This week, Dealer Teamwork was added to the official Kia Digital Advertising Program. Dealer Teamwork's current Kia clients now have access to the same great programs, but now with full DAS benefits!  Clients, old and new, will have access to the entire suite of MPOP™ related products and services through Dealer Teamwork, including New, Used and Service marketing content management tools and landing pages, Dynamic Paid Search, Facebook Share, Email Builder and more with full DAS eligibility.

"Kia engaged Dealer Teamwork to create a pilot this summer," said Co-founder and CEO, Sean Stapleton. "During this pilot, we syndicated OEM offers from Tier 2 to Tier 3 to Google, Bing, etc. in real-time using our patented MPOP™ platform – instantly creating up to 185 marketing specials per new vehicle with corresponding landing pages, allowing Google to pick the most relevant ad. This has never been done in the automotive industry. After huge success, we are now proud to announce our approval for the Kia Digital Advertising Program at 100% eligibility to be used by all Kia dealers in North America. Dealer Teamwork's MPOP™ and SEO/SEM Marketing Relevancy and real-time syndication is a game changer for Kia dealers. We are extremely excited and honored to be on the Kia team!"

This new OEM partnership is the latest in a string of other OEM strategic partnerships that Dealer Teamwork has made to help bring industry leading digital marketing products and services to automotive dealers and OEMs across the country.

For more details on the program, or get signed up, visit www.dealerteamwork.com/kia-marketing.  Also, later this month, representatives from Dealer Teamwork will be in attendance for Digital Dealer 25 and Driving Sales Executive Summit and would love the opportunity to meet with Kia dealers to discuss this exciting program.

About Dealer Teamwork

Dealer Teamwork is one of the fastest growing S.a.a.S. companies creating first-class solutions for the retail automotive industry. Dealer Teamwork created the automotive industry's first MPOP™, a patented Merchandising, Personalization & Optimization Platform. The platform creates a significant competitive advantage for dealers by distributing their transactional data to more in-market shoppers effectively and efficiently. For more information please visit DealerTeamwork.com or visit the Dealer Teamwork FAQ.

Dealer Teamwork's headquarters is in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and services an international customer base from offices in California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas and Washington.

When trying to run an effective paid search campaign in Google AdWords one of the most important factors one can judge is the quality of their ads. One might ask, “How am I supposed to measure quality? Quality seems much too broad and undefined to put a numeric score on it, let alone use that to form a consistent strategy for my campaigns.”

These are valid points, however Google being Google, they have a fluid term such as “quality” down to an exact science. Continue reading to learn what Quality Score is, why it is important to digital advertisers and how you can use it to properly manage and measure your campaigns on paid search.

Welcome to Quality Score 101.

What is Quality Score?

Put simply, Quality Score is the score that Google will give to measure the quality of your ads, keywords and landing pages. It is represented as a numeric score between 1 and 10, 1 being the lowest quality, 10 being the highest. The Quality Score you see in your account is the average value calculated over a sample of your ads.

There are five components that go into calculating your exact score:

1. Expected Click Through Rate (CTR) - How likely the ad is to be clicked
2. Keyword relevance - How closely keywordswith the adgroup match the campaign topic
3. Ad Relevance - How closely the ad matches the intent of the search
4. Landing Page Experience - How transparant and easy to navigate the langing page attached to that ad is
5. History of the AdWords account - How well it performed in the past

Why is Quality Score important?

It should go without saying that the largest benefit of Quality Score is that it gives you an opportunity to measure the quality of your ads. But why is it important to do this?

The most direct benefit a high Quality Score can have is increasing your ROI. Optimizing and improving your Quality Score will most likely lead a lower Cost per Conversion. Wordstream shows there is a direct correlation between Quality Score and Cost per Conversion, the higher your Quality Score, the lower you will pay for a conversion.

Credit Wordstream

Quality Score is also important because it is a clear indicator of whether or not your keywords are performing well for a certain set of ads. If your keywords are seeing a low Quality Score, that means your ads are not matching the search intent as well as possible and you may want to consider changing those keywords.

How to Use Quality Score to Improve Your Campaigns

Before we dive into how you can use Quality Score, let’s make sure we understand what does and doesn’t matter when it comes to ad quality.

