As a business, car dealerships rely heavily on effective marketing strategies to maximize profits. To do this, they must create awareness about their products to generate and secure leads. Google Ads is a transformational advertising tool that is a boon to the advertising department of a dealership.
Google Ads as a platform provides flexible, affordable, and highly customizable strategies for advertisements and broadcasts them on its websites. With Google’s massive base of daily users, vehicle listings on Google get a ton of traction and exposure. Thus, car dealerships that do not use Google Ads are highly deficient in online advertising and are missing out on potential clients.
What are Google Ads for Car Dealerships?
Google Ads (previously Adwords) for cars is a form of advertising that helps car dealerships showcase their inventory to their relevant customer base on Google. Google Car Advertising helps dealerships immensely in reaching potential customers. These ads contain details about the car, including its technical information, pricing, and other contextual information. The ads are primarily displayed to people who are actively searching for cars on Google.
Google Ads allows car dealers to showcase their whole car inventory to interested customers looking for vehicles on Google. These ads utilize a lower funnel performance focus format, which is immensely beneficial in finalizing a purchase.
Why should Car Dealerships use Google Ads?
Car dealerships require robust advertising to ensure they maintain their conversion rates and generate leads for their products. Car promotion assists dealers in driving sales by enhancing both online conversions (leads) and offline conversions (store visits). Google Ads is tailored towards low-funnel shoppers who are actively looking for vehicles that are in stock. Advertising through Google Ads can be a massive boon to car dealers as Google is a behemoth in terms of daily user visits and traffic. Car dealerships wanting to build awareness can utilize this enormous footfall to benefit. Google Vehicle Listings are provided on SERPs at the top to expose as much of the user base as possible.
High ROI is a significant factor that makes Google Automotive Ads one of the most affordable and effective forms of advertising. Google Ads only charges when an advertisement is clicked by the user, which makes it relatively inexpensive. However, its affordability is contingent on the bidding and budgeting strategies in place; if these strategies are well planned, Google Ads will have minimal economic impact on a dealership’s campaigning budget.
Google Ads and the Direct-to-Consumer Model
Google Ads relies on a Direct to Consumer (DTC) Model. Unlike traditional retail models, DTC models eliminate mediators between the product and the consumer. This model facilitates a more cohesive sales experience for the customer by making the product directly accessible.
This model affords an excellent level of efficiency to the dealership in transforming their advertising. This efficiency translates to better lead generation by garnering more interest in the product as well as boosting the conversion rate of potential customers.
Google Ads is also incredibly flexible. It allows advertisers to make changes to their campaign on-the-fly as needed to regularly optimize their campaigns to maintain the quality of results. A practical car advertising strategy is paramount to driving sales.
Thus, Google Ads makes an incredibly positive case for itself. Google has a huge customer base that provides ample interests for car dealerships to target their advertising to. These Ads are relatively easy to use and inexpensive, provided that the bidding and budgeting strategies are effective. They use a DTC model that makes the whole experience more cohesive.
Due to all these factors, it also consistently returns high ROI, hence making it the perfect advertising companion for car dealerships.
How do Google Vehicle Ads Function?
There are different types of Google Ads; Google Ads has a separate format for advertising cars called Vehicle Ads. The Vehicle Ads format focuses on the automotive industry, thus differentiating it from standard Google Ads. The intention behind its design is to drive popularity and sales specifically for car dealerships. This employs a lower funnel advertisement format that targets shoppers looking for available cars and places the dealership’s current inventory feed at the top of their Google search results pages.
Google Vehicle Ads achieves this by focusing on the target audience while providing car dealerships with the locus of control of the demographic. This increases the overall effectiveness of vehicle advertising by making it more efficient and streamlining the process for the vehicle dealers that utilize this format.
The process of Vehicle Ads is instituted by the Google Merchant Center which is responsible for managing and organizing product information. Car dealers have to submit an extensive feed to the Merchant Center containing detailed information regarding their vehicles. The details include the vehicle’s price, make, year, model and images among other details. These details are displayed on the VDP (vehicle details page). Google uses artificial intelligence to ascertain the suitable placements for car ads.
