Digital media measurement has been eluding us since it started, and for the most part, it is simply due to the various metrics that are available to help us make decisions. Consider, you've got plans to head to a new city for the weekend (Chicago for example). You tell people that you're on your way and suddenly you have 25 different recommendations on where to stay, eat, and play. What do you do with your time and how do you choose who to listen to? The first thing that I typically do is consider whose interests are similar to my own. But who do I trust to steer me in the right direction? Do I take the recommendation of the friendly flight attendant who, while focused on my best interests, doesn't know me from Adam? Or do I listen to a close friend who I went to school with and who knows my preferences for food and music alike, but more importantly he has been to Chicago often and is a foodie and a music lover? Well, the same goes for making your decisions on who to trust to manage and assess your digital media choices. 

What is your role? Are you a Principal, a General Manager, a Sales Manager, or a Marketing Manager? Interestingly, the typical move is to ask your peer group what you should be looking at and who you should be trusting with your budget. For example, if you are the GM of a Dealership, you would ask a friend of yours who is also the GM of a Dealership. Pause for a moment, if you hold one of the first three roles, you may want to rethink that norm. Does your peer group know the ins and outs of the topic you are looking to solve? Your peer group will know what metrics they get and what metrics they like, but is that enough? 

In the last ten years, the media landscape has changed tremendously. Today we are at a point where the typical dealership is likely active in a minimum of 10 marketing communications channels. What does it take to effectively communicate your brand and your messaging across all of those channels? Consider the days of the original three. We've been forced to make a significant change to the depth and breadth of the skills and expertise required to make great marketing decisions. 

More than 10?

1. TV

2. Print

3. Radio 

4. Outdoor 

5. Email

6. SEO

7. SEM

8. Display

9. Facebook 

10. Twitter

11. Third Party Listings 

12. And you're likely using more... Instagram or Snapchat anyone? 

Let's consider some of the metrics that we can look at for these marketing communications tools. One would hope that they would have some apparent similarities that would help us to deliver a clear view of success. The first choice, and everyone's favorite,  are leads and calls. Sadly, the goal posts have moved, and there are now only 24% of consumers who are putting up their hands (in the way of an online form or chat) to say that they are coming to your store. The other 76% (the overwhelming majority) are showing up unannounced. Conundrum. 

How can we keep track of all these people coming from different sources and somehow decide what is working and what isn't? Do your colleagues know? Does he of she have a firm handle on all of the mediums and all of the metrics? Likely not. Well, it's time to find that trusted resource to help you. Is it the team member you hired last month that is eager to learn and that can DIY all the learning they need from forums, YouTube, and the Google machine? Is it the new savvy hire that took you months of tireless effort to find in the local market? Or do you ask one of your fellow GMs or Sales Managers for an introduction to their trusted team member - the person that they have on staff that they go to for the stats they need to make the right decisions. WARNING: don't go poaching the staffers from your industry colleagues. It may be tempting, but what goes around comes around. 

As you chat with your new trusted source, be sure that they can answer your questions clearly and in simple business language. No jargon, no smoke and mirrors. Once you find that person, keep them, treat them right, and if you employ them - pay them very very well. They hold the keys to your marketing communications success.

Tomorrow I will be on stage in New York City sharing the most recent research that Speed Shift Media has uncovered using our Data Management Platform (DMP). Our DMP, the MarketMatch Data Engine (which we lovingly call Magnum), tracks a massive amount of web data throughout a car buyers path to purchase. Using this data, we can determine a car buyers specific vehicle interest so that we can target them with the best possible inventory using dynamic display ads. But it doesn't stop there. 

Being that we optimize ad performance based on post-click activity, it is important for us to track all of that post-click activity. Recently we changed the way that we monitor this activity. The change is that we now track the entire click-stream (all the clicks that occur on the Vehicle Detail Page (VDP)) and then tag the events which are delivered by views and clicks on our ads. 

A handsome byproduct of tracking the entire click-stream is that we can now clearly assess what car buyers are doing in the weeks, days and most importantly the micro-moments that lead to the sale. The research that we will be presenting on stage is the first of its kind. It is the first time anyone has provided a clear proof of the most important parts of the VDP. These findings enable better forecasting of the timing and speed of vehicle sales. 

What is most exciting is that the indicators are not what you might think, they go against common thinking. After studying the VDP activity of over 50,000 vehicles across Domestic, Imported, and Luxury brands in a wide range of geographic regions we know that we have uncovered a brand new truth. 

I am extremely excited to be sharing this information on stage at this year's DrivingSales Presidents Club event. I hope I'll see you there. 

Cheers,
Ian. 

Remember waking up to the Saturday morning newspaper and racing to the comics section? Mom and dad going through, clipping the coupons for the afternoon grocery run while reading up on the week's newsworthy events. It was a perfect collation of everything you needed to know in one broadsheet wrapper. The daily and weekly newspaper have been a part of society since our great-great-great grandparent’s day and possibly even before. As with many things in the modern world, the things that have historically been the norm are now changing and evolving. The print industry is no different.

The cost of producing a daily/weekly newspaper has always been high. However, with the decrease in readership and the increase in the use of mobile devices, reading what you want when you want (even when you're on the go) has served to reduce the need for the daily. Add to that the massive debt level, difficult labor agreements, and the social perception of trees for newsprint and you've got a problem. This reduced readership paired with the lack of advertising attribution and it’s obvious why print has, in many cases, become an afterthought when it comes to the advertisers and marketing teams.

Due to these limitations, there are only a few circumstances in which I believe you could benefit from the use of print as part of your dealership’s advertising spend.

