invest in Facebook advertising, like market size and competition, inventory volume, and business goals:

  1. Market Size and Competition
    • Local population density
    • Number of competing dealerships
    • Average income in your market
  2. Inventory Volume
    • New vs. used inventory mix
    • Number of vehicles to promote
    • Special promotions and events
  3. Business Goals
    • Lead generation targets
    • Brand awareness objectives
    • Service department promotion

Budget Considerations by Dealership Size

Small to Medium Dealerships

Your Facebook ad budget should align with your sales volume and business goals. A properly scaled budget should allow for:

  • Multiple campaigns targeting different objectives
  • Adequate audience testing and optimization
  • Consistent lead flow for both sales and service departments
  • Proper inventory displayed

Large Dealerships and Auto Groups

Multi-location operations and dealer groups require more sophisticated advertising approaches. Your budget planning should account for:

  • Scaled campaigns across multiple locations
  • Market-specific audience targeting
  • Full inventory coverage for each location
  • Dedicated service department campaigns
  • Brand-level awareness initiatives
  • Multiple campaign objectives running simultaneously

Click here to find out what your Facebook ads budget should be using our MarketAnalyzer tool. 

Maximizing ROI on Facebook Ad Spend

The key to successful Facebook advertising isn’t just how much you spend – it’s how effectively you deploy your budget. Top-performing dealerships focus on:

  1. Strategic Campaign Structure
    • Separate campaigns for new, used, and service
    • Dynamic inventory ads
    • Custom audience targeting
  2. Creative Excellence
    • High-quality vehicle photography
    • Engaging video content
    • Compelling ad copy
  3. Continuous Optimization
    • Regular performance monitoring
    • A/B testing
    • Budget reallocation based on results

Optimizing Your Facebook Ad Strategy

When managing Facebook advertising campaigns, dealerships should focus on several key areas:

  1. Campaign Timing and Seasonality
  2. Strategic Audience Segmentation
  3. Performance Metric Tracking
  4. Regular Campaign Optimization
  5. Creative Asset Quality

Professional Campaign Management

Professional management of your Facebook advertising can help your dealership:

  • Implement advanced targeting strategies
  • Monitor and optimize campaign performance
  • Create engaging automotive-specific content
  • Track and analyze key performance metrics
  • Scale campaigns based on results

Strategic Investment Planning

Your Facebook advertising investment should align with:

  • Your dealership’s specific sales goals
  • Your local market conditions
  • Your competitive landscape
  • Your target audience size
  • Your inventory mix and volume

Use our MarketAnalyzer tool here to analyze your market opportunity and create a tailored budget approach for your dealership.

Start Maximizing Your Facebook Ad Performance

Success with Facebook advertising requires strategic planning, consistent optimization, and deep understanding of automotive digital marketing. The right approach can help your dealership reach potential customers effectively and drive qualified traffic to your showroom.

At Dealers United, we specialize in automotive Facebook advertising and understand the unique challenges dealers face in the digital space. Our team can help you develop and execute a Facebook advertising strategy tailored to your dealership’s specific needs and goals.

Dominate Social Ads

 

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

How to Audit Your Dealership’s Search & Social Digital Marketing: The Complete DIY Guide

How to Audit Your Dealership’s Search & Social Digital Marketing: The Complete DIY Guide

How to Audit Your Dealership’s Search & Social Digital Marketing: The Complete DIY Guide

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales A Guide For Dealerships

Many dealers are missing crucial opportunities across their Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM / Paid Search), and Social Media campaigns…

That’s why we’ve written this blog article, to help you identify where you have gaps in your search and social strategies on your own.

Want a quick win? Click here to skip the article and schedule an appointment with our Search and Social experts who will give you a free 14-Point Digital Audit!

