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10 surefire ways to waste your Automotive search marketing budget

Posted on 29. Sep, 2008 by admin.

Top 10 ways to Waste your Automotive search marketing budget

We have handled millions of ad impressions on our automotive marketing (pay per click) accounts for our clients, and have taken over our share of mismanaged accounts from other automotive web developers, mom and pop shops, and even major companies that state they are experts in search marketing for automotive dealers. Here is a quick top ten list of no-no’s, along with some great examples of how bad things can get when a car dealer just throws money at search marketing

10:  Buy outside of your dealership’s geographic area:

Every car dealer wants their customers, their competitors customers, and will go to great lengths to buy zones or marketing areas well outside of any reasonable area. Often, it’s a naive marketer that buys a 100 mile radius on new car leads. What’s the REAL CHANCE you will sell a NEW Chevy when a customer will have to drive past 53 other Chevrolet dealers on the way down? Used cars is another story. We have some great success stories of selling cars outside of the state, region, even country.

9:Buy keywords for models you do not sell:

Of course people are cross shopping vehicles. Yes you may put a Cayenne buyer into an FX45 but first and foremost, get the proper keywords before you even think about buying any other automotive keywords. Then, if and when you do buy competing models, closely watch the clicks, conversion rates to see if these are even turning into automotive leads or are just a wasted effort.

8:Buy generic phrases:

If you are buying phrases like “cars” and “used” then you have purchased a one way ticket to spend budget quickly. You will attract all sorts of crazy requests especially if you buy a “broad match” which may include such wonderful phrases as “cars for demolition derbies” and “used jeans just like Madonna”.  Automotive marketers beware but a click is a click to Google and they will charge you if you are not smart enough to prevent it.

7:Don’t match your ad to your destination page:

You ad says “Toyota Camry’s for $199/mo” and your landing page is a homepage that is still 3 clicks away from finding the Camry inventory. As a special bonus to your customer, they can’t find this $199 special because someone forgot to load it into your special offer section of your dealership’s website. Talk about a time waster. Another one-way ticket to find another dealer on Google is coming to a customer near you. Could you envision a situation where a customer walked into your showroom, asked about a Camry, and you walked him around your entire dealership, showed them the service department, F&I, and led them to a few doors which may or may not lead to a price on that car?

6: Make crappy boring generic ads

This is an automotive marketing staple. Boring, generic ads with no compelling reason to click on them. Sure it’s great you are on top of Google but that will not last long if you have a low click through rate, and customer’s are going to click on the ad that excites them. We run many automotive ads simultaneously and constantly make them compete to beat the next ad. This is why we can see a 15% or more click through rate on some ads and other dealers say that pay per click just does not work.

5: Spend too much on “gotta have it” keywords

I was at a dealership the other day, who shall remain nameless, who said “I have to win the word Honda”. I don’t care how much it costs, but anything Honda, I need to be #1 in paid search.”. This dealership would have put together a pay per click campaign that resulted in clicks on Honda motorcycles, Honda outboards, Honda used, Honda jet planes (yes take a look at them) and anything else. Plus he may end up paying $10 per click on competitive words. Insane.

4:Ignore Analytic reports and focus on traffic:

90% bounce rates on pay per click ads mean that 90% of your customers are leaving almost immediately. If you are not looking at analytic reports then you are spending money on the wrong keywords, ads, sites, etc. We just left a dealer who was buying the word “free” in their PPC campaign. Sure, tons of clicks. Duh. Bounce rate near 100%. Duh. I can’t even imagine how much they paid per click. Factor in the exit rates (what pages people are leaving from) and the new visitor ratio, and you can get a good idea of the best sources of traffic. Buy more good, buy less bad.

3:Let Google run your campaign

Sure it is easy and may be good to get you started, but Google suggestions will often just give you irrelevant phrases, or provide you with odd budgets. Buy what you need, leave the rest. Remember, Google wants to spend your automotive budget.

2:Spend too much per click

Sometimes, coming in 2nd is a good thing! When the price between being a first place listing and second place listing is $2.00 per click, it pays to let go of first sometimes. Often, we can buy several times as many clicks for our clients just by avoiding the “bid to win 1st” mentality. Sometimes, the “long tail” philosophy can lead to a boatload of clicks at a low price.

1. Buy your own name

Here is our favorite one of all, bidding on your own name. There is a very popular and well known automotive marketing company who can get dealers a ton of clicks and “phone calls” as well. It’s easy when you buy the dealers name. If you are already #1 with your own name (most dealers are) and there is no competition, the DO NOT buy your own name. They will find you for free. That is buying the cow, AND paying for the milk. It’s insane that a major, well funded business has built a business model around redirecting a dealers own traffic back to the dealer, and getting full credit for it. There are cases where you do want and need to buy your own name but in most cases, it is not necessary.

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Automotive search marketing domination simplified

Posted on 26. Sep, 2008 by admin.

Alright, you want to dominate automotive search marketing right? Yeah or course you do. Take a number and line up with the rest of the car dealers, manufacturers, lead providers, SEO companies, and every other small and large business in America.

The good news is, you can become a dominant search engine marketing expert (or at least hire an automotive seo company such as us). The bad news is, it will take a lot of work, effort, time, sweat, and tears.

As with all automotive advertising, it can be broken down into a few simple parts (yes, go ahead and grill me if I left one out).

• The message

• The media

• The market

Many dealers leave one part, or several parts of this message out. (ie: Let’s buy tons of radio ads and only radio ads!)

In the automotive search marketing space, dealers want it all. They want to win all keywords, on all search engines, with every possible phrase that they can think of at all times under all conditions. Organic listings, paid listings, maps, videos, you name it. If it lists on Google, or Yahoo, my dealership should be there.

Can this be done? Sure given enough of the aforementioned money, time, effort. In reality it is unlikely to win every keyword, on every square pixel of the Internet.

So let’s get back to the point.

The message: What is your ad? What are you selling? Is it compelling enough to get a customer to take action? Do you have a generic “Visit my dealer, lots on sale, click here” sort of ad or are you posting specific hot deals on cars in stock with actionable information? What “keywords” are part of this message? The message is automotive marketing in it’s essense. Without a good message or offer, you are almost dead in the water.

The media: What search engines/networks/social sites/blogs/press release organizations do you have to choose from, and which are most important? Do you know? Have you tested them with a good message? Do you track them? What is the conversion rate from each source? Bounce rate? Which brings more “new visitors” than the other source?

The market: Who are you marketing to? Are you a Florida auto dealer trying to sell new Chevy’s to California? (Yes, we’ve seen it) Are you selling to a male or female audience? What is their demographic? Are you going for your backyard or DMA or east of the Missisippi? Whether you choose organic or paid search marketing for your dealership does indeed have an impact on the market.

All of the above are important questions that need to me asked whether you are setting up an automotive marketing search campaign, ppc campaign, writing an electronic press release, or even updating meta tags on your website.

We have found a nice combination of message, market, and media that works for automotive search. Stay tuned for the “map” of how to tie it all together.

automotive marketing map

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