When You Could Use Print

Dealerships all over the country still use print advertising; that is a fact. Print is still impactful - a fact that many digital media pundits would rather ignore. The thing is that there are still people out there that prefer to read news media in the printed form, rather than using their computer, tablet or their smartphone. Not every person in your market lives the connected lifestyle that most of us do. In fact, I met with the head of a large newspaper company a few months ago. This man (who was pushing 80), was adamant that car buyers bought vehicles using his paper. I was talking about the standard online consumer percentages and he abruptly stood up from the meeting table in his office, pulled a newspaper off the top of the two-foot pile of past days papers, opened it to the center spread which was an ad from a local dealer. He planted his hands firmly on the pages and stared me in the eyes, and said - “THIS… This is where people shop for cars.” So, you may say, “ya, but he's 80” or “sure, but how many people actually read the paper.” But I gave him even more credit when he predicted that I was likely some loyal Volvo driver … which I am.

If you live in a community that relies on its local paper to deliver the news of the day, and word-of-mouth still nets more traffic than a slick SEM campaign, then you should definitely spend some of your advertising budget on print. This is where your consumer is and where they traditionally prefer to get their information. To spend all of your budget online is counter to how they shop will only serve to lose your potential buyers to the competition.

Secondly, if you are the only Ford or Toyota dealer for a hundred miles and are running a few big events every year to move surplus inventory, then, by all means, leverage the reach of that local paper. This can also serve to win you favor with the local community - particularly if you can use it to activate other local sports or arts sponsorships that you're activating.

Third, you’re not focussing on a specific group of cars but rather your total inventory in general or your brand in the community. In these cases, there is less need for regular creative updates required. If you want to run the same ad repeatedly for a month with the same message, that’s a pretty good indication it’s good for print. In all of these cases, be sure that the audience of the publication is a good match for your store and that the budget equates to a reasonable cost per thousand.

When to Choose Other Technologies

Now, here is how you tell if print is not for you.  If yours in one of several Ford or Toyota dealers in your city, taking out regular ads in your newspaper is likely too costly for the reach it provides. Additionally, if you are moving a significant amount of inventory daily and weekly, changing up the ad images will likely become far too time-consuming. Frankly, if you are a dealership with high inventory turnover, and you want to market specific cars, print just doesn’t make sense as your main advertising platform. It may be one of the best places to trim your advertising dollars.

The former monopolistic force of print has since become just another advertising delivery method in the sea of fragmented media opportunities. Though print media will likely always be around in some form, its limited reach in larger urban centers and the lack of attributable performance data are causing it to become less and less prevalent in the dealership marketing plans.

“There is no bad press!” has been attributed to a multitude of famous, and pseudo-famous, people that were usually getting bad press at the time but none-the-less were still profiting from the exposure.

Is the same true in automotive advertising? Can you effectively throw money at any form of advertising and still sell cars? Yes, you probably could, but how much of that spending is useful to the dealership and how much is just not bringing value at all? Let’s break down the main forms of advertising that automotive dealerships generally and historically have engaged in and why they may be among the best places to trim your advertising dollars.

Disclaimer for Full Disclosure

I am the VP of Sales and Marketing for Speed Shift Media and we work with customers in these fields of advertising. We also have many friends in companies I may be relating to. So in all fairness, many of these advertising products hold value at the dealership level and can be used effectively to advertise their business.

Typical or Traditional Display

I’ve written at length about the inherent difference between typical display and inventory display advertising, so I’m not going down that rabbit hole again. Instead, I want to go into this by demonstrating where traditional display works and why it just doesn’t deliver for your dealership if you’re trying to sell specific cars.

I often refer to traditional display advertising as the McDonald’s or Coca~Cola style advertisements. Simply put, these types of ads are great at building brand recognition or announcing events. You’ll often see the banner or billboard ads online, and they’ll read “Ford Family Pricing Event®” or “Mercedes-Benz S-Class: Benchmark in Sophistication®” or “Hummer: Everyone should get one.” Not one of these banners told you where to buy one, how much or if your favorite trim package was in stock. This is not the intention, the point of these ads is to evoke a response, a feeling or emotional connection with the brand.

This should help you understand why this type of advertising doesn’t help you sell individual cars on your lot. If you are one of three dealerships in your city that sell Mercedes-Benz cars, then the S-Class banner would inspire an enthusiastic shopper to visit the first dealership they could find, not necessarily yours.

A piece of advice, as banner ads are usually just part of the marketing mix, use them. Just don’t count on them to sell more cars. Use them to do what they do best, build your brand recognition or showcase a make & model specific sale your dealership has going on. To target in-market buyers on a very granular level traditional display advertising just falls short, and you could spend your advertising budget more wisely elsewhere.

Print Advertising? Do people still read print?

This is one of those industries that falls under the full disclosure above. I worked with a print media company to help them transition to a more digital world. I have a soft spot for print whether it’s newsprint or magazines. Print transcends generations when it comes to delivering information to the masses but let’s be clear, like traditional display advertising, it too has a time and place.

First, let’s address what and who print advertising works well for. If you live in Austin, TX, then taking out a full page in each of your local weekly papers is probably quite expensive and likely goes (for the most part) unnoticed.  If you live in Lexington, TX, on the other hand, taking out a full page in your local weekly may be a good spend. Why is that, do you think? Let’s talk about demographics and population size for starters. Austin is very plugged in, metropolitan and modern so it can be assumed that most people in Austin don’t read the printed newspaper and would be more aware of advertising in the digital world. Whereas, Lexington is a good distance away from the big city, has a smaller geographic footprint, and it stands to reason that its’ population likely relies more heavily on their local weekly newspaper to deliver the events and coupons the residents need.

Print is not dead; it’s simply aging. Not as many people read the newspaper in print form anymore. For this reason, your advertisements here simply won’t carry the same impact as they did before. National dailies like our Globe & Mail deliver a vetted collation of the information you should know. The local dailies  like our Vancouver Sun carry the information of local interest in the same way. Both of these publications though are much like typical display advertising, the amount you would spend advertising on their pages cannot be justified by the few people the ads would reach.

