Tag: Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is more important to your dealership’s success than ever before and has the potential to create highly personalized marketing experiences for your customers and drive sales.  

As consumers demand more personalized marketing experiences and digital mediums become more expected, your dealership must stand out from your competition with a custom-built digital marketing strategy. And when it comes to creating the digital marketing strategy for your dealership you need experts to help get the job done.  

Featuring top-notch agency-quality services that drive impressive sales and service opportunities, Marketing Services from Dealer.com help enhance your dealership’s marketing strategy to help get more car buyers to your website. 

From everything to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to ensure you’re at the top of search results to original content that increases on-site engagement and aligns with your campaign strategy and dealership advertising goals, Marketing Services from Dealer.com is your one-stop-shop.  

And if you’re already taking advantage of Marketing Services from Dealer.com, specifically Dealer.com Managed SEO and Content & Creative services – you’re doing great! But do you know the opportunities offered with our Premium SEO and Content & Creative Services? 

Explore what Dealer.com Premium Managed SEO and Content & Creative can offer to take your digital marketing to the next level.  

Dealer.com Managed Premium Content and Creative 

Dealer.com Content and Creative packages allow dealers to create compelling, coordinated digital marketing campaigns with content that attracts more car buyers to your website.  

Our Premium Content & Creative services are a cut above, giving you additional resources and campaigns to reach even more customers. With our premium services, you’ll have a dedicated campaign coordinator to provide strategic guidance and proactive campaign management and help summarize and analyze campaign performance.  

And the more campaigns you send, the more people see your content and visit your website. With Premium Content & Creative, you get the opportunity to send even more integrated marketing campaigns each month to increase the traffic to your website. 

Dealer.com Managed Premium SEO 

Although 88% of buyers use the internet to shop for cars, 91.5% of consumers click on a result from the first page of search results, so if you’re not on top, you’re not being seen.* That’s why Dealer.com Managed SEO helps drive your dealership to the top of the search engine results pages, differentiate you from the competition, enhance the volume and quality of your website traffic, and generate more leads for your dealership website.  

But did you know upgrading your current SEO service could give you even more? Our Dealer.com Managed Premium SEO service assures your website is at the top of highly competitive organic searches to generate even more high-quality traffic and leads to your website.  

In fact, Dealers using Premium SEO experience 52% more VDP views, 30% more website views, 14% more form leads and 59% more phone leads.** 

The market is ripe for dealers that do digital marketing right. Marketing Services from Dealer.com allows you to leverage the expertise of automotive marketing experts to deliver a specialized digital marketing strategy and campaigns aligned to your dealership’s goal.  

Are you considering upgrading your services? Contact your performance manager to discuss our premium offerings and find out more here.  

[elementor-template id=”63242″]

_{**Source: Based on a study of 43 franchise dealerships running Premium SEO and Dealer.com Advertising for 12 consecutive months (Jun 2018 – May 2019). The analysis compared site performance during the 6-month period prior to adopting Premium SEO (Dec 2017 – May 2018) to the 6-month period after adopting Premium SEO (Dec 2018 – May 2019) .} 

By Heather Ellis, Dealer.com AVP of Dealer Marketing 

The auto industry often talks about the idea of being “better” in the market, but in truth there still is a lot of work to do to before automotive can catch up with other verticals. Time and again, “better” is a marathon and not a sprint. It is a continual, ongoing drive to fix what is broken, an unrelenting desire to push and to optimize. 

It’s not easy to unwind the nuances of automotive digital marketing, and no one-size-fits-all playbook exists to address the myriad challenges across all tiers of the marketplace. We are seeing an industry-wide common goal to create advertising programs that spend less and sell more, and ultimately move closer toward a trusted digital experience across the board. 

To accomplish this, it is imperative for both OEMs and dealerships to have the best consumer data at their disposal, and arguably it is even more important to know what to do with it. By harnessing the right data into the right insights, OEMs and dealers can work more efficiently to eradicate overmarketing and instead target their advertising to go directly where there is demand. 

Leading with first-party and audience data, maximized through strategic partnerships, results in improved connectivity that dives deeper and provides a crisper, clearer view of consumers to help automotive companies cut through the noise and propel the entire industry forward. 

Advertising strategy is complex and the market is ever-changing. Traditional advertising is not as effective as it used to be, and infinite other channels are competing for consumer attention. Failing to utilize a data-driven, multichannel strategy, dealers decrease the leads they generate by an astounding 164%, according to the Dealer.com Advertising Product Summary. 

The most successful dealers utilize a multichannel marketing strategy and approach auto advertising based on their unique goals. They can identify and target qualified audiences at the right time with the right message, to sell more cars profitably and deliver a superior dealership experience. At a time when inventory is tighter than ever, having an automated platform can help dealers instantly recommend the best match for their customers from current inventory without any manual input. 