What does matter:

• User's device
• User's intention
• Performance on related keywords

What doesn't matter:

• How you structure your account
• Running your ads in another network
• Ad placement on a page

When implementing Quality Score into your digital marketing strategy, it is important to remember that improving the actual Quality Score number should not be your primary goal. Instead, focus on long-term performance and how that aligns with what your Quality Score is and what you would like it to be. Using Quality Score to A-B Test and verify what works and what doesn’t is  a great way to use the metric. To summarize, focus on long term improvement rather than tricks to increase your score in the short term.

In Google AdWords, Quality Score will also give you an insight into average expected CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience for ads with similar keywords in that time frame. It also tells you if your ads compare better or worse than the average in Google AdWords.

Google will show your ad compares to other ads in the Google network with similar keywords in the same time frame.

Putting a focus on these 3 aspects is ultimately what will drive more quality traffic and conversions to your site. Researching new keywords, better organizing your existing keywords, refining your ad text, optimizing landing pages and adding negative keywords are all great ways to see meaningful improvement to your quality score.

Since the beginning, customer service has always been the prevailing priority at Dealer Teamwork. Strategic restructuring to the Client Services team and additions like Jennifer Beckman and Lani Almen have only strengthened the growing department. Continuing to round out this team is key to fostering successful relationships with dealers. It is for that reason that Dealer Teamwork is delighted to announce Sue Jacobson has joined Dealer Teamwork as Senior Director of Client Services.

“I’m thrilled to be part of this revolutionary digital marketing team,” said Sue. “Their vision, integrity, core values and genuinely unique culture make Dealer Teamwork the most exciting place to work in automotive.”

Sue comes to Dealer Teamwork after having spent nearly 40 years in the automotive industry, with both large manufacturer and dealership experience. She began her career in automotive at Ford Motor Company where she worked as a New Vehicle Merchandising Manager. After 5 years at Ford, Sue made the move to the dealership world by joining Tousley Ford where she held roles such as Merchandising Manager, Sales Manager, General Manager and Minority Owner. After the acquisition of Tousley Ford by AutoNation, Sue stayed on as General Manager of AutoNation Ford White Bear Lake where she remained for 20 years.

During her time as General Manager of Ford White Bear Lake, Sue proved time and time again that she was suited for business operations and customer service. Her store was ranked #1 in overall dealer profits by Ford for five of the past 11 years. She has also been awarded AutoNation’s most prestigious award, the Tim Pring Award. Additionally, she has received the President’s Award and Triple Crown Award, among others. With recognition throughout the industry, Sue Jacobson is perhaps one of the most decorated women in automotive history.

From her time spent in dealerships, Sue has seen how digital marketing has transformed the automotive industry and what products like the MPOP™ can do to help car dealers engage customers and drive sales. This realization is what ultimately led Sue to Dealer Teamwork.

“It is an honor to have someone like Sue join our team because she could go anywhere. Her resume speaks for itself.” Said CEO, Sean Stapleton. “She is established in the industry, professional and has an amazingly successful track record. For her to choose Dealer Teamwork meant a lot to me personally, and our company.”

When asked, Dealer Teamwork GM, Katie Donovan added, “Being from Minnesota, it is almost impossible not to know of the success of Sue Jacobson. From her days with Ford Motor Company, Tousley Ford and AutoNation Ford White Bear Lake, one of the most successful Ford stores in the nation for over 20 years, Sue has a proven track record of excellence. We are excited and extremely blessed to have all of that retail knowledge and success joining the Dealer Teamwork family.”

As Senior Director of Client Services, Sue is excited to enhance client-account manager relationships with the goal to provide world class service and exceptional value to Dealer Teamwork clients and partners.

About Dealer Teamwork

Dealer Teamwork is one of the fastest growing S.a.a.S. companies creating first-class solutions for the retail automotive industry. Dealer Teamwork created the automotive industry's first MPOP™, a patented Merchandising, Personalization & Optimization Platform. The platform creates a significant competitive advantage for Dealers by distributing their transactional data to more in-market shoppers effectively and efficiently. For more information, please visit DealerTeamwork.com or visit the Dealer Teamwork FAQ page.

Dealer Teamwork's headquarters is in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and services an international customer base from offices in California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas and Washington.

Let’s imagine that a shopper in your area is looking to buy a new car. Before they come to visit your store, or the store of one of your competitors, they are probably going to seek out information on their own.

Before they type anything into the search bar, we can assume that they are hoping to answer at least one of the following questions...

1. What are the make, model and trim options?
2. What is the pricing information?
3. Where can I buy?
4. What am I supposed to do next?

Most likely, in this stage of the buying process, they would be most interested in some sort of pricing information. Because of this the shopper is going to search for a lease, hoping to learn what it costs to lease a new vehicle.