In the long run, if you have a special event and a little money left over in your ad budget, why not take out a print ad. It can’t hurt and may serve to reinforce your digital messaging.

Premium Listings: To List or Not to List?

Listing sites fall under that umbrella of the most recent additions to Traditional media. They have been around for a long, long time, and now it’s become a question of the value you get vs. what you can get from your site. True, but listing sites were and still are the best place to put your inventory in a safe, unbiased environment for customers to search and discover. A lot of consumers still discover their local dealership from a listing site first. For this reason, alone, I would keep advertising on listing pages.

The question is whether premium listings (or other upgrades) provide you with the best bang for your advertising dollar.

To answer that let’s look at why listing sites became popular in the first place. Let’s look to the stereotype of the pushy car salesman trying to get you to buy the car with his best margins, not necessarily the one you need or want. With listing sites, buyers can browse, unfettered, with no pressure and find just what they want. When you look at it this way it’s no wonder that listing sites and their predecessor, the listing catalog magazines, became so popular. Of course, the savvy dealership always wants to be the top of the list to sell the most inventory, and this ushered in the premium listing.

This was a great add-on until the online consumer became savvier as well and realized that these so-called “premium listings” were becoming no different than the pushy sales guy. As a result, now, even the consumers you were capturing previously with a flashier car listing are now ignoring these advertisements and moving deeper into the listing pages to find the vehicle they want.

Listing pages are a valuable spend. No question. Paying for premium is likely not something you need to do as aggressively as once thought.

The Best of the Rest?

TV commercials. Billboards on the interstates. The inflatable flappy arm guy. Paying your niece or nephew to dress up as the mascot to wave at motorists. There is no shortage of places to throw money to sell just one more car. Let’s consider what is a good practice if you’re having a difficult time sorting where the spend should go.

As the dealership marketing manager or team or even GM, you know what has worked for you in the past but let me give you a fairly simple template to follow.

1. Your priority in advertising is to get as many people as possible to view your inventory, your Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs). As the marketing person or team, this is your priority and likely where you are going to spend the bulk of your ad dollars. Once you’ve exhausted all these avenues and you have budget remaining;
2. The next focus should then fall into getting people to your Search Results Pages (SRPs). This is the equivalent of bringing people to the dealership door and having them cruise the lot. Once you’ve exhausted this avenue, then;
3. Focus on driving as much quality traffic as possible to your website through SEM, SEO, and other promotional methods;
4. If you still have some extra money in your advertising budget, then and only after all other higher converting avenues are exhausted, look into direct mail, TV, billboards and other forms of marketing that you feel are giving you a positive return.

Follow this funnel and you will always be able to justify your advertising spend to your leadership. Obviously, success is measured differently at different dealerships but following these basic premises will at least ensure you are spending your advertising budget appropriately.

The big wrap up

I don’t like to say this is the right way, or this is the only way because it assumes that I know your market better than you. This isn’t the case. In my experience, though, certain types of advertising have historically been successful regardless of geographic market. As technology has evolved and delivery mediums have changed, these historically successful means of delivering advertisements have improved and only gotten stronger which is why I take certain stances.

Over the course of an advertising year, there will always be a place for some, if not all, of the technology discussed in this overview in some form. My goal is to use my experience to help you determine where the best use of your ad dollars are. It is up to you to determine what will bring the buyers to your door, ready to drive away in the vehicle of their dreams.

Please visit here to Download a Free Resource to help with everything I've talked about here. 

It’s always a challenge to change people’s perceptions when they are sure they know exactly what you do based on a single definition or experience. Let’s say, for example, that your only experience with a cheeseburger is McDonald’s and you go to a gourmet restaurant and order one. If the server starts to ask what extras you want on your burger wouldn’t you say, “It’s a cheeseburger, aren’t they all just the same?”

In the same vein, what if I told you that not all display-based technology is the same? I’m sure that would spark a fairly spirited discussion about what exactly display technology is and how it can help. In tier 3 Auto, only ~50% of dealers are using display ads.

When is display more than just display?

Take a look at your advertising mix and you will find a few constants. Dealerships have been running radio ads since before you could drive. Print and TV, these are normal standbys along with display ads because they’re usually sold as a package. This is the “McDonald's cheeseburger” of display ads. They typically showcase events and they are what the industry knows display to be. In fact, when you buy TV or Radio - Display often become “the Fries with that!”

There are other cheeseburgers out there and inventory display advertising is the top shelf Cheeseburger. (Click if this is before lunch) .

Like normal display advertising, inventory display is always there, always reminding the consumers about your dealership. However, unlike typical display, inventory display ads go beyond simply promoting events and offers. They are dynamically generated to feature live inventory from your lot. Additionally, advanced inventory display ads will programmatically learn from the consumer’s online behavior and automatically adjust the ad to better fit their preferences.

As marketers and salespeople, we are always looking for tools to help us automate the process of finding qualified buyers. Inventory display is automating inventory promotion by taking all of your inventory, finding the customers and showing your vehicles to the most appropriate people without you having to lift a finger in the process.  

It’s a long-term tool that just keeps working to find the buyers you want. Unlike typical banner ads, this advertising is not tied to a single campaign, but to your actual inventory. As long as you have cars on your lot, inventory display advertising (IDA) has work to do and consumers to find. When your buyer is ready to make their purchase they know you’re the dealership to go to.

The problem with switching off for a few months

In the marketing and advertising world, we often  hear, “It’s a quiet time of year, I want to save some money until sales pick up.” Now, there are some obvious problems with this statement, much like the chicken and the egg. But, we always explain that this is just as counterintuitive as sending your sales team home for the same reason.