Why Your Dealership Needs a Digital Marketing Audit

It’s not a secret that dealerships struggle to effectively capture the attention of users online. Here’s why:

  • Misaligned SEO strategies focusing on irrelevant content (like local restaurant reviews)
  • Inefficient ad spend due to poor campaign structure and targeting
  • Outdated social media content missing key conversion opportunities
  • Lack of coordination between marketing channels
  • Insufficient tracking of key performance metrics

The Three Pillars of Digital Marketing Success

Recent data shows that although 68% of car buying journeys start with a search engine, social media influences over 2 hours of your customers’ daily online activity — meaning that there is an extreme opportunity to reach users on search and social.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Quality organic traffic can drive up to 53% of your website visitors — which makes SEO important. 

Before we get into what you need to audit, here are some tools that can be helpful as you audit your SEO strategy yourself: 

  • Ahrefs
  • SEM Rush 
  • MOZ
  • Google Ads Transparency Center
  • Search From
  • Surfer SEO
  • And more…
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  • SEO Audit Part 1: Domain Analysis
      • Analyze your domain and look at the following: 
        • Keywords
        • Monthly organic visitors
        • Total backlinks
        • Domain rating (10-30 typical)
        • Referring domains (the more, the better!)

           

  • SEO Audit Part 2: Traffic Level Check
      • Look back 6 months or 1 year to see the comparison of traffic to the current timeframe
      • What’s the # of monthly organic visitors? 
      • What’s the peak # of visitors – and when is it?

         

  • SEO Audit Part 2: Traffic Level Check
      • Check your website’s keyword strategy and content focus. Review rankings for key areas:
        • Non-dealer-branded keywords
        • Backyard cities
        • “Near me” searches
        • Local cities + OEM combinations
        • Flag any irrelevant keywords (like restaurants or local attractions)
  • SEO Audit Part 4: Technical Tune-Up
    • Do all headings give context? i.e., “Browse new models” “shop” “service”
    • Think like a robot!
      • How does Google (🤖 ) view your site? 
      • All the words on your site need to be contextualized to get across to Google what your page or website is about

A properly optimized dealership website should rank for more than just your brand name – it should capture valuable “near me” searches and local buying intent across your entire market area.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / Paid Search Marketing

  • SEM Audit Part 1: Strategy & Budget Diagnostics
    • Are you over-segmenting campaigns?
    • Are you cannibalizing your organic traffic for  “{{Dealership Name}}” bids?
    • Make sure you’re not overspending $$$ on Tier 1 & 2
    • Are you maximizing Google’s Paid Search opportunities with Google VLAs?

       

  • SEM Audit Part 2: Audience Assessment
    • What are your in-market audiences?
    • Are you using affinity audiences?
    • Does your audience use demographics?
    • Are you leveraging your 1st party data?
    • Do audience signals append to Performance Max?

       

  • SEM Audit Part 3: Keyword/Targeting Selections
    • Are you using the full 15 headlines & 4 description lines for each ad?
    • Are you using all ad extensions? (sitelinks, location, call, structured snippet, callout)
    • Are you layering top performing cities into location targeting?
    • Are you using the “Target ROAS” bid strategy?
    • Are you using the right KPIs? (phone calls, form submissions, store visits)
    • Are you using ASC framework for GA4 event tracking?

       

  • SEM Audit Part 4: Setup & Hygiene Checks
    • Are you using all match types? (broad, phrase & exact) 
    • Are you running dynamic Search Ads campaigns?
    • How often are you reviewing search term reports? 
    • Make sure you’re not adding negative keywords
    • Are you taking advantage of “Search Partner” & “Display Network”?

3. Social Media Ads

  • Social Ads Audit Part 1: Model Line Mechanics
    • Review your model line ads and promotions. Check for these key elements:
      • Monthly incentive updates
      • Current OEM imagery
      • 2024 model education content
      • Outdated promotion removal
      • Seasonal relevance

         

  • Social Ads Audit Part 2: Inventory Ads Inspection
    • What are your in-market audiences?
    • Are you using affinity audiences?
    • Does your audience use demographics?
    • Are you leveraging your 1st party data?
    • Do audience signals append to Performance Max?