Take this example, the shopper is looking for a Nissan Rogue, so they decide to search “Nissan Rogue Zero-down lease.” In this situation, the area is narrowed to dealerships near Phoenix, AZ. Here is top PPC Result:

Fig. 1.1

Odd’s are, this ad would perform poorly based on what this shopper’s original search was. This ad is doing nothing to satisfy the ad intent and offers almost no valuable information to the shopper. No model trim options, very weak call-to-actions that are not specific to this shopper’s intent and most importantly, no transactional data or mention of lease offers of any kind!

However, having a PPC ad with relevant, transactional data is only half the battle. Creating a specific landing page for your ads, ensure that’s shoppers are sent to relevant, model-specific pages when the click on your ad. Here is where the shopper is sent when the click on the ad shown in Fig. 1.1...

Fig. 1.2

We learn almost as little from this landing page as we did from the ad shown in Fig. 1.1. While this page does give us a price for a Nissan Rogue, it gives us no information on any leasing options. Neither the ad nor the landing page satisfy the search intent and this would likely leave the shopper frustrated with this dealer.

Let’s take a look at another example, here is another PPC ad from the same search:

Fig. 2.1

In terms of transactional data, this ad is better. It gives pricing some pricing information but not the zero-down lease the shopper originally searched for. Let’s look at this ad’s landing page:

Fig. 2.2

The ad shown in Fig. 2A advertised a lease of $239/month for a $49 down payment. This landing page shows a lease for $266/month with no mention the down payment. Like the other dealership, this would like leave the shopper either annoyed or confused, making it unlikely the shoper will visit this store.

In Summary:

• If you don't include transactional data (lease price, finance payments, APRs, etc.) in your ads, they tend to fall flat or get overlooked.
• If you include transactional data in your ad that doesn't match the transactional data on the landing page, it leaves shoppers feeling confused and cheated.
• Dropping shoppers on a homepage or a VDP where there is nothing relevant or matching the context of your ad creates a poor experience on your website, and it leaves customers regretting they came to your site at all.

How Do I Fix This?

Be specific, transparent and consistent from the time the ad is served to the time someone leaves your website. Fill your ads with relevant transactional data and drop shoppers on a model-specific landing page with valuable, relevant content. Lastly, make sure the offer in your ad is prominent on your landing page. You have 3 seconds to get their attention, don’t burry it in the page.

Whether you are new to SEO/SEM or you’re a digital marketing guru, evaluating and testing your digital marketing efforts is always vital. Luckily, search engines like Google already provide a wealth of free tools giving you the ability to take an unbiased look at your current marketing efforts. One such tool that Google provides is the Ad Preview Tool. If you are running ad campaigns with paid search, this tool is should be an absolute necessity. Today, we’ll explain how the tool works and the benefits it can have when evaluating your PPC campaigns.

Ad Preview Tool will take a snapshot of a search results page.

How Ad Preview Tool Works

Ad Preview does exactly what you would think: it gives you, the advertiser, an unbiased and up-to-date preview of how your ad and other ads look on a search results page. To demonstrate, let’s say you run a Ford Dealership and you just began running paid search campaigns to advertise your inventory of Ford F-150s and want to see how your ads are ranking.  

Consider what a car shopper would be searching to see one of your ads. They will probably search by model and another keyword, depending on what is relevant to the question that they want answered. For this example, let’s assume they want information on a lease, type “Ford F-150 Lease” into the search bar. What happens next is that Ad Preview will show us a live view of what this shopper’s search results would be, based on this phrase and the ad spending for it. It is important to note that Google will not register this as an actual search, which means it will have no effect on your spending for this campaign.

Finally, use this preview to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns. If your ads are not showing for keywords that you have set, then maybe you should consider adjusting your bids for your ads. Don’t forget to look at your organic search results as well.

Why You Should be Using Ad Preview Tool Rather Than Regular Searches on Google

You may be asking yourself, “Why can’t I just search for my inventory on Google like a normal shopper would?” The answer is actually pretty simple.

While using Ad Preview and a regular search on Google should give you the same results, in theory, using a regular search on Google can have a negative impact on your paid search campaigns. Below are the top five reasons you should being use Ad Preview Tool to test your campaigns.

Searching your inventory too often on Google can hurt your ad's quality score.

