Optimizing Your Social Media Ads Budget for Car Dealerships

by Brooke Jensen | Feb 2, 2024 | Social Media, Budgeting, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok

Optimizing Your Social Media Ads Budget for Car Dealerships

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.

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 car dealer 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.

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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.

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Targeting and Retargeting Techniques on Social Media for Car Dealerships

by Brooke Jensen | Jan 23, 2024 | Social Media, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Targeting/Audience, TikTok

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Targeting and Retargeting Techniques on Social Media for Car Dealerships

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.

best-practices-to-optimize-your-car-dealership-website

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.

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Building a Strong Brand Identity on Social Media for Car Dealerships

by Brooke Jensen | Jan 18, 2024 | Social Media, Branding, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok

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Building a Strong Brand Identity on Social Media for Car Dealerships

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.

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The Ultimate Guide To Social Advertising For Aftermarket Shops

by Brooke Jensen | Sep 2, 2020 | Digital Marketing, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, Social Media, TikTok

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The Ultimate Guide To Social Advertising For Aftermarket Shops

Are you wondering where to begin advertising on Social Media platforms for your aftermarket shop?

We know it can be overwhelming, but it’s critical to understand that using all social media platforms is not as effective as focusing on just a few.

Before choosing which platforms to use, make sure to ask your current customers which platforms they spend most of their time, and where they go to learn about a new product or service.

You don’t want to waste your time or money on advertising that isn’t going to reach your current and prospective customers… and we don’t want that for you either!

This is why we wrote this blog article, to provide your aftermarket shop some key information about Organic and Paid advertising on social media.

Maximizing Organic Reach and Content For Aftermarket Shops

Google My Business:

Google My Business is so powerful, it’s free and underutilized.

You’ll want to have a Google My Business account to increase exposure and encourage local customer engagement.

Now that you can be found effortlessly, you must stay relevant.

Establish a presence on social media! Once you’ve identified who your customers are, choose which social media platform to use based on where your customers and prospects are.

Facebook:

Over 80% of people in the US are on a Facebook property including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Marketplace, Whats App, and Audience Network. Instagram Stories are on ????, so make sure to shoot vertical videos and images.

Facebook has created a solution that reaches the young, old and everyone in between.

Take this opportunity to bring customers inside of your business’s experience and offerings, keeping them up to date with your projects. This simple action will build a more powerful relationship with your customers.

YouTube:

The best way to provide educational content about your products and services for your current and future customers consumption is through YouTube.

YouTube is not only a social media platform with a ton of viewers, but it’s the second largest search engine and utilized by 73% of adults in the U.S.

Keep in mind that staying relevant in today’s day and age involves many working streams, but they don’t all have to be so serious…

Snapchat & TikTok:

Entertain your audience! These social media platforms hit a younger demographic but shouldn’t be overlooked if you’re trying to reach these new customizers.

Depending on who your audience is, you can use these two platforms to show off a different side of your company (company culture, customers, community, and more).

PRO TIP: Make sure all of your social media sites are linked in your footer or bio. Put together a webpage like shop.com/connect that you link to in your shop so people can follow you across all of your platforms. When prospects seek you out you’ll want to have posts that are relevant, so be sure to post at least once per week.

Generate More Aftermarket Opportunities With Paid Ads

Google Search:

For low funnel opportunities, you can advertise with Google Search. Going to google and searching for an item seems to be the move for people who are ready to buy. Although, these ads will cost you more and are weak in opportunities.

Facebook Ads:

Right now, Facebook Ads are generating a lot of value for businesses of all sizes. You don’t have to have a huge budget, especially if you are a local business.

Facebook Ads allow you to target your ideal prospects and customers. Social posting (aka Organic Posting) is great but it only reaches a small number of your followers and you are unable to control the outcome.

With Facebook Ads, you can target people based on things like:

Who owns a current make/model of vehicle
Who own a current body style like Trucks
Your current customers and prospects
People who look like your current customers (one of the best and least expensive ways to get started)
People who have been on your site that have not purchased (another very inexpensive way to stay in front of a hot audience)

But, don’t fall victim of hitting the Boost button… you need to use Facebook Ads Manager to be successful.

Getting started with Facebook Ads in the right way:

Visit business.facebook.com to get started.
Create or connect a Facebook Page.
Connect or create an ad account.
Connect or create a Facebook Pixel. Install this on your website (every page).
Connect or create a Facebook Offline Event. This allows you to track offline data like leads and sales from your offline systems back to Facebook Ads for measurement.
Create the following Custom Audiences.
- All website visitors (up to 180 days)
- All Facebook Engaged (up to 365 days)
- All Instagram Engaged (up to 365 days)
- All Shopping Engaged (up to 365 days)
- All Marketplace Engaged (up to 180 days)

Facebooks Ads allow you to reach people just on Instagram as well, you can reach people both on the Instagram Feed and Instagram Stories.

There’s a lot that goes into creating Facebook ad campaigns effective enough to produce positive results… Let us do it for you!

Click here to see how we create Custom Dealership Facebook Ads that maximize your ad spend.

Watch our On-Demand Demos to learn more about our solutions.

Click Here

Written By Drew Detweiler
Drew manages inbound and outbound marketing for Dealers United. When he’s not at work, he’s probably enjoying the outdoors, fishing, or eating.

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