       

  • Social Ads Audit Part 3: Social Systems Utilization
    • Evaluate your social media campaign setup. Review these technical elements:
      • Ad format variety (image, video, carousel, stories)
      • Platform diversification
      • Format specifications (1×1, 9×16)
      • Video length optimization
      • Campaign objective coverage
      • Data targeting implementation

         

  • Social Ads Audit Part 4: Setup & Hygiene Checks
    • Assess your dealership’s brand messaging. Examine these brand elements:
  • Customer testimonials and reviews
  • Unique value propositions
  • Service department promotion
  • Community engagement
  • Special event coverage
  • Custom video content

Schedule your 14-Point Digital Audit now and learn how to maximize your search strategy and social media ads for your car dealership.

The Power of Integration: SEO + SEM + Social Ads

The most successful dealerships aren’t just executing these strategies independently – they’re creating synergy between all three channels. 

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Our data shows that integrated campaigns can:

  • Increase organic traffic by 23% in 90 days (PROVEN results from one of our dealer partners, St. Albert Dodge)
  • Improve social media engagement rates significantly
  • Create consistent messaging across all platforms
  • Maximize budget efficiency through cross-channel insights

What Sets Top-Performing Dealerships Apart

Leading dealerships consistently monitor their digital presence using a comprehensive audit framework, like the one above. They focus on:

  • Quality traffic over vanity metrics
  • Local market dominance
  • Cross-channel audience targeting
  • Regular performance optimization
  • Data-driven decision making
  • Consistent brand messaging

Take Action Today: Book Your Digital Audit For Car Dealers

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Don’t let digital marketing opportunities slip through the cracks. Our team of automotive digital marketing experts can help you:

  1. Identify gaps in your current strategy
  2. Benchmark against top performers
  3. Create an actionable improvement plan
  4. Implement best practices across all channels
  5. Monitor and optimize performance

Ready to maximize your digital marketing ROI? Click here to book your 14-Point Digital Audit today and get a detailed inspection of your digital strategies.

Dominate SEARCH &  Social Ads

 

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

How Dahl Ford Boosted Leads & Traffic with SEO, SEM, and Disruptive Social Ads

How Dahl Ford Boosted Leads & Traffic with SEO, SEM, and Disruptive Social Ads

How Dahl Ford Boosted Leads & Traffic with SEO, SEM, and Disruptive Social Ads

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales A Guide For Dealerships

Successful car dealerships must keep up with the ever-evolving technology and competitive landscape…which means mastering online marketing channels like search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM)/pay-per-click ads (PPC), and social media. By partnering with Dealers United’s full-service digital team, Dahl Ford Davenport implemented a unified cross-channel strategy that allowed them to dominate their local market, capture more leads, and drive higher-quality traffic to their website and showroom.

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Dominating Local Search Through Geo-Targeted SEO

Within just 90 days of launching a new SEO campaign with Dealers United, Dahl Ford saw a 24% increase in organic traffic and improved rankings by 50 positions for the valuable “Ford Escape near me” keyword. Their success was driven by optimizing web content for geo-targeted searches like “Cedar Rapids car dealerships,” “Quad Cities car dealers,” and “Davenport used cars.”

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Click here to book a demo and see how we can help you optimize your SEO strategy.

On-Page Optimization & Keyword Mapping

The key to Dahl Ford’s SEO success started with comprehensive keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-value search terms for their target audiences and sales goals. Dealers United then meticulously mapped these keywords across website pages, title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and body content. This strategic placement of topically-relevant keywords and synonyms improved the semantic relevance and rankings for those terms.

