Automotive Search Marketing Cutting through the BS

Driving traffic to a car dealer online is a never ending challenge and one most dealers do not understand.  Mostly, they rely on advice from the automotive vendors that serve them to get advice to this effect.  What is good for the dealers is even if they do not have an effective process in place to handle the leads they can still sell cars from it.

In the automotive online marketing niche there are many products offered and belief systems in place that are limiting dealers in finding the most effective way to develop an online presence and get maximum return on investment for their online marketing initiatives.  It may be because a dealer is willing to overspend to achieve some results they do not have to manage or do not realize there are more effective ways to get in market car buyers to find them online.

Cars have become commodities today.  Car buyers know that they can find out anything they want to know about a vehicle they are interested in online and are not as brand loyal as they once were.  While at the same time dealer are having to compete not only with each other online they are having to compete with manufacturers, lead providers, regional promotions and affiliate marketers.

To top this off they have to deal with vendors competing with each other for the ever shrinking auto dealer marketing spends and this places dealer in the awkward position of making decisions on products and services they do not understand, for the most part.

In sales presentations for vendor technologies and degradation of other forms of marketing without substance or proof seems to be the way the niche works.  It is sales processes like this that further the confusion for car dealers.

With all of the different forms of promotions available online dealers need to look for ways the most cost effective ways to get in front of potential buyers at all levels and cut through the BS being dished up in the niche.

Dealer search marketing and search engine optimization are just the basics for car dealer online marketing and just scratch the surface and place the dealers marketing initiatives in jeopardy if not executed properly.  They both have their place and can compliment each other if executed intelligently, however seo trumps search engine marketing in cost and effectiveness.

Contrary to statements made by vendors in the dealer online marketing arena SEO is not free.  It cost either time and knowledge, which most dealers do not possess, or money to have someone execute it properly.  On the other hand search engine marketing via pay per click can and does provide value if you understand the demographic of the “heavy clickers” and create proper assets to convert them to leads.

Here is some excerpt from a study done by Starcom USA

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage.  Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

See it is studies like this that are not presented to dealers before they are sold products that are designed to be a dominator in search engine marketing.  It would show that the quality of leads delivered via pay per click will typically be lower income, in the prime age demographic and basically looking for something for nothing or a job.  However all is not lost for an effective search engine marketing campaign for car deaelrs if pay per click is looked at in the correct light.

no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

Which says that ppc may be effective for online branding and optimizing for high click through rates may not be the most effective use of this medium unless you are presenting a very low price and the ability to help get this lower demographic in a car.

This is a very profitable demo in the auto industry if the dealer has outlets for secondary financing and ignoring the majority of buyers, while at the same tme not delivering the same volume of traffic an intelligent search engine optimization campaign can deliver.