5 Reasons Which Make PPC The Best Marketing Channel for Auto Dealers

The competition for visibility in the search engine results is fierce. Auto dealers are opting for different and innovative strategies to improve their search engine visibility. Free promotion strategies, if planned and executed properly, do bring good results. But, in order to maintain profitability in this fierce competition, companies should back their free promotion strategies with paid online advertising methods like Pay-Per-Click.

PPC is a powerful advertising tool that influences your auto website's position in the search engine results, drives traffic to your website and increases ROI. Because of its favorable results in the recent times, many dealerships today have turned towards automotive PPC agencies to develop and oversee their PPC campaigns.

So, if you're on the fence about PPC for your dealership, read along to know the amazing benefits that PPC and automotive PPC agencies can bring.
 

Why PPC marketing?

1. You pay only when a person clicks
The best feature about PPC is that it is straightforward and you know exactly where your money is going because you only pay when an interested person clicks on your ad.

2. You can get website traffic almost instantly
If you adopt a sound PPC campaign, you can expect people clicking your ad and visiting your website almost instantly because PPC uses targeted keywords that your prospective customers are typing in the search engines. To put it in simple words, your ads will be shown to people looking for vehicles online and not everyone in general like in the case of traditional advertising. However, it is important to invest your money in the right automotive PPC marketing agency who knows exactly how to tailor the campaign according to your needs.

3. You can reach your potential customer at the correct time
With PPC, you can target a specific person at a specific place with the right ad and at the right time. With PPC's location targeting mechanism along with device-specific preferences, you can deliver specific messages to your potential customers.

4. You can keep track of the results
The problem with traditional marketing is that it is difficult to track whether your ads are reaching your targeted audience or not and whether the ads are bringing in any customers. With PPC, you can constantly track your results. You can find out whether a particular ad or campaign has been effective and know exactly where your money has gone. This means you can determine ROI faster with a PPC campaign. A specialized automotive PPC marketing agency can even let you know an accurate figure of the website visits, phone leads, or e-mail leads that your ads are getting.

5. It allows you to use geo-targeted ads
This aspect is especially useful for local car dealers. If your dealership is located in Austin, for example, and you only deliver your vehicles within the city area, then it is futile to show your ads to people outside Austin. With PPC, you get to decide where your ads will be shown and at what time. You can select single or multiple cities where you want your ads to be displayed and exclude those which seem unnecessary.

So, are you beginning to see why PPC should be a major recipient of your automotive marketing strategy? Traditional advertising and SEO are important channels, but if you are targeting a wholesome marketing strategy that touches upon all key factors, then PPC ought to be included.

Auto Industry – Traditional and Digital Marketing Trends

ARA Marketing Into 2017 – Researching the shift in marketing trends is an online survey report conducted by Automotive Retailers Association (ARA) and Google partner agency Marwick Internet Marketing to study the marketing efforts of six automotive sectors including towing, licensed motor dealers, collision, mechanical, auto glass and auto recycling. Conducted from September 2016 to November 2016, this survey was directed among 100 businesses with a turnover ranging between $0 and $5 million+ in the automotive sector across British Columbia and Canada. And according to this survey report, almost two-thirds of the participants (61%) responded that their priority will be on traditional marketing over digital marketing during 2017- 2018.

While the major part of the respondents decided to spend around the same amount of marketing budget for magazines, newspaper, radio and TV channel advertising, the rest of the businesses think about cutting their traditional marketing budget. Website development, social media, organic search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques have been regaining wide popularity and acceptance in the recent years. Hence, the auto industry will be working with ad partners and increasing their digital marketing budget over the next few years. Even though, the auto sector still doesn’t plan to make the best use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snap Chat. Moreover, majority of the participants feel disappointed in their online marketing efforts, while the rest believe in the importance of online reviews. 

 With the exploding popularity of internet and mobile applications, more and more people are turning towards the digital media for information regarding products and services. Hence, using traditional marketing methods in this increasingly digital world will result in loss of sales and money. According to the survey findings, many automotive businesses are failing to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in marketing result. But when it comes to spending their marketing budget, 50% of the respondents said they will be spending the same on magazine auto ads, 57% will be spending the same on TV advertising and 61% will spend the same on radio advertising.

If we look into the 13th Annual Pew Research State of the News Media Report, it points out newspapers lagged behind local TV news (46%), cable TV news (31%), network evening news (30%), news websites (28%) and radio (25%) in providing information to public. Added to that, the print readership has also witnessed a sharp fall of 25% in the last four years.

Responses to digital marketing efforts and online auto ads were mixed in the survey. Even though digital marketing techniques have become way too advanced, automotive companies are still lagging behind to keep up the pace. Most of the automotive business recognizes the significance of having an appealing online presence and the benefits it can reap. But they are still unsure about taking advantages of social media platforms in marketing their business. When it comes to using the social media networks for marketing purpose, respondents were generally on the fence. Almost half of the businesses think that Pinterest and Snap Chat were “not important at all”. In a nutshell, the overview of the survey depicted the hesitance of auto businesses towards social media marketing. Latest figures and statistics suggest that there are around 2.34 million users in social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, a report published by Pew Research Center stated that 90% of the young audience use social media now. When the automotive business overlooks social media platforms, they are definitely missing out a wonderful chance to drive targeted traffic to their website. Social media marketing not only increases the brand awareness, but it also opens a new channel to connect with the customers effectively.

If the businesses have to choose the top three aspects of a successful digital marketing, then 84% of respondents chose having a mobile responsive website, 81% chose organic search engine optimization and 58% selected Google AdWords campaign with SEM or pay-per-click advertising. Last year, the search engine giant Google announced an algorithm change which made website with mobile-friendly experience rank higher. Similarly, organic SEO and Google Adwords have great potential in reaching out to the targeted audience in the most effective manner. Hence hiring the services of an automotive ppc marketing agency is a wise move. 

Around 56% respondents think remarketing efforts are important to business, while almost 18% were unsure about it. Though digital marketing is crucial to the success and growth of their business, 12% of the participants admitted their marketing team was “terrible” in utilizing the digital channels and 70% didn’t hadhave any idea about their website conversion rate.

Personalization is another crucial component of automotive marketing as it is required to stand out in the competitive market and build awareness across all generations. Businesses that fail to stay abreast of the dynamic marketing trends will be falling behind the line and losing to competitors.