Technical SEO Boosts & Local Citations

Beyond on-page elements, Dealers United’s technical SEO team enhanced site speed, mobile-friendliness, and URL structures for better search engine crawlability of Dahl’s website. They also built an extensive profile of consistent NAP (name, address, phone) listings across online directories like Google My Business, Bing Places, and others – reinforcing Dahl Ford’s local relevance.

Intelligent SEM/PPC Campaigns for High-Intent Auto Shoppers

To complement their SEO efforts and capture high-intent searchers, Dahl Ford’s SEM strategy utilized advanced tactics like AI bidding algorithms, dynamic ad creative based on consumer data, and granular audience targeting by previous shopping behavior. This data-driven approach allowed them to efficiently acquire 1,014 leads at an average cost per lead of just $32.33 over a 90-day period.

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Want an SEM strategy that actually drives leads? Book a demo here.

Automotive SEM/PPC Audience Targeting Tactics

Some of the innovative audience targeting methods included:

  • Retargeting previous website visitors
  • Using in-market auto intenders based on search histories
  • Layering affinity categories for models like trucks, SUVs, etc.
  • Creating customer match audiences from Dahl Ford’s own CRM data

These precise targeting capabilities within ad platforms like Google Ads ensured their paid search campaigns reached the right shoppers at the ideal moments.

The “Market Disruptor” Social Ad Campaigns

Dahl Ford used innovative social media marketing to promote their brand promise of unbeatable local offers. Their “Market Disruptor” Facebook/Instagram campaign generated 2,295 leads at $26.57 per lead and 384 matched vehicle sales at $158.78 per unit sold.

 

Ready to run campaigns that drive results like Dahl? Book a demo here.

Using TikTok Video Ads to Disrupt the Local Market

Taking their disruptive approach to new heights, Dahl Ford’s TikTok video ad campaign showcased bold creative concepts that immediately captured viewer attention. The campaign racked up 12,990 clicks at just $0.92 per click, over 2 million total views, and an impressive 30-second average watch time per viewer. This exemplified how engaging content in an emerging channel can provide a competitive edge.

Maximizing Visibility for Dahl’s Dealership

By combining SEO to maximize organic visibility, SEM to target high-value searches, and cutting-edge social ads that disrupted their local market – Dahl Ford’s unified digital strategy with Dealers United generated more overall leads and website traffic.

Their impressive results prove that a comprehensive online presence powered by intelligent audience targeting and compelling creative is now critical for automotive dealerships to stand out from competitors and keep sales booming.

Click here to book a demo and see how we can generate high results for your dealership.

BOOK DEMO TO BOOST LEADS

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales: A Guide For Dealerships

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales: A Guide For Dealerships

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales: A Guide For Dealerships

Facebook Advertising For Car Sales A Guide For Dealerships

Imagine if your dealership  could reach over 2 billion monthly visitors. That enormous footprint now exists in the digital realm thanks to Facebook. Savvy car dealers are leveraging the world’s top social platform to engage buyers where they already spend time online. 

This comprehensive “Facebook Advertising For Car Sales” guide will explore how to transform Facebook into your digital showroom. By implementing targeted advertising campaigns, you can drive qualified traffic to your on-lot or online inventory. We will cover approaches for dealers both new to Facebook ads and those with existing strategies.

The Benefits of Facebook Advertising For Car Dealerships

Facebook advertising comes with a unique set of benefits that make it highly appealing for car dealers who want to target  online, in-market  customers:

Laser-Focused Facebook Targeting Options

With Facebook ads, you can target users based on location, demographics, interests, behaviors and more. This level of precision paired with Facebook’s extensive user base allows you to put your ad dollars in front of highly-targeted, high-intent customers.

Unrivaled Retargeting Capabilities with Facebook Advertising

Your dealership can create custom audiences of people who have already engaged with your website or dealership’s Facebook page. By retargeting this group, you can turn cold leads into hot prospects and prime them until they’re ready-to-buy, and  from your dealership!