What the vast majority of automotive retailers don’t realize is that the inventory advertisements the consumer sees are literally the tip of the iceberg. The amount of machine learning that comes from delivering that advertising can’t be overstated. Online, every click and query is recorded and cataloged. These behaviors follow your potential buyers through their browsing and research over time, let’s assume 60 days. So what good Data Management Platforms are doing is learning about users, what they like and don’t like. This is machine learning. When all of the views and clicks come together the ad engine knows one buyer is  interested in a 2015 Audi Q5 Technik in black and another buyer is decided on the BMW 4 Series Cabriolet . Don’t view these ads only as advertisements for Toyota Camrys available at your local dealership today, instead, see them as little intelligence gathering tools for the cars you’ll sell next week and next month.

When I hear that a dealership wants to turn off their inventory ads for a short time, I caution them that this is like turning a deaf ear to your buyer’s needs and wants. You are halting that learning engine, that information gathering and relationship building tool that is inventory display advertising. I explain this and advise a simple solution, "Don’t turn it off entirely, if you must, reduce your spend. This way your 'virtual team' is able to still gather information, it’s only been reduced to part-time hours."

So much of the marketing world is turning to automation. Inventory display is automating the process of learning what the customer wants, finding where it is available and delivering that to the buyer on any device; mobile or wired.

Match.com for car buyers?

When someone asks for a quick overview of inventory display I tell them it’s not unlike Match or eHarmony for car buyers. Inventory display advertising (simply put) learns a buyer’s likes and dislikes in order to present them with the best matches in their vehicle research, some left or right swipes may still be required.

One of my team members brought up that this was not unlike an automated, needs analysis tool for the dealership. Similar to the questions a sales associate will ask you when you’re on site at the dealership, inventory display technology is learning through your research, clicks and consumer’s path-to-purchase while researching their next vehicle purchase.

The long-term workhorse

So where does inventory display advertising fit into your long term advertising plans? First, it isn’t the only solution, but it is part of the toolset that will get the right car in front of the right buyer at just the right time to increase your sales. Inventory display technology is always on and always learning about your ideal buyers, it doesn’t need a break, it won’t take a vacation and it is everywhere your buyers are 24/7. Lastly, it’s the best matchmaker out there, it listens and learns what your buyers want and makes sure that as long as you have it or something similar in stock, your buyers will know the car is available.

Inventory display advertising may use images to display your inventory, but don’t call it display. It is so much more than a McDonald’s Cheeseburger.

The Good, The Bad & The Fugly.

Even as a digital marketer I find myself (at times) yelling at the browser window because I’m flooded with retargeted ads. I do one batch of searches for our family vacation, and suddenly I’m retargeted by every destination site that I had visited. You’d think I was the best visitor they had ever seen!  

In the marketing world, there is no hard and fast rules for what is and isn’t good retargeting practice. What works for some, may not be the best for others. It seems the game changes from one locale to another, so inevitably there is a lot of trial and error on our parts to get the formula just right. If you look to the old days of radio and TV advertising, it seemed the ratio of 3:7 was the golden mean, 3 times per day and 7 days a week was the standard for buying ad time. In the digital world, this ratio would likely mean you were missing a large percentage of your potential customers, and you probably wouldn’t keep your job for long.

So let’s talk about your retargeting and see if we can help you get the most out of your online ad spends.

Who doesn't love pie? Especially a nice big segment.

There was a time when retargeting meant getting your message in front of everyone that even remotely showed some interest in your product. Keep serving tens of thousands of ads every day and the hope was a few viewers would click through and become buyers.

Sure, you can get your ads in front of thousands daily - for pennies. Impressions are cheap to buy, and you can generate some incredible numbers to wow the non-savvy listener. Tell me, of those 1.5M unique impressions, how many people were interested in these ads? It’s well known today that people eventually develop banner blindness for ads they don’t care about, and this is causing many to use ad blockers to block the noise out.

If you want to maximize your ad budget and get your banner ads in front of interested buyers, what can you do? Well, it may seem a little labor intensive to some but let’s look at segmentation and inventory based retargeting as a solution. By doing this, you are serving ads to consumers that have already expressed an interest in your inventory beyond just going to your website.

Your dealership has different departments, and your customers aren’t always looking to purchase a vehicle. They may have been looking at booking a service appointment, purchasing upgrades and add-ons for their car or even just looking for the phone extension for their buddy Bill in sales. These different consumers will not engage with the same advertisements. What your digital marketing team needs to do now is establish a system where each of these customers are segmented differently, with a unique tracker for their shopping experience.

It’s a foregone conclusion that taking the time today to set up a retargeting system based on usage will inevitably close more sales be it in service, autos, and aftermarket. Easy as pie, isn’t it?

Are we there yet? How about now? Now? Now?!

What’s worse with retargeting, seeing your ads everywhere or seeing nothing at all?

Two major issues in ad serving are: 1) Seeing your ad so much that a viewer tunes you out or worse, they add your business to their blocked ads list.  2) Retargeting with the last vehicle (or product) seen?

Retargeting isn’t like typical banner ads. Having your ads follow a person incessantly throughout their day is not only annoying but leads to terminal cases of banner-blindness. Yes, you don’t want the prospective buyer to forget your product, however, you don’t want to serve your ads so much that you annoy them either. Here’s the big question, how much is too much? Do you retarget a user for 15 days or 30? What about 45 days? How about a buyer that went through the entire process and just abandoned everything on the last step, how long do you follow them on their web journey? It’s really not that tough to figure out. Ask yourself: How long is a typical user in-market for? How long does it take a typical buyer to purchase once they have been on your site? If an average consumer is on your site for the first time 10 days before they transact, then a 10 to 15 day retargeting window with a high frequency is likely a good idea. But if your average is more like 30 days from the first visit to purchase, then a 30 to 45 day window with a lower frequency may be better. You can find your averages in Google Analytics - feel free to ask me how.

