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Dealers are investing more money into digital channels (like Facebook) to be where shoppers are, but with one BIG problem: your inventory feed hasn’t been able to sync with Facebook like other 3rd parties, and manually creating vehicle ads is a huge hassle. That’s what our new Facebook Inventory Ads for auto dealers are here to fix. Here’s everything you need to know:

Why Manual Vehicle Ads On Facebook Just Don’t Work For Auto Dealers

You already know how important it is to get your dealership’s inventory online.

And with Facebook’s massive database of active users and In-Market Shopper data, it’s been an obvious way for auto dealers to reach more local consumers.

But since your inventory feed hasn’t been able to sync with Facebook like on other advertising sites, posting a vehicle ad on Facebook is anything but easy.

Even if your Facebook vendor targets the right audience and creates a killer ad campaign in hopes of driving more clicks to your website, there are still a few problems:

What if that vehicle sells?

What if the price drops?

What about featuring other similar vehicles that might interest shoppers?

Since our main Facebook Advertising program launched in 2015, our team has constantly been on the lookout for ways to make dealers’ ads better.

Although our dealers’ results on Facebook have been pretty brag-worthy, we knew that having manual vehicle ads were still a hassle for dealers on our program.

So that got us thinking:

What if there was a way to ensure a dealer’s vehicles were ALWAYS in front of the right shoppers?

What if we could eliminate back-and-forth between Facebook partner and dealer, and make it so that a dealer’s vehicle feed could populate ads automatically?

The DU Team is thrilled to finally announce new Facebook Inventory Ads for auto dealers, the most recent expansion to our Facebook program.

And trust me…they are like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

What Are Facebook Inventory Ads For Auto Dealers?

In a nutshell, Facebook Inventory Ads are a dealership’s secret weapon to posting its inventory faster and smarter online.

With our technology, your dealership’s vehicle feed can be pulled automatically, with the feed’s photos and descriptions placed directly into Facebook’s stream as ad campaigns.

In other words, Facebook Inventory Ads for auto dealers help pump out high-performing Facebook ads for ANY pre-owned vehicle on your lot…

…without ever worrying about price changes, description modifications, or what to do once that vehicle sells.

Any updates now happen in real-time: once a vehicle sells, another similar vehicle make will take its place.

We use Facebook’s newest ad formats including Collection, Carousel, and Canvas ads, to display your vehicles in the Desktop and Mobile News Feeds and attract In-Market Shoppers.

These formats are designed to create a full-fledged browsing experience right in the ad, so users can explore your store’s pre-owned vehicles without ever leaving Facebook.

And that’s not even the best part…

The Strategy Behind Inventory Ads That Makes Them Unexpectedly Successful

The average car shopper visits less than two dealerships before making a purchase decision.

Just two.

That’s why we’ve designed our program to engage In-Market Shoppers from the beginning to end of their buyer journey.

It’s a new way to look at the traditional buyer journey, and it involves a two-part strategy: conquest In-Market Shoppers, and then retarget them until they convert and buy.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Conquest New Shoppers

First, we use Facebook’s data to find In-Market Shoppers near your store.

These are people who are in Facebook’s user database who are looking to buy a vehicle within 90 days.

(Sound familiar? Stay with me, it’s about to get good…)

Once the conquest audience is defined, we integrate your dealership’s feed with our Facebook Ad technology and into Facebook’s platform.

Then, your inventory is presented in each user’s Facebook News Feed as Facebook ads.

They can showcase multiple VINs in one ad:

Or can combine multimedia and vehicle listings:

Step 2: Drive VDP Clicks and Track Activity

Each inventory ad links directly to its corresponding VDP on your dealership’s website.

If a shopper is interested in a particular vehicle, they can click your call-to-action and get more information on your VDP.

But where some Facebook Advertising programs would say “my work here is done…”

…our program is just getting started.

(Want a demo? Click here!)

From that point on, everything the user does on your website (and OFF it, but I’ll get to that later) is tracked using a Facebook pixel.

Any action, like a form conversion or vehicle purchase, is logged back in Facebook, so that we can then…

Step 3: Retarget If They Don’t Convert

What if a shopper gets to your VDP, but leaves without filling out your Trade Evaluation or Price Quote form?

By tracking their actions, we can detect if a shopper leaves your site without converting, which triggers a new dynamic retargeting campaign in Facebook.

Through the dynamic retargeting campaigns, shoppers are shown the exact vehicle they viewed (plus other similar vehicles) on Facebook until they either come back to the website and take action or buy a vehicle.

(Yes, we can measure that, too.)

Step 4: Measure Real Sales (Not Just Clicks)

As with all of our Facebook solutions, we provide Facebook Sales Matchback reports to help your dealership measure sales from your Facebook campaigns.

By simply uploading your DMS report and matching it to your campaign data, you can easily see if your ads are helping you sell more cars.

READ MORE: Dealers, You Can Now Track Your Exact Facebook Ad ROI: Introducing Sales Matchbacks For Facebook

Plus, since you’re listing your inventory in your local market, you’ll gain valuable insights as to which vehicle models are getting the most engagement.

Your F-150 inventory ad had 4x more clicks than your Focus ad? I can think of a few ways your floor plan, Facebook ad budget, and other digital campaigns can accommodate that insight…

Dealers On our Beta Program Are Seeing A 300% Lift In Ad Performance

A select number of our members were able to beta-test inventory ads before our official launch last week, and their results have us doing remotely disturbing victory laps around the office:

On average, dealers are seeing a 116% increase in clicks to their VDPs and a $0.39 average cost-per-click with new Facebook Inventory Ads.

And this is just the beginning.

As Facebook’s platform continues to make huge strides for local businesses and our work with Facebook’s automotive sector continues, we only expect our Inventory Ads and Facebook program to get better from here.

Want to see new Facebook Inventory Ads for auto dealers in action? Call us at 941-366-6760 or click here to request a quick demo.

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