Increased On-Lot Traffic for Dealerships

Well-designed Facebook ads displayed to targeted groups in your area can drive significant traffic directly to your dealer lot. This influx of foot traffic leads to more test drives and on-lot sales.

Higher Lead Conversion Rates

Users who engage with your ads signal they are open to learning more. You can provide lead forms directly in Facebook, allowing customers an easy path to convert.

Measurable ROI for Facebook Advertising

The platform makes it easy to track conversions from your ads directly into leads and sales – and being aware of your ROI helps optimize your ad spend.

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If you are ready to explore how Facebook advertising can impact your dealership’s bottom line, click here to learn more about Dealers United’s Facebook Advertising Solutions.

How Facebook Advertising Works for Car Dealerships

Facebook advertising is based on an auction model where companies like dealerships bid against each other for ad placement. Your bid, along with the predicted impact of your ads, determines how often your ads are displayed to relevant audiences.

When setting up a Facebook ad, you choose audiences, placements, messaging and imagery, calls-to-action, and bids and budgets:

  • Audiences – Select the target customer demographics, behaviors, interests and locations that best align with your ideal purchaser.
  • Placements – Choose to display your ads in the Facebook News Feed, Instagram Feed, Facebook Marketplace or within popular videos.
  • Messaging & Imagery – Craft compelling ad copy and visuals that stop people from idly scrolling and pique interest.
  • Calls-to-Action – Such as “Learn More”, “Shop Now”, “Schedule Test Drive”, that match different stages of the car buying journey.
  • Bids & Budgets – Set a daily budget and cost-per ad click/impression bids based on your sales goals.

Once your campaign launches, Facebook provides detailed analytics on performance. By monitoring metrics like cost per lead, click-through-rate and conversion rate, you can optimize for better ongoing results.

Want to learn more about how Dealers United can help you set up conversion-driven Facebook advertising? Click here to learn  about Dealers United’s Facebook Advertising solutions tailored to dealerships.

Facebook Advertising Campaign Examples & Best Practices For Dealers

The key to success with Facebook advertising lies in understanding the core consumer motivations and triggers. Approach each campaign by putting yourself in the shoes of the shopper.

Think about how you can attract their attention and keep it long enough to convert them into your customer.

Two common Facebook ad examples dealerships should execute in line with best practices are inventory/price based campaigns, and limited time special offers:

car-dealership-branding-examples

Inventory / Price Based Campaigns

These campaigns display actual vehicles from inventory at set pricing. They work well especially for dealers promoting new car makes or particular models.

Best Practices for Inventory / Price Based Campaign:

  • Feature your very best discounted vehicles to maximize interest
  • Keep ad copy succinct with clear call-to-action
  • Drive traffic to a dedicated inventory or specials landing page on your website
  • Retarget engaged users across devices with discounted pricing

Limited Time Special Offers

Leverage the power of scarcity and urgency with special deals only available for a short period. These ads can boost traffic during sales events or clearance offers.

Best Practices for Limited Time Special Offers:

  • Make the expiration date very clear
  • Limit to your highest perceived value vehicles or very low prices
  • Pair the offer visuals with strong text overlay like “Offers End Soon!”
  • Point traffic directly to online vehicle listings the customer can act on

Facebook Advertising for Car Sales: The Bottom Line

Facebook advertising checks all the boxes for affordability, targeting and measurability. For dealers looking to scale online leads and sales, Facebook ads represent an essential component of your digital marketing strategy.

And the platform keeps getting better. With new formats and expanded targeting, costs per lead acquisition remain highly competitive relative to other paid channels.

Dealers United can help your car dealership build an intelligent Facebook advertising plan tailored to your sales objectives.

Demo Now To Dominate  Facebook Ads

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

Optimizing Your Social Media Ads Budget for Car Dealerships

Optimizing Your Social Media Ads Budget for Car Dealerships

Optimizing Your Social Media Ads Budget for Car Dealerships

Secrets to SEO Success - Blog

Every dealership needs to be advertising on social media if they want to reach new customers and increase sales. It’s a no-brainer. However, with limited marketing budgets, it’s important to spend your money wisely to get the best return on investment. This article provides tips on how to optimize your social media ads budget as a car dealership, from social media advertising experts at Dealers United.