What about the “last vehicle seen” retargeting conundrum? We totally understand, after 2 hours of looking at minivan and SUV specs, that badass muscle car catches your eye and next thing you know, that’s all you see for ad targeting. Like segmentation, there needs to be a system in place that prioritizes what ads are sent to people once they leave your site. If a consumer spends an hour looking at hybrid electric CUVs and on a whim clicks on the Challenger SRT® 392 before leaving the site, you should be sending the ads for the hybrid electric CUV rather than the Challenger. If you’re really skillful - show a bunch of crossovers and one Challenger to catch their eye.

Just like with segmentation, a marketer has to focus on what a consumer wants based on their usage/behavior. If 95% of a customer’s time is spent looking at one particular type of vehicle, then that is likely the product they want to see future ads for. Assigning a grading system to Time-on-VDP or VDP-Focus and translating that into ads they're fed, will inevitably boost the interest of the viewer. Better yet, this will keep the right vehicles in mind when making the final purchasing decisions.

What do you mean our ads are on FindADate.com!?!

No press is bad press, right? I mean it could be worse, at least your ads are being seen!

If you haven’t already, you should filter on which types of websites your ads are shown. Now I’m sure there are websites that your dealership just does not want to be associated with, be it for political, moral or personal reasons. In this case, you have two choices: embrace the publicity on a potentially high traffic site even though their content is something you may find objectionable or take the time to filter specific sites so your ads don’t display there.

Some things to consider before you filter:

• How much could this ad placement be affecting the impression your customers have of your brand as a whole?
• Are you prepared to go through every site online that may offend a customer or two and manually blacklist them? Also, are you prepared to continually maintain that list?
• Are you reacting to a single complaint or a multitude of objections from a wide variety of potential consumers?
• Lastly, look through your analytics and see just how much VDP traffic is being generated by the offending website. If it’s substantial, you may want to turn a blind eye and keep the potential revenue coming to your doorstep.

Realistically, if your customers see the ad on this site in the first place, it means they are a user of the site. Also, this can present your team with a humorous way to inject a laugh into a sales conversation, “Oh, you saw our ads on FindaDate.com? So you’re looking for a car to impress your date this weekend?”

Obviously, if the material on the site displaying your advertisements is morally objectionable or promotes a message that is just not in line with your business, then you can and should filter that site. But I think that the most important thing to consider is what frame of mind users are in when they are on particular sites and are they more or less likely to want to leave the site they are currently on. We find that dating and gaming sites don’t perform as well as news and information sites.

Retargeting rules in under a minute!

Here is the quick recap:

• DO segment your targeting according to historical usage.
• DO invest in both dynamic inventory and demographic advertising so as not to rely too heavily on just impressions.
• DO limit the time your retargeting follows people; no one likes a stalker.
• DO NOT retarget without considering what sites are in your mix.
• DO NOT run your ads so frequently that your targets get banner blindness.

Lastly, stay on top of what your customers are interested in. You just never know where they may be on their journey and if your advertisements happen to be there, all the better for you. Also, think of the creativity you can have when you know exactly where your buyers spend their free time when they’re not researching their new vehicle.

What if everything you think you know about automotive digital marketing was a lie? Someone, somewhere has been manipulating marketing data to support their case so they can give you exactly the information you wanted to hear. Now let’s say that another digital marketing pro comes along and tells you that everything you’ve been told is BS and that they have the real answer you’ve been looking for. How confused would you be? Would you freak out a little and wish for the simple days of newspaper advertisements?

Digital marketing is mired in technical terms and industry jargon. Bounce rates, VDP Efficiency, Time on Site, Page Views, In-Market Buyer, Intenders, CPC, CPM, CTR,  SEM, SEO and Retargeting (Remarketing), and the list goes on. You hire someone to translate these terms into English and at the end of the day, if you asked three different people they could have three different interpretations of your data. No wonder the flask in your desk drawer constantly needs a refill. I would love to definitively say that, “I have the answers and everyone else is wrong!” but you’ve heard that so many times, would you even believe me? Let me show you instead how to frame some of these terms and topics for yourself. That way you can be the judge of the BS you hear next.

The elusive In-Market Buyer: Defined

Let's begin by defining what makes an "in-market buyer", "in the market". I will preface everything I say from here on, the term "In-Market" can and should be defined differently by different dealerships. The term "In-Market" refers to a person that has demonstrated, through a series of predetermined triggers, that they are nearing the point of making their vehicle choice and purchase. What these triggers are, needs to be defined by the individual dealership based on their customer's historical behaviors leading up to the time of purchase. 

If it were in a digital dictionary somewhere it might look like this:

Let’s consider Chris Carbuyer (yes a made up name - but not as good as Karbaum, the best real name in the industry) has been researching the purchase of a new car. Chris decided that they need something with space for their active family, like an SUV, and that they prefer European manufacturers. Maybe they’ve looked at a few Vehicle Detail Page (VDPs) on third party listings sites or from various dealers around their area, researched brands around town, and checked into reviews of vehicles that fit their general “needs” terms on the OEM sites.

Is Chris “in-market” yet? By our definition and for most dealers, no. Chris is kicking tires (so-to-speak) and hasn’t really demonstrated interest in a specific brand, make, trim and pricing. Chris is currently defined as an intender, but we can’t see that he’s ready to pull the trigger on the purchase just yet. Many Data Management Platforms and networks would target Chris heavily at this stage - but is it too soon?

Chris then takes the leap and focuses their search on the Audi Q5 specifically, even looks at the local dealership and goes to the “Build & Price” page. Is Chris considered “in-market” now? That all depends on the local Audi dealer; is the Build & Price page the trigger that tells the dealer they have a qualified buyer on page? Maybe, but how many people go to this page because they’re dreaming and killing time on transit going to work? Perhaps we need more.

