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Social Media Success Video 
I work with dealers coast to coast and was alarmed when one of my dealers send me this text chat in reference to a pitch they were given by a major automotive classified provider.
Shortly after assuring this dealer that a 10% click through rate (ctr) would be an extraordinarily, highly, unbelievably successful campaign and that the 10% ctr was probably an error in his recall of the pitch, I received a phone call from another dealer asking me about the same claim. Later that afternoon I reached out to some of my other clients and they also verified that they were given the same “tall tale”. Three of the dealers I spoke with also said that a rep from a major search engine was also in tow.
Below are the stats from one of my online properties the content and banner relationship are in sync, as would be expected with a banner that is behavioral and geographically targeted, all traffic comes from the search engines.
Over one half of a million impressions I am personally happy with the .7 of 1% ctr of this offer. The content also contains a strong call to action to encourage a click through, not found on classified portals and search engine banner advertising. The chances that a dealer will even experience a 1% ctr is a highly unlikely, an optimistic expectation would be .5 of 1% with reality coming in at .1 of 1% and anything greater than that being a bonus.
The average CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) for large sites, over 100,000,000 page views per month, a search engine, in 4th quarter 2008 was $0.17 CPM and the CPM for medium sized sites, between 1 million and 100 million page, classified portal, views per month was $0.30 according the the 4th quarter 2008 Ad Price Index.
Those numbers do not take into geo targeting or a tightly defined niche site such as an automotive classified web property. I was told that that the banners would also appear on the search engine network as well. The highest CPM was given to Business and Finance at $0.83 and the lowest social networking sites $0.10.
The quotes dealers were given on this new push was $25.00 cpm. While a higher rate should be expected on the smaller buys being offered to dealers and due to enhanced targeting, I could not find a way to recommend this type of spend based on current economic conditions, market pricing and anticipated ROI.
Using the numbers given by the rep at the unfathomable 10% ctr that would equate to a $0.25 cpc (cost per click) for what would be considered a content network display ad is still out of round based on the current state of the click. Using an overly optimistic ctr of 1% it drives that cost up to $2.50 cpc for a banner ad, an unrealistic cost value proposition.
I hope that I have miscalled this offering and several dealers are wrong in their recollection of what they were pitched both in cost of the offer and results claimed.
If not there are better opportunities out there for their marketing dollars.
Paul Rushing912-266-1629
www.ismintraining.com
SEGA Systems, LLC
“Without Traffic Everything Fails”
Google Talk: parushing 
Skype: parushing
I wish I found this article hard to believe. I should. The claims are impossible.
It’s like a dealer saying that most of their cars don’t need a tune-up until around 1,000,000 miles. It’s the same scale. On a good day, the claims are 10X beyond reality.
I wish I found this article hard to believe, but I think that there is either misunderstanding or misleading going on when claims such as 10% CTR on banner ads are made.
I too found it hard to believe until more than one dealer confirmed it. I hope it has been miscalled and the content still provides value for dealers before they agree to banner advertising on any venue.
I’ll confirm it (I take good notes) and leave the provider out of the conversation. What was alarming to me was that the “expert” from the provider was completely unable to answer basic questions challenging the CTR. Snake oil at its best…
Its really sad to see. Display advertising, at the right price and targeted properly, could be a great thing for dealers. Why ruin it with obviously overstated promises? It just goes to show a bad sales person can ruin a good product for the consumer.
Regardless of the provider, this is an EXCELLENT article for dealers to decipher the value of banner advertising offered by any vendor. Good stuff.
Hi Paul and Jared! I obviously sell Branding on Kbb for a living and I’d never mis-quote a CTR% for X # of impressions.
Banner Advertising should always be sold on a couple of specific points (relative to the site it runs on)
• Exclusivity
• County or Zip Code Geo-Targeting
• Contextually relevant path dependent URL Linking
• Analytics offering transparency in Real Time
Anything past that is hucksterism. There are too many factors on the Dealer Side that will limit/enhance a Banner campaign. Publishers should only promise what is listed above. The bigger their brand equity, the more chance Dealers will want to be positioned front and center.
I hope to see you gentleman at Digital Dealer this coming week!
Paul
I would have to agree with what Jay Campbell has stated Geo-targeting and Exclusivity are great places for the local dealer to be. But more than anything I would like to here from you, where you think in this economy you ahould spend your Marketing dollar, other than online? I am a co-worker of Jays as well as 12 years running Auto Dealerships.
In this economy I know from a dealers stand point you have to be smart about your marketing dollar and would really like to here your views on the best place to reach your customers.
@ George I agree that online is the best value, but over spending for online exposure in the wrong vertical is just as bad as picking the wrong medium.
The problem is dealers can be lead down the wrong path on with their online marketing efforts and overspend for less than optimal results.
I have several views and recommendations that I make daily. This is just not the place to do it. Feel free to give me a call. 912-266-1629
Good afternoon everyone. After reading Paul’s post yesterday (and after speaking with other dealers and vendors about this post), I asked a large automotive portal company their viewpoint on this post.
Publicly, they confirmed that a sales person presenting such high and off the chart numbers is extreme and ridiculous. They would frown upon one of their sales people potentially presenting off-the-wall numbers.
Off the record, they believe they can improve CTR through certain targeted local search channels. For example, a banner ad would be placed in a locally targeted channel specific area based on geo-targeting (and supported by a strong third party ad network company) in a large metro area, for example, a website like Cincinnati.com with an autos channel and automotive banner ads throughout. They did admit that the numbers presented were definitely unattainable.
Dealers, watch out! The snake oil has increased due to the challenged financial environment. Keep learning and gaining knowledge so you can avoid these pitfalls.
Andy I do agree that if the banner is in the proper venue and targeted in your vertical you should do better than “average”. The top end of average right now is .37 of 1% so a 1% ctr would be a very successful banner campaign.
Banners do bring a level of branding that really cannot be measured so you have to consider if the CPC and the “branding” value to determine if it is an intelligent spend.