If you are searching Google for your inventory and seeing your ads pop up, that can have a negative impact on the overall performance of your campaigns. How so? Imagine this: You once again search for an F-150 Lease, Google assumes that you are looking for lease information (probably a monthly price) it then pulls a few ads based on the keywords and bidding. Since your ads include relevant information based on the search intent, one of your ads appears. If you then close that page or do not click on the link, Google will assume that certain ad did not properly answer the search intent, which will affect your ad’s quality score.

Using Google Search can adjust the results of your campaigns.

If you are searching your inventory on Google, then the phrases, impressions and clicks your ad receives are counted in Google AdWords. The act of searching for your ad can adjust the rank of that ad, thus leading to reporting that isn’t as accurate as it should be. Google AdWords is only beneficial when it provides accurate and unbiased information.

Another aspect to consider is that your searches on Google are counted into your bids. Each time you search something on Google, a bidding process is done based on your search keywords. The ad that bids the most (which also provides the most relevant information and best answers the search intent) will be displayed as the #1 result. That means if you search for your inventory and your ad appears, the bid your ad gave to Google is taken directly from your overall campaign budget. When you use Ad Preview, those results will not be counted as actual bids and thus not included in your overall budget.

Ad Preview will provide you with diagnosis on your campaigns.

When you use Ad Preview from you Google AdWords account, Google will provide diagnosis based on the parameters of you campaign. For example, if your ad is not showing when you search your inventory, Ad Preview will automatically provide with a recommendation to why your ads may not be performing well.

If your ads aren't showing for a certain keyword, Google AdWords will provide recommendations. 

With Ad Preview you can narrow your search by location.

Location is one of the biggest factors for Google when it comes to displaying text ads. With Ad Preview you can choose the location and view search results based on that selected location. This means if you’re a dealer in Fargo, ND and you want to see what ads are showing in Phoenix, AZ. All you need do is enter that desired location. 

Narrow your searches by location to ensure your ads are showing to the right audience. 

Ad Preview will show results based on device.

One of the coolest and most beneficial features of Ad Preview, is the ability to tailor search results based on device. Everyone knows that mobile is king and often the most desired digital real estate. Evaluate your PPC ads and ensure they are properly optimized for mobile by selecting any mobile device in the device category.

Guarantee your ads display properly on mobile devices by selecting specific devices.

Now that you know the basics of Ad Preview, you are ready to evaluate your paid search strategy in the most efficient and unbiased way possible. To learn more about  Ad Preview Tool, or if you want a dedicated team of Google Certified professionals to audit your SEM strategies, contact sales@dealerteamwork.com. 

Within the past month, Dealer Teamwork has seen fantastic growth to the client services team. To support our clients at the highest level, Dealer Teamwork has made a few key additions to mandate that dealers will continue to see exceptional customer service. Jennifer Beckman has joined Dealer Teamwork in the role of Client Services Director.

"It is great to have Jennifer on board with us," said Sean Stapleton, CEO. "I'm super excited to have her on board because of her experience, industry knowledge and the way she naturally treats people."

Jennifer is no stranger to the automotive industry or the challenges that dealers face when it comes to the digital landscape. She began her career in the automotive industry at Feldmann Imports, where she helped bring the Smart Car brand to dealerships in Minnesota. Soon after, she joined the Star Tribune as a Sales Manager, specializing in advertising and digital marketing for major national accounts. Jennifer successfully spent the last 4 years on the corporate team at the Lupient Automotive Group as Internet Sales Director.

Jennifer comments, "I was drawn to Dealer Teamwork because I saw the MPOP™ as having the ability to connect dealers with shoppers at a different level in the consumer shopping experience and I think it's a game changer. Since joining Dealer Teamwork, what I'm most impressed with is how this company is striving to provide such a high level of customer service and transparency."

Dealer Teamwork is very excited to what Jennifer will bring to the table. "I am so excited for Jennifer to join our team," said Ann De St. Aubin, Sr. Director of Client Services. "Jennifer has exceptional experience working in dealerships. Her knowledge will bring such value to our clients."
 

About Dealer Teamwork

Dealer Teamwork is one of the fastest growing S.a.a.S. companies creating first-class solutions for the retail automotive industry. Dealer Teamwork created the automotive industry's first MPOP™, a patented Merchandising, Personalization & Optimization Platform. The platform creates a significant competitive advantage for Dealers by distributing their transactional data to more in-market shoppers effectively and efficiently. For more information, please visit DealerTeamwork.com or visit the Dealer Teamwork FAQ page.

Dealer Teamwork's headquarters is in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and services an international customer base from offices in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas.