2020 Digital Advertising Holiday Playbook
Every year, automotive sales spike between the last week of October and the end of the year, typically seeing a 9-11% increase in sales around Black Friday and a 70-85% increase in sales around Christmas.
But as we are all well aware at this point, 2020 has been anything but typical. With inventory levels stabilizing just as the classic holiday selling season heats up, this looks like a good time to make up for the lost ground in Q2. It’s going to be the dealerships with a smart seasonal ad strategy who end 2020 in a position to start the new year off on the right foot.
Make the Most of the Increase in Car Shoppers and Demand This Holiday Season
In this Holiday Playbook, we’ll cover the simple, advanced, and aggressive improvements that you can make to your digital advertising campaigns, including what campaigns to prioritize and how much to increase budget by platform.
The recommendations in this guide detail exactly where to put your time, attention, and dollars to see the highest return on your investment. From increasing ad spend to tailoring your ad copy and layering in dynamic campaigns, here’s how to use this guide:
- Start at Simple
- Layer on Advanced as you have the appetite
- Add Aggressive when you’re ready to take it to 11
Fill out the form below to download and print your own copy of the Holiday Playbook:
SIMPLE: Recommendations to Cover Your Bases
Search
| Update your ad text with seasonal language and keywords. | |
| Add holiday-specific keywords to your campaigns. Consider make and model variations on Black Friday Deals, New Year’s Savings, Holiday Specials, and 2020 Year-End Clearance Events. | |
| Make sure your ad copy features current pricing, availability, and incentives. | |
| Direct the majority of your budget toward the highest-converting, lowest-funnel, ready-to-buy campaigns and keywords. If needed, reallocate budget away from underperforming campaigns and ads for models with low inventory. | |
| Make sure your campaigns are well-funded enough to maintain high market share coverage. You should have a Search Impression Share (SIS) above 75% before, during, and after the holidays. | |
| Focus on areas where you sell the most and see the highest return. Leverage your historical sales-by-zip data to prioritize and dominate in key geotargets. |
Display
| Update your ad creative and campaigns to run holiday or sales event-themed display ads. If you’re currently running a highly attractive incentive, make sure your assets feature it. | |
| Prioritize users who have shown interest before. Use remarketing campaigns to target and re-engage low-funnel customers. |
Video
| Create a holiday or sales-event themed video. If you’re currently running a highly attractive event during this time, make sure your video features it. | |
| Hone in on your remarketing audiences to re-engage low-funnel customers. |
Social
| Make sure you have adequate coverage across both Facebook & Instagram. | |
| Update your ad creative and campaigns to run holiday or sales event-themed social ads. If you’re currently running a highly attractive incentive, make sure your assets feature it. | |
| Use remarketing campaigns to target and re-engage low-funnel customers. |
ADVANCED: Recommendations to Take It Up a Notch
Search
| We expect to see a performance lift across all advertising efforts. Consider geo-expansion to reach farther out into new markets. | |
| New automotive sales will spike around the holidays, but lead actions will take place 1-2 weeks prior. Use additional ad spend to run a full campaign suite throughout November and December, and ensure you have enough budget to account for the increase in searches and clicks. Take a good look at your current budget and ask yourself whether or not bolstering budget to support this effort is necessary. | |
| Make sure you’re also capturing in-market searches across Bing as well. Ad space across Microsoft’s search network is far less competitive, which means you may experience lower CPCs. By transferring the same strategy from Google over to Bing, you can easily capture full-funnel coverage while still prioritizing low-funnel searches. |
Display
| Leverage VIN-specific, dynamic display remarketing to effortlessly place current in-stock vehicles and pricing in front of ready-to-buy shoppers. | |
| Supplement your Display targeting with Custom-Intent audiences, serving ads to users who have previously performed high-quality, low-funnel, in-market searches that demonstrate genuine purchase intent. |
Video
| Create and run dynamic video ads with real-time pricing, availability, and incentives for your top focus vehicles. We recommend starting with your top four most popular vehicles. According to a Google study, 43% of auto shoppers’ YouTube sessions resulted in a relevant action in less than 24 hours. Use dynamic video ads to engage holiday car shoppers—fast. | |
| Make sure you’re targeting Custom-Intent audiences and serving ads to users who have previously performed high-quality, low-funnel, in-market searches that demonstrate genuine purchase intent. |
Social
| Leverage VIN-specific, dynamic inventory creative to easily feature in-stock vehicles and pricing for all applicable audiences. Some of the best performing dynamic social ad types include Facebook newsfeed carousel ads and Instagram collection ads. | |
| Be more specific with who you show ads to. Utilize customer match lists, lookalike audiences, or third-party in-market data to target specific, low-funnel audiences. |
AGGRESSIVE: Recommendations to Take It to the Max
Search
| Consider expanding geographical reach beyond the area you currently dominate and beginning to target neighboring cities. Conquest tactics, while expensive, can be fruitful when done correctly. Effectively placing high-quality creative can net positive results; take a good look at your current budget and ask yourself whether or not bolstering budget to support this effort is necessary.. | |
| If you want to focus on a particular model or models during the holiday season, dedicate specific ad spend to each nameplate. Use your most popular model for a conquest campaign in addition to standard model-specific coverage. |
Display
| Continue expanding your reach across the display network. Place your ads on high-value websites such as auto blogs or local news sites, or run dynamic prospecting campaigns to make sure that as soon as a searcher is ready-to-buy, your dealership is top-of-mind. | |
| Using a customer match audience list to re-engage past customers can be highly effective. Retargeting old vehicle purchases or expiring leases are prime options. Remember to check with your account strategist to determine account eligibility! | |
| Leverage Google’s lookalike audience creation capabilities and target users with similar demographics to your highest performing audiences. |
YouTube
| Create and run dynamic video ads with real-time pricing, availability, and incentives for your full vehicle line up. Targeting in-market shoppers for specific models with highly relevant video creative can be impactful on the rest of your marketing efforts. | |
| Using a customer match audience list to re-engage past customers can be highly effective. Retargeting old vehicle purchases or expiring leases are prime options. Remember to check with your account strategist to determine account eligibility! | |
| Leverage YouTube’s lookalike audience creation capabilities and target users with similar demographics to your highest performing audiences. |
Social
| Create and run lead form ads with CRM integrations to convert leads from Facebook and add them right into your sales process. |
Lay the Groundwork for 2021
When you make the most of this holiday season, not only will you reach more interested car shoppers and generate more leads through the end of the year, but with user-level tracking in place, you can set your dealership up for success in 2021.
New automotive sales will spike around the holidays, but lead actions can take place more than 1-2 weeks prior to the sale. In January, when new leads feel few and far between, you’ll want to be able to continue working leads from the holiday months that haven’t yet converted. With the right lead capture and sales enablement technology in place, you can continue to work and convert more leads from your existing pipeline into the new year.
Ready to get started? Fill out the form below to download your own copy of the Holiday Playbook:
Celebrate with a Strong Holiday Sales Season
At Adpearance, we drive bottom-line results for companies through a combination of digital marketing and technology. As a full-service digital provider, we help auto dealers generate high-quality, low-funnel leads year-round. Get in touch to learn more with a free digital analysis.
About the Author
Adpearance is the digital marketing company obsessed with generating quality leads. Our solutions combine cutting-edge technology, premium tracking, and an expert team to transform business results.
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