Leveraging Facebook Advertising in the Automotive Industry - Adpearance

Leveraging Facebook Advertising in the Automotive Industry

Facebook advertising has proven effective for much of the retail industry. Learn how the social media giant’s advertising solutions can help your automotive dealership garner new leads.

Are you an auto dealership that wants to target potential buyers based on the following characteristics?

  • Make, model, and style of the vehicle they’re interested in
  • If they’re near market or in market
  • Whether they’re looking for new or used
  • If they want to lease vs. buy
  • How old their current vehicle is
  • Their comfortable price range

All of this and more is made possible by Facebook’s Partner Categories; its partnerships with data providers Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon give it access to the most recent data about purchase history and intent.

Can’t believe it ‘til you see it? Check out Facebook’s case studies and automotive targeting solutions.

Data-Driven Solutions

Let’s dive right in to exactly how automotive dealers are using Facebook advertising to their advantage.

CUSTOM AUDIENCES

While attracting new customers is a valuable goal, don’t forget about retaining your existing customers. Through Power Editor, dealerships can upload contact lists of people they would like to reach using an ad on Facebook. With the extensive, specific historical data dealerships have about all of their previous customers, the options are endless.

Have a list of customers whose leases are up in 6 months? Use a custom audience on Facebook to target ads at these users, giving them a slight nudge or reminder about beginning the search for a new vehicle again… at your trusted dealership.

What about customers who just bought from you? Use a custom audience to serve them ads about service and parts specials.

POWER EDITOR – PARTNER CATEGORIES

Now on to the fun part—customer conquest. Capitalize on all that Facebook advertising offers to the automotive industry with partner categories. As demonstrated previously, there are many different ways dealerships can target their ads. If you’re a Chrysler dealership and you’re interested in promoting the new 2015 Chrysler 200 to potential buyers who already own a Chrysler vehicle that’s 6-10 years old, are in market, and are interested in leasing, you can! You can also toggle between targeting people who fall in any of those categories versus people who fall in all of them depending on how broad or narrow you’d like your reach to be.

What if you just want to get your dealership’s name out there? To reach this goal, the best option for you might be to target owners who purchased a Chrysler vehicle 48+ months ago. This way you’re reaching these potential customers when they’re starting to think about new vehicle options from a brand they already know and love.

With all the information Datalogix provides, there are thousands of different combinations to fit your dealership’s needs.

CONVERSION TRACKING

So how do you know Facebook ads are right for your dealership? You won’t know until you test them! With a little bit of code inserted into your website, you can track actions that have occurred because of your Facebook ads. Bonus Tip: Link your Facebook ads to custom landing pages with strong calls-to-action for an even greater ROI.

Getting the Most Bang for Your Buck

When running any sort of digital advertising campaign, one of the first decisions the advertiser should make is what the goal of the campaign should be—branding or lead-generation? Of course, the ultimate goal is always to garner more customers, but the optimum targeting strategies for these two goals are very different.

While it’s best to garner as many impressions as possible in a branding campaign, the number of impressions may not be as important in a lead-generation campaign. Because impressions are so valuable in a branding campaign, choosing a cost-per-thousand (CPM) payment strategy will optimize the advertiser’s campaign to garner the most impressions possible.

On the flip side, choosing a cost-per-click (CPC) payment strategy in a lead-generation campaign will optimize the advertiser’s campaign to garner valuable clicks that will convert into leads instantly or later down the sales funnel.

Lastly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead of only running one type of ad on Facebook, test many different types of ads, especially promoted posts if your dealership has an active Facebook presence. In our experience, the best Facebook advertising campaigns include a variety of ads including sidebar, promoted posts, page likes, clicks-to-website, and more.

Still Unsure? 

Check out these statistics from Adweek:

  • Visits to car-model pages jump 50% due to Facebook ads
  • When an auto firm runs Facebook ads, its competitors’ brand searches drop 3% and its competitors’ model searches decrease 14%
  • When an auto firm runs Facebook ads, its Internet-wide searches increase 10%
  • Auto shoppers are 71% more likely to be influenced by digital ads compared to others

Need help strategizing and implementing your first or next Facebook advertising campaign for your dealership? Our social media marketing and advertising specialists can help—contact us today.

Get monthly newsletters with timely blogs and occasional announcements for resources including in-depth reports, data-driven insights, and webinars. Once subscribed, you can select your preferences to get only what matters to you.

On-Demand Webinar
Why Connected TV is Taking Over Traditional TV Advertising
On-Demand Webinar
How to Measure Your Digital Success
About the Author

User

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.

Follow Us

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Come on... You know you want to.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get monthly newsletters with timely blogs and occasionally announcements for resources including in-depth reports, data-driven insights, and webinars.

Subscribe Form

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.