Chris really ramps things up and next time on site looks at specific VDPs, trim packages, financing options, payment schemes and books a test drive. I think at this stage it’s safe to say, Chris can be considered in-market. Now that they have checked the usual boxes to signify buyer intent, they must be ready to buy in the next 30 days. Right?

Not so fast.

Is it your intent to buy today, Chris?

The crux of what we do is to determine when a car shopper is more likely to buy based on triggers found both on and off of dealer websites. There are some people that will tell you they can pin-point when a buyer will transact within a very defined time frame. I hate to break it to you (and them), they can’t. Unless they are employing a Ouija board or time machine they are, like everyone in data-driven advertising, taking their best, educated guess based on a mathematical probability and predictive analysis.   

What are the numbers saying then? I’ll give you a hypothetical example:

• Data based on 2500 unique buyers, tracked over a 6 month period; throughout the Path to Purchase.
• 1000 took 1 month or less to make a purchase, 1200 required 30-90 days and the remaining 300 required the full 6 months.
• Of the 2500 buyers, 68% or 1700, did not fill in the test drive form but did purchase from the dealership who’s VDP they visited multiple times which also coincided with the vehicles they researched most in the 7 to 21 days prior to purchase.
• 23% or 575 buyers, completed near identical steps prior to purchase and they also filled a test drive form 7-14 days prior to purchase.
• 9% or 225 buyers remaining, did not fill the test drive form or demonstrate normal research patterns before their purchase. These were the anomaly in the trends.

Based on these hypothetical numbers, what can we infer through probability? 91% of buyers in this group purchased the car they either saw online or saw online and took for a test drive, within 21 days of deciding on that car. So as a digital marketer or display advertiser you could confidently say that approximately 9 out of 10 in-market buyers will purchase a vehicle they research online.

Now, if you guaranteed these results to everyone, that’s when you run into issues. The magic of data is that it factors out things like feelings, or forgetfulness, or getting distracted by life. Data can give you an educated best guess based on the history of what other people did. Data cannot, however, precisely show intent with a guaranteed fixed date.

There is no formula that exists that can definitively state with 100% certainty, “When Chris Carbuyer lands on the Audi Q5 VDP and books a test drive, he will buy that vehicle within 7 - 14 days.” That would be mind reading and to be totally honest, no technology is THAT plugged in. Frankly, at that point in time Chris is likely still unsure. The only thing you know for certain is that Chris Carbuyer is interested enough in that vehicle to book a test drive at your dealership and you should continue to communicate with him. 

How traditional display falls short of proving intent.

I’ve said it before, traditional display ads suck for dealerships and here is just another example to support that. Traditional display falls in the realm of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 advertisements, which is to say, traditional display advertises the brand, the offers, and the events in very general terms to a demographically or psychographically selected market segment. For example, “Ford Family Pricing” or “Mitsubishi $0 down, 0% financing Event!” A prospective buyer will see this type of ad because they fit into a profile not necessarily because they have indicated they are shopping for a vehicle. For example, Chris Carbuyer fits the 25-45 year old, married, homeowner, with children market segment. Do any of these demographic indicators show an intent to buy a car soon or maybe a waffle maker or a shirt from Gap? Of course not.

This method of targeting buyers serves up the ads to as many people as possible. The hope is that a small percentage will take the next step to qualify their intent in some other way, like filling in a form or viewing a VDP. It isn’t until the prospective buyer takes the next steps in a more detailed search that they become qualified as “in-market.”

So, if our hypothetical shopper (Chris) sees a banner ad for an “Audi Dealer $0 Down Event”, then does an independent search for “2016 Audi SQ5 Technik black within 10 miles”, they have taken that next step to show they are interested in a specific car, with a specific trim level, and within a specified geographic location. By using “long-tail search terms”, Chris Carbuyer has matured from a market segment to an in-market buyer to the dealership. (Let’s point out though, nothing in their search used the term “I want to buy a ..” but the inference can be made due to the very specific search terms.) Analytically speaking, Chris Carbuyer is now an in-market, Audi buyer. Literally speaking, traditional display ads will no longer suit their search purposes so they have lost their effectiveness. However, that doesn’t stop the ad servers to continue to display these banners and costing the company money for each impression.

Conclusion

FACT: Demographics and Psychographics alone are an unreliable method of targeting in-market shoppers. You need behavioral data - the richer the better.

FACT: Banner ads and traditional OEM display advertising were not developed to help determine shopper intent or to serve as a tactical marketing tool. That’s why the acceptable response rate on these ads is 1 in 10,000 - yuck!

FACT: Lastly, no one can predict the day when a buyer will make their purchase solely based on analytics and online behavior. We can make inferences, but that is all. Fortunately, with the right tools at your disposal this will help a lot.

So what are we doing here? For starters, trying to help you start the conversation about what in-market looks like to you from website interactions and next, dispel some of the wild advertising claims you may hear from some traditional display marketing. Another goal for this particular piece is to spur the conversation around your boardroom about “what does our in-market buyer behave like?” So take the time to consider what “in-market” means for your store, then go find the tools to help you reach those buyers. Do let me know if you have any questions along the way.

Why is direct-to-VDP advertising better than landing a buyer on a typical landing page? The adage is true, "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” I’ve referenced the Punchline Effect in previous webinars wherein, the more clicks a customer has to navigate through on your site, the more search abandonment your analytics will record. So if the goal is to sell more cars then the more buyers you lose, the fewer cars you can count on selling.

Get from search to sell … faster.

Consider this, if your website is the online version of your dealership, is there any logic in having a buyer arrive at your lot and then wander around until they find the car they wanted? Of course not, so why would that be okay online?

Let’s examine this more closely with our poor, wandering buyer on the car lot. If they are left to their own devices to wander the car lot looking for the car they came to find, there is a pretty good chance they will leave without making a purchase. If they arrive at the dealership and are escorted by a salesperson directly to the car(s) they are interested in and receive a personalized product recommendation; they are very likely to (at least)  take a test drive.