Google also matches the search queries made by potential clients to the respective dealers that it deems relevant. It makes these judgments based on parameters provided in the advertisement like make, model, price and so on.
Google also provides Performance Max campaigns that allow car dealers to target potential clients across multiple Google platforms while using a single campaign budget. Thus, Vehicle Ads are a really effective advertising format that should be highly considered by dealerships.
Top 10 Benefits of Using Google Ads for Car Dealerships
There are numerous benefits to car dealerships that make use of Google Ads for their vehicles. Google ads is a cost-effective tool that provides benefits like targeted advertising, increased online visibility, and flexible budgeting, among others.
Google Vehicle Listings Ads show customers vital information and images of the car to provide more qualified leads to the dealership. The immense benefits that Google Ads provides enable car dealerships to gain a competitive advantage in the industry.
1) Targeted Advertising
Google Vehicle Listing Ads functions by taking into consideration the interests of audiences. It chooses specific audiences based on their activities and behavior online. Dealers have the ability to customize ads to suit their preferred demographic by using different filters like age groups, genders, and income levels. For example, if a dealership wants to promote a coupe, they can target a younger audience for their ads and advertise only to that particular audience.
2) Cost-Effective Marketing
Google Ads employs a PPC (pay-per-click) model that only charges when potential customers click the advertisement. This guarantees that the car dealership is investing in actual user engagement, which increases the efficiency of the campaign budget. Google Ads also allows tracking ROI to ensure that the budget is used effectively to create qualified leads.
3) Increased Online Visibility
Google Ads optimizes the dealership’s reach and presence in Google search results by ensuring that the dealership appears at the top. It also chooses prominent ad placements to make its advertising more noticeable, thus boosting effectiveness.
4) Lead Generation and Conversion
Google Ads specializes in lead generation and conversion by utilizing compelling calls to action and capture forms. These persuade users to take the next step while simultaneously capturing important information from potential leads. It also increases the chances of conversion by leading potential customers to optimized landing pages. Dealerships can also monitor and measure the effectiveness of their ads in propelling conversions.
5) Localized Campaigns
Google Ads can use features like Geo-targeting to show ads to potential clients based on their geographic location. This can be immensely helpful for car dealership ads to reach customers in their local area, which can benefit the conversion rate as local customers are an easier demographic to attract due to convenience.
6) Performance Tracking and Analytics
The dealership can track campaign performance by using Google Analytics to assess the performance of advertisements and user interactions. Parameters such as click-through rate and conversion rate can be monitored to refine campaigning strategies and further improve advertisement performance.
7) Flexible Budgeting and Bidding
Car dealerships can choose between multiple bidding strategies to suit their campaigning needs. They can prepare daily budgets to modulate their spending and manage advertising costs. Automated Bidding is available for dealerships to augment and streamline their bids based on performance data. Bids can also be manually adjusted to target specific keywords/demographics.
8) Re-marketing Opportunities
Google Ads provides re-marketing opportunities through which car dealerships can re-target advertisements and re-engage with users who have shown interest but haven’t converted into potential customers. The dealership can show ads to previous visitors to its website to encourage repeat visits. These opportunities also aid in retaining potential leads through re-targeting advertising.
9) Showcasing Special Offers and Promotions
Google Ads also showcases special offers and promotions to entice potential leads. It employs limited-time offers, which create a sense of urgency and pressure the buyer, boosting conversion rates. The dealership can also use discounts, seasonal sales, and events to influence potential customers and seize timely appeal.
10) Brand Awareness and Recognition
Google Ads can increase dealership visibility and recognition by frequently showcasing the dealership and its products in advertisements. It employs automotive video advertising and displays advertising to create attractive content that boosts brand awareness. These techniques ensure brand recall and lead to convincing brand messaging throughout all advertising channels.
Should Dealerships Use Google Display Ads for Marketing?
Marketing a car dealership can be highly arduous; however, Google Ads has different features that aid dealerships. In the contemporary automotive market, dealerships should be able to use every available tool to entice and change a potential buyer.