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

Before allocating your budget, your dealership will need to set clear goals and identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to achieve with social media ads. Common goals include:

  • Increase website traffic
  • Generate more leads
  • Boost brand awareness
  • Drive dealership foot traffic

Establishing metrics to track for each goal such as click-through rate, cost per lead, and conversion rate will help guide budget decisions.

Research Your Audience

Conduct thorough consumer research to understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, behavior patterns, and media consumption habits. This will allow you to determine which social platforms and types of ad content will resonate most. The better tailored your ads, the better the performance.

Software like Google Analytics can provide insight into existing audience data from your website traffic. Additional tools like Facebook Audience Insights allow you to analyze target customer groups.

Or, with Dealers United’s social ads, your dealership can magically change your ads based on shopper behavior. Our ad solutions are so intelligent that your ad copy, placements, and even calls-to-action will change based on how shoppers engage with you.

For example: If a shopper visited a VDP but didn’t submit a lead, your ads would evolve to then show that exact VIN paired with lead forms to get them to come back and convert.

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Click here to learn more about Dealers United’s ad solutions. 

Test Different Social Advertising Platforms

All social media platforms have unique advertising formats and audiences.  It’s important to test different platforms to see which one generates the highest ROI for your dealership.

Start by allocating a small budget to run A/B tests across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn. Look at relevant performance indicators, then allocate more budget towards the best-performing platforms.

Optimize Your Social Ad Creative

Well-designed creatives make a big difference in the success of ads. Work with designers to produce visuals and copywriting that grabs attention and conveys your brand style.

You will want to find social ad experts like Dealers United’s who will go above and beyond to design unique ads for your dealership that stand out. 

 

Analyze and Adjust Social Ads in Real-Time

Make sure that your dealership is consistently analyzing your ad performance and making changes when needed. Many social platforms provide real-time reporting dashboards to monitor metrics, so it’s important to optimize based on performance.

If an ad concept is underperforming, it’s as simple as pausing it and trying new creative to see what resonates with your audience. If a platform isn’t generating enough conversions, shift budget to those ads that driving more leads and sales. So long as you stay agile, you will always be aware of what you can try to boost performance.

Targeting and Retargeting Techniques for Engaged Customers

One proven tactic is to create custom audiences of people who have engaged with your brand and retarget them with ads. This could include:

  • Website visitors
  • Past lead form submitters
  • Video viewers
  • Foot traffic

Pro tip: Retargeting to warm leads and existing customers has higher conversion rates for lower cost.

Set and Refine Rules-Based Budgets

The best practice is to establish overall monthly budgets as well as daily/hourly limits that automatically pace spending. Use this as a starting point then refine over time.

Schedule more budget around weekdays or weekends when engagement is higher. Set flexible guardrails around ideal customer actions to control overspending. Continue assessing data then optimize budget allocations.

Importance of Optimizing Your Social Media Ads

Optimizing your social media budget takes consistent effort, but each small gain compounds over time into major performance and savings benefits. Work closely with your marketing advisor to track KPIs and align the budget to what’s working best.

At Dealers United, our certified marketing consultants leverage proprietary technology and proven methodologies tailored specifically for car dealerships. Schedule a free assessment to discuss how we can optimize your next digital campaign towards exceeding sales objectives while maximizing your budget.

Demo our social ads packages!

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

Targeting and Retargeting Techniques on Social Media for Car Dealerships

Targeting and Retargeting Techniques on Social Media for Car Dealerships

Targeting and Retargeting Techniques on Social Media for Car Dealerships

Secrets to SEO Success - Blog

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
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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. 

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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.

demo our social ads services

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.