That real-time targeting can only be fueled by first-party data across different channels. The right advertising maximizes return on investment by connecting real-time data across channels, and increasing website traffic, quality visits, engagement, and conversions. 

In this changing landscape of consumer demand, industry players will discover the solutions lie in working together toward a common goal to sell more cars and make more profits. To help get there, we should continually align the necessary jobs, prioritize them, and check them off one by one. We are going to have to adapt and change the way we do business to combat industry challenges using our best and brightest resources. 

Once the industry understands that the best solutions focus on activating based on behaviors and audiences first, and then matching channels, tactics and messages to that secondly — that is when the auto industry will be firmly on its path to “better,” finally starting to catch up with other verticals slaying the marketing game. 

There is an accelerated need in the auto industry for innovation and focus on the total consumer experience, a practice that is now commonplace in other industries — including first-visit personalization and first-party data application. OEMs and dealerships will celebrate success and collectively win when there is a common focus on the end consumer, and collective work to solve their problems. 

Ultimately, we all want an experience that’s efficient, productive, and complete, so it’s imperative to find the right partner offering the advertising solutions that deliver that level of flexibility and transparency. 

A version of this article originally appeared in Auto Remarketing.  

By Noah Lee, Director of Sales Engineering for Dealer.com 

Used-vehicle inventory levels are at the lowest point in almost nine years. Twenty years from now, economists will not have much difficulty explaining what happened. A confluence of factors, starting with the semiconductor shortage and pandemic-induced consumer behavior changes, upended supply and demand.  

With fleet and rental car providers scrambling to regrow fleets, and consumers leasing less because of rising costs associated with supply constraints, reliable channels for used vehicles have dried up. Based on current forecasts, it doesn’t appear 2022 will offer much of a respite.  

The market conditions that restrained the used-car market show no signs of reversing soon, with U.S. new-car production reduced by 3.4 million units in 2021. During this period of lean inventory, dealers have looked beyond traditional methods for acquiring inventory, in many ways transforming the fundamentals of auto retailing.  

To withstand the used-car shortage expected in 2022, dealers must consider sourcing vehicles outside of the traditional box and through channels beyond billboard and TV advertising.  

Service Bay as an Inventory Source 

For many consumers, dealerships are points of service. And with used cars appreciating in value during 2021, dealerships should expect that most customers will elect for repairs, as fixing a used car likely is more economical than trading it in for a new one.  

Nevertheless, dealerships cannot discount the service bay as an opportunity for inventory. Dealers should be identifying weary customers who may not be ready to take on a large repair bill. With appointment management platforms, used-car managers can easily track upcoming service appointments, proactively looking for vehicle owners who are likely to trade or sell their cars. They also can tailor their search to target customers with high-demand used cars to maximize inventory. This type of technology helps find the needle—a.k.a., your inventory—in the haystack much faster. 

The rise of ecommerce in the auto industry has led many to question the role of physical dealerships. However, their relevance remains clear. There always will be a segment of the population who wants to test-drive a car before making a purchase, and dealerships are still a “go-to” when it comes to repairs.  

By servicing cars already owned by consumers, dealerships have a whole ledger of used vehicles that could serve as potential inventory in 2022. Used-car managers must be proactive and precise to take advantage of this valuable data. 

Customers as Sellers 

During times of economic uncertainty, there is an urge for dealerships to cut advertising. But when dealers are competing with each other and consumers at the same time for used cars, they run the risk of empty lots.  

If used-car managers hope to fill lots, they must consider “We’ll Buy Your Vehicle” auto advertising, leveraging the dealer’s website to promote the purchase of used vehicles. With modern platforms, dealers can brand and proactively market their car-buying processes using banners and website landing pages. 

Data is King  

Many dealers are sitting on troves of valuable customer data that can optimize their automotive digital marketing. Data-driven dealerships can establish campaigns to source inventory from customers who have high interest rates, substantial equity, or a history of frequent repair. Though few and far between, off-lease vehicles also remain attractive and can help boost dealership inventories.  

With the right data points, dealerships can create personalized content that informs consumers about selling their current car to the dealer quickly and without friction.  

Undoubtedly, dealerships are facing precarious times. To succeed, they must be savvy to the habits and needs of their buyers while remaining the trusted, go-to resource for existing customers who are in a prime position to sell their cars. Ultimately, the goal is to help used-car buyers understand that they have options, and there is no need to settle when it comes to making a purchase.  

Now is the time for dealerships to leverage the latest tactics, tools and tech to help expand their inventory with more options, enhance the used-car buying journey, and help buyers forget all about the inventory shortage—because they got a fair deal and the car they wanted. 

A version of this article originally appeared in CBT News.