Google Expands Vehicle Listings to New Industries

Google has expanded the types of vehicles American dealers can list through the Vehicle Listings beta program. 

Introduced as Cars for Sale in 2021, the program was originally limited to automobiles. Now dealers can display listings for motorcycles, RVs, powersports, commercial vehicles, or any other type of vehicle with a VIN number in their Google Business Profiles and relevant search engine results pages (SERPs). 

How Do Vehicle Listings Work?

Vehicle Listings sync with the live inventory on your website each day, pulling the availability, pricing, and other relevant information necessary to maintain up-to-date listings. 

Users searching for participating dealerships will be able to view inventory in their Business Profiles, search for a specific vehicle, filter by categories, browse in a carousel, and view vehicle listings without needing to leave the SERP. Interested users can then view their desired vehicle or call the dealership directly with just one click.

Measuring Vehicle Listings Traffic

The Vehicle Listings reporting dashboard and Google Analytics can help you understand how your listings are boosting traffic for your dealership. The reporting dashboard provides metrics, including:

• Google VDP Impressions: how many people have seen your listing
• Dealer VDP Clicks: visits to your website from the listing
• Calls: click-to-calls to your dealership
• Messages: voice messages from the calls

Identify the website traffic that Vehicle Listings are generating with appropriate tags to segment the traffic in Google Analytics. Tagging the URLs with UTM parameters in your inventory feed allows you to differentiate Vehicle Listings traffic from your general organic website traffic.

Creating a UTM

Your UTM needs to include information about the platform source, the traffic medium, and the specific campaign name, without any spaces between characters that could break the link. For example, if the URL you are trying to track for Vehicle Listings is https://www.rosecitycmotors.com/ the information to include:

• Source: Google
• Medium: Organic
• Campaign: GBP-vehicle-listings

Using this information, a possible URL might look like:

https://www.rosecitycmotors.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=GBP-vehicle-listings

Getting Started

Vehicle Listings are included as a part of Adpearance SEO packages at no additional cost. Reach out to your digital strategist if you have any questions about how Vehicle Listings can enhance your SEO performance.

If your dealership isn’t already working with Adpearance to utilize Vehicle Listings, get the ball rolling with a free digital analysis to assess your position in the competitive landscape.