Google Ads Vehicle Listing Ads provides an effective format for increasing leads and sales by supplying visually engaging ads targeted on Google Search Results. Google Ads has another format called Google Display Ads that is incredibly productive at increasing lead generation. At the same time, Google Search Ads are text-based, and Google Display Ads generally employ a wide range of visual and interactive elements. Both of them are characterized as Google Ads but differ in their purpose.
Google Search Ads are triggered by certain keywords related to the product being advertised. These ads target users who are highly likely to buy a particular product. Google places these advertisements on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), making them suitable for dealership advertising.
The following table explains the key differences exhaustively:-
| Feature | Google Search Ads | Google Display Ads |
| Trigger | Keywords related to product | User interest and behavior |
| Goal | Generates instant conversion | Generates product awareness and leads |
| Format | Usually utilizes text | Utilizes interactive elements |
| Placement | Google SERPs | Google Display Network |
| Intent | Last stage of buying process | Different stages of buying process |
Car Dealership Marketing can employ both Google Search Ads as well as Google Display Ads to not only target users that are highly interested in a particular product but also target users who are not aware of the product. Google Display Ads utilizes different visual and interactive elements and adheres to user behavior through the GDN (Google Display Network) to target users in different stages of the buying process. This leads to both increased reach as well as a boost in lead generation.
An example of the Customer Experience with Google Ads
The customer experience with Google Ads is cohesive and straightforward. Google Ads fits well in the vehicle buying journey and enhances the customer experience. The summary of the experience is as follows:
The user is shown relevant car ads depending on their interests and behavior. When the user clicks on an advertisement they are taken directly to the vehicle description page on the dealership’s website. They browse the website and explore different cars on offer.
After selecting the car that they are interested in they are requested to fill out a form that will provide them with detailed information about the car. They can then further their inquiry by either contacting the dealership or pursue other details regarding the car.
These advertisements can be utilized by car dealerships to improve the quality of their leads by advertising to a more relevant demographic. The dealership gets notified about the lead and engages with the customer. The customer decides to buy the car and visits the dealership to complete the purchase.
How to Setup Google Ads
Google Ads is straightforward to set up but the process takes time due to the level of customization that Google offers. Google gives the advertiser complete control of the demographics they want to target and the budget and bidding strategy they want to employ; this is vital in enhancing the efficacy of advertising. The major steps to setup Google Ads are:
1) Add business information
2) Pick the Campaign type
3) Setup Campaign
4) Set Ad Schedule
5) Specify Location and Language
6) Calculate daily budget
7) Choose a bidding strategy
8) Setup keywords
9) Create the advertisement
10) Target demographics
11) Optimize Landing Page
New Features Added to Google Ads in 2024
Google has added new features to Google Ads in 2024 to make the platform better equipped to ever changing industry needs. These features enable advertisers to have better control over their advertisements and enhance their reach. These features are:
1) Improvements in Performance Max- Vehicle Ads are now integrating into Performance Max to maximize audience exposure and improve ROI.
2) AI assisted Ad creation – This assists a car salesman in advertising by automatically creating variations as well as enhancing the strength of the advertisement by recommending high performance elements which increase efficiency.
3) YouTube Audio Ads- These ads are boosting user engagement by making advertisements accessible to people using smart speakers.
4) Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns- Google is developing and adding to performance max to aid advertisers in reaching the right demographic in a timely manner.
5) Transition from Discovery Ads to Demand Gen- Google is adding this feature to enhance demand for products by driving more qualified clientele to the website by using various ad formats within one advertising campaign.
Conclusion
Effective advertising is essential for car dealerships to market their products and preserve their sales conversion rate. Google Ads is an expansive advertising platform that aids car dealers’ marketing needs by targeting advertisements to its vast user base.
Google Ads can also alter the targeted demographic based on interests and online behavior. This ensures that the advertisements generate high-quality leads worth pursuing, thus saving time and increasing efficiency. Car Dealers can also customize their budgeting campaigns to better manage their finances. All these factors make Google Ads a necessary tool in any car dealership’s arsenal.