This is a simplified example of why Direct-to-VDP works much better than ads leading to typical landing pages or your home page. Buyers want to feel that the dealership understands their needs and curates a personal experience for them, whether this happens online or on-site. In this digital age we can show the in-market shopper the car(s) they are most interested in - the clearest path is to show them that car and click to that car’s VDP. 

So, what is a high-value ad? We like to define it as - A relevant advertisement that takes a buyer directly to the vehicle they’re searching for and prompts that consumer to visit the showroom or connect with the dealership.

How will you know if your advertisement is working to achieve these results? One clear way would be to measure VDP Efficiency (The number of VDP views / number of sessions for a traffic source).  I’ve discussed this very topic in a webinar to help set up your Google Analytics to measure that statistic.

Ads designed to go directly to VDP typically have an efficiency rating of between 65 and 75%, in other words, for every 1000 people looking at the ads, roughly 650-750 click through to view a VDP. The last 25% - 35% are typically a buyer clicking on the company’s logo. In our world - this clicks go to the SRP that is relevant. Example: a sedan intender will get an SRP with sedans.

Whether clicking directly on the VDP or going to a relevant SRP, that is high-value advertising. This type of curated advertising experience will drive in-market buyers to your site more effectively and efficiently.

Direct to VDP is King.

In today’s world of thin margins and ultra-competitive sales, it’s important to not waste advertising dollars on “maybes”. There is no reason to forget SEM, Adwords, and typical landing pages entirely because they obviously have their merits. When you look at the cost per click of Adwords, it’s pretty normal to think you’re getting a great deal. When you dig deeper, you’ll likely realize that you probably need to spend $12 or more per VDP view, that’s likely not as cost effective as you may have thought.

Direct-to-VDP advertising is more effective at driving people to see your inventory and each click is going directly to a VDP rather than a list page. Instead of paying for clicks that may (or may not) result in the buyer seeing the car they want to buy, you’re paying for clicks directly to the car they DO want.

I’ll go back to the analogy that your website (as well as your advertising) is an extension of your dealership. Think of a buyer coming into your showroom, asking for the blue Camry they’re interested in. Your salesperson tells him that the Camry line is in the back near the fence and to call him when they have found the right one. This is not unlike the typical landing page experience.

Direct to VPD Ads are the equivalent of having the salesperson walk the buyer directly to the car they asked for. Isn’t that what you train your staff to do anyway? More importantly, this is the experience (as a buyer) you would want to have. As an extension of your business, your advertising should be as good as your best salespeople.

A final truth about today’s consumers: 54% would consider ending their relationship with a retailer if they are not given tailor-made, relevant content and offers. This will be the most important fact when determining when to turn to Direct-to-VDP advertising. The simple truth is, today’s buyers want to feel they are the most important customer you have. They want to feel that from your dealership team, your website and your advertising.

Be sure to subscribe and we’ll talk about personalization and relevancy in the coming weeks.

If I told you 50 years ago that in 2016 newspaper ads would be virtually useless, billboards only served to distract motorists at 60 mph, and almost everyone tunes out or skips radio and TV spots - Would you have changed your advertising habits? Probably not. These are the mediums that were known and accepted, so they took hold. I’m certain someone wrote an article about “why newspaper ads sucked” for a marketing journal at some point in the past, and they likely talked about clutter and starbursts. Is this the reason dealerships still run display ads even though they typically don’t produce significant results (in other words - they suck)?

Display ads just aren’t well suited to promote inventory.

Let’s temper this for a moment. Display ads themselves don’t suck. It’s how they’re used and measured that makes dealers feel like they hold little value for their local dealership. Display ads, like billboard ads, are similar standing on top of the tallest building in your town and shouting through a megaphone. Some people will hear you. Some may act on your speech and maybe one or two may buy what you’re selling.

Is it worth it? That’s the real question.

As a GM, you want everything you spend your advertising budget on to generate opportunities and revenue (Leads and Sales). This is exactly where typical display ads have fallen short at the dealership level. They are great for advertising the big events, building up your brand and presenting evergreen ideas - Like: “Family owned for 45 years!” OR “The best service”. What they don’t do well is promote an ever changing and variable set of inventory. Is your goal is to drive car buyers directly to the inventory of Big Jim’s Ford Emporium on Main Street  and show them what cars are available today? You’re going to have a challenge doing that with traditional display advertising.

Display Ads passes the ball to Adwords, Adwords SCORES! The crowd goes wild... for Adwords!

For years, this has been the bane of all Display Ad sales people. Big Jim invested in Adwords so when a buyer searches for Ford F-150, near Main St … Big Jim’s Ford Emporium text ads pop up all over the place.

Big Jim wants to grab the attention of every single potential Ford buyer around and let them know he’s open for business, so this result is significant. Over time, the dealership’s SEM success begins to diminish, and the marketing team suggests trying another channel to help bolster results. Big Jim finally gives in, and his team decides to invest in some digital display ads.

Now, Jim’s organic traffic is increasing, his search ranking has improved, and there is more traffic from the text links. Have the display ads contributed to all this? Darn right, they have contributed, but the method of directly measuring the performance of the display ad campaign doesn’t show it. What the display ads did do is help lift the SEM and organic traffic.

So Big Jim is stuck, has the money he just spent on display ads had a positive effect? From a whole marketing perspective, you could say yes. But is he convinced to keep spending? Buyers would see the display ads because they meet certain criteria even if they haven’t specifically searched for Big Jim’s Ford. There is the assumption that the display ads helped initiate the search for Big Jim’s dealership, search his VDPs and eventually come to his lot. However, there is very limited ability to attribute it directly to the display ad campaign.

You just never know for sure if the display is directly contributing to the success of the online advertising efforts - enter Ad Technology, the world of data driven advertising.

If you’re going to spend money, spend it effectively.

Big Jim now realizes what display ads are good for. Display advertising will boost the performance of existing search efforts. Display ads help build brand recognition, and now they can add another layer of tactical advertising successes.

If Big Jim is going to spend a portion of his budget on display advertising, he should invest in dynamic inventory display ads.  Dynamic inventory ads will help build his brand’s recognition and also drive low funnel activities like VDP views. In addition, Big Jim’s advertising must be measurable and trackable to understand what is and isn’t working. Big Jim should be able to look over analytics and know that the investment in dynamic inventory display ads contributed significantly to his brand recognition, VDP traffic, buyer engagement and inevitably, vehicle sales.  

It seems a lot to ask from your advertisements, but we now know that not all display ads are created equal.

Conclusion:

No one is saying ALL display advertising sucks. Companies today are pioneering modern display technologies that are having positive and measurable effects for dealerships.

Consider Big Jim’s Ford; he invested in inventory display ads that don’t suck. He gets more VDP traffic because he did his homework, he knew what he needed, and he had clear goals for his ads while looking for a solution. Big Jim’s display ads don’t suck because they’ve helped increase website traffic, drive low funnel activity and produce measurable results.

Big Jim won’t run with display ads that suck. Big Jim runs with dynamic inventory display ads that convert.

Be more like Big Jim.

*Big Jim - is a fictional character based on the many happy customers that are making the most out of Display Advertising that doesn’t suck.

The world of electric and self-driving cars has more similarities to the changing digital marketing landscape than you might expect. To put it plainly, we’re all looking to digital advertising (electric) and one of the biggest buzzwords today is Programmatic (self-driving) advertising. These days you (the marketer) need to be  hyper-focused on all of the changes in your industry - and even beyond your industry. Everyday you need to decide; will you put things off in favour of playing catch up with your competition or will your dealership be a leader.

As we discussed in a previous article, competition is at an all-time high and doing the same thing as your competition won't get you better results, it'll get you the same results - or worse. What you need to do is look at different tools and techniques.

Facebook Ads and Social Media Marketing

Yes, Facebook - the funny little app that seemingly everyone on earth is on. You may even be that person who fits in the average of more than 10 visits per day, and it may be the first thing you look at when you wake up and last thing before you go to sleep. I’m not that person – but I sleep beside one of them every night. (Every night that I’m not sleeping in some business travel hotel room.)  If you haven't looked into marketing your dealership using that channel, you should. The frequency and focus of its users demands it. I'm sure you've noticed the internet advertisements and sponsored articles that come into view for things you are interested in. If you're wondering how you can get that to work for your dealership here are a few thoughts:

PROS: Unlike traditional advertising methods, these are targeted by using user volunteered information and many other metrics. You can refine the targeting in many ways. With Facebook's Ad Manager you can select demographic profiles and interests like:

Males; Age: 25-45; Education: College or University; Employed; Interests: Sports, Outdoors, Active Lifestyle; Relationship: Married with children.

You can easily infer that this person may need an SUV, CUV or minivan - or at least a hatchback.

You can also do things like asking for Facebook to find “Like Users” – and that’s not the typical Facebook “Like”. This type of likeness refers to other users who have a likeness to your current fans/audience. You can also choose to have your ads shown to people with the affirmation of one of their friends. For example this past week at NADA one of my friends asked me about an affordable custom tailoring company who was using my past interest in their company to promote themselves to my friends. (I’m glad he asked – because I’ve actually had nothing but bad experiences with this company over the last year.)

CONS: No matter how focused you can be on a demographic, you are still targeting based on assumptions. What if an in-market buyer that falls within this profile is NOT searching for an SUV or Crossover? What if dad is searching for a sporty sedan to drive to work?  Your campaign will be ineffective and you risk the potential buyer blocking any future ads from your store.

This method, like newspapers or billboards, relies on showing your ads to a wide range of people in hopes of potentially having just the right buyer see one post. Fortunately, cost-per-click payment formats will help to protect you from this waste.

Inventory Display Advertising

Not traditional static display but truly dynamic display ads that features multiple inventory units. Like this example advertisement where each inventory click goes directly to it’s specific vehicle detail page.

PROS: These dynamically generated ads of immediately available inventory are much more successful at converting traffic than their traditional counterparts (Based on countless tests against Price and Offer style ads). If I am a motivated buyer, and I see what I want and that it’s available at my local store, there is a very good chance I will click and engage.

A motivated buyer is shown the most relevant vehicles that you have in inventory, the price (or other descriptors like the mileage and payments, what it looks like and can easily click to find more information and convert. For the online car buyer it’s like having the ten most suitable cars brought to your home for a thorough inspection.  

As with regular display ads, these inventory display ads are distributed in large online ad networks so you can reach people where they are spending the most online time. The reach is significantly wider than search and Social Media combined, each of which according to a recent study respectively occupy only 10% and 15% or a consumer’s online attention. Using the right combination of a vast array of websites you can reach well over 90% of your target audience.

CONS: Not everything is perfect, though, even dynamic display advertisements. Unless automated, creating these ads can be difficult and time-consuming. Constantly updating your inventory in many dynamic environments requires the personnel to stay on top of it.

Additionally, you may find it difficult to find a provider that can extend this type of strategy to go beyond retargeting and to attract buyers that haven't been to your website before. There are also some limitations of certain providers ability to offer these solutions without being plugged into their specific website. While this isn’t a problem if you’re with the right website provider – you may need to look harder if you’ve opted for a provider without these capabilities.

You know your market better than anyone and the future is coming faster every year. Please, don't be left playing catch-up in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Take the time to sit and brainstorm the next evolution in your dealership's marketing direction.