Are your YouTube leads turning into sales? I break down how to further engage with consumers through YouTube.
#localsearchgroup #youtubeleads #youtube #garyveechallenge #automotiveretailing #dealerships 

Will you keep your promises in 2020? Listen to the video as I discuss how to change the stories you tell for the coming year.

As we close out the calendar and any given month, the steps to a sale continue to evolve. Here are 3 things that will be key to taking your dealership to the next level next month:

1. 1. The Age of Operational Advertising is here. What’s your modern brand promise? What are you willing to commit to doing for the customer so much so that you are eager to advertise it and execute it. No-Haggle? 3-Day Return Policy? Loaner Vehicles? Lifetime Warranties? Or nothing.

It’s up to you to make the promise and keep the promise.

1. 2. Video, Video, Video. From the power of YouTube to the newfound ubiquity of OTT. Where video stops is anybody’s best guess; however, it is where the people are. Get your platforms and executions down. Make your brand promise and set your sights on a phone-centric world where cord-cutters and cord-nevers now live.

2. 3. Digital Retailing. Two of the most confounding words in the automotive industry will continue to drive the evolution of change. To save great angst, avoid the revolution and think of your Digital Retailing as a key to getting more or your consumers to do more of their shopping where they want to.

Then--on the digital retailing front--begin to deal with the rarer instances where customers want a delivery. Looking back, mobile traffic was only 1-5% of the traffic to a dealer website. Now it’s close to 70%. The evolution took years. And Digital Retailing will, too.

It’s just that 2020 is an excellent year for those with the vision to get things started.

Two things to consider in today’s uncertain times.

Agencies should consider at least two key supply-side metrics for their clients that will help them elevate the conversation from leads:

1. 1.     Impression Share – The amount of demand inside consumer intent and your ability to cover it within the established geography and budget.
2. 2.     Market Share – Is your client getting a bigger or smaller piece of the available pie?

The first reflects the demand side, and the latter integrates the supply-side. In the end, though, it all has to stack up against operational execution. Don’t go into 2020 without considering each in your marketing conversations.

Create interest. Close the deal. With mountains of marketing, advertising, digital, operational, and sales work in between.

In a race to bring leads to dealerships, Facebook and Google – via YouTube, too—are next into the leads space.

On the surface, it’s more or less the right thing to do. Until you go below the surface--where it’s a fast track to competing and swimming with Autotrader, CarGurus, and Cars.com.

Despite incredible 1st Party information, do Facebook and Google want to be 3rd Party Lead providers?

It’s a different playing field and having tested leads in Facebook, two keys exist for dealerships looking to dive into the space.

1. (1) Connect. Make sure you’re connecting the leads through to the CRM. Solutions that don’t scale don't last.
2. (2) Commit. Be ready to have staying power. Jumping in with less than a 90-day commitment isn’t worth the initial time invested. 

Let's see where this round of lead providers takes us.

This could—more or less so – be the right time. Or now. Or turn it on now. Or off now. 

Except it doesn’t work because you’re on again and off again.

Strobe light marketing mistakes activity for achievement and asks the questions of whether or not we can save advertising monies by turning things off? 

Strobe light marketing misses the mark of metric-minded advertising that keeps your ratios intact so as to deliver a healthy return on your investment. In fact, the tactic, like a night at the club with all the fancy strobe lights, ultimately costs you more.

As we move into 2020, it’s worth noting that timing the stock market, finding the full slot machines, or even working the Google machine all come back with the same poor possibility of delivering better outcomes. Consistency and discipline win in today's current economy. Meanwhile, strobe light marketing hedges on market timing.

If you’re bored with the same song or same dance and are looking for a different verse, consider new ad copy or an entirely new ad campaign. With most great campaigns and companies, the consistency adds relevance to your ads and reminds your customers who you are, where you are, what you stand for, and what you sell.

If you hadn’t heard, Google removed the Average Page Position from reporting.

As Google’s intent-based advertising platform reaches issues with “scale,” the departure does make sense. When a demand model meets its logical limit, it has to maneuver to different supply-side metrics.

What do I mean?

The supply of searches is ample. As Google continues to bring relevance the last thing Google wants advertisers to sample is the more economical #2 spot. Who--in a competitive industry--has ever wanted to be #2 and actually won the game? I’m sure there’s an example somewhere.

Please comment below if you can think of one.

However, at a logical limit—aka a rational business model limit--advertisers have been recommending that clients look to lock-in that #2 spot as a value proposition to keep the cost per click down.

Presto! Chango! Google’s removed the value proposition from the equation, and a more salient and trackable goal is to be #1! It has its merits.

But for the value-conscious among you, the best replacement metric is “Absolute Top of Page Position”.

With all the available site extensions, it’s one of the more important metrics to know in a “looking forward” grab as much real estate as I smartly can kind of way. By buying the top spot, you gain more screen space, more relevance, and ultimately more meaningful clicks in moments that matter.

While Average Page Position won’t be terribly missed, it does open up the idea that other metrics should be removed. I vote that Google considers removing Bounce Rate since it’s poorly defined and is routinely manipulated by Internet Service Provider.

Clients, marketers, and advertisers -- which metric would you like to see Google remove next?

If half of Facebook is the “Face” of the people in society then what’s the “Book” part all about? 15 years after inception we are starting to find out. The Feds and Attorney Generals are starting to throw the “Book” at Facebook. Facebook knows quite a bit about the people as the advent of privacy laws come into play.

The “Book” is starting to turn into whether or not YOU are using Facebook to “book” deals? You should be. 

It’s time to take a page from Facebook’s Automotive Retail Playbook. 

By the way, lots of playbooks these days coming from the platform providers--ie, Google Playbook, Facebook Playbook, etc., but what does it mean to Automotive Retail?

Here’s my reasonably quick take:

Upper funnel brand awareness of your operational advantages should be 20% of your Facebook spend. 

This includes Why Buy Here Ads, Dare to Compare ads, and Operational Advertising that keeps your name out in front of consumers. The utilization of lookalike audiences and the inclusion of friends of likers and videos are huge. Brand Awareness. Reach. And Video Views in Volume are your key considerations for this chunk of change.

Lower funnel Acquisition should be 60% of your Facebook spend. 

Utilize Dynamic Facebook ads and pixels to get people to go to or come back to your website. Drop the leads into your CRM. The real, retail players know that the game is to get consumers from Facebook to their Dealership Pages and the Facebook Pixel gets that done. We’re looking for leads and in-store visits for sales and service, respectively. 

Post Engagements and Consideration should be 10% of your spend. 

If you’re not generating interest in the products you sell then you’re missing the point. Online specials on your website bring buyers in the land of Facebook. Website Conversions--ie, VDP page views greater than 4x, time on site greater than 5 mins, form fills and phone calls will help carry your advertising budget to more productive outcomes. 

How about connecting the dots from a Facebook Ad that compares your product to the SEO landing page that brings it all together via a YouTube video and follow-up display advertising? Integration is key.

And it’s also clear about what doesn’t matter. 

Vanity metrics like “likes” have no correlation to vehicle sales or brand health anymore. More specifically, they advise to “Forget the KPI’s that Don’t Matter”. Given Facebook’s clear direction on Organic Metrics, I’d advise that organic work on Facebook is unimportant, if not inconsequential. Some Social Media Influencers, if not Managers, would be wise to learn the Media Buying side of Facebook’s platform.

10% of Your Buy Should Move to Facebook Search Advertising

Meanwhile, Facebook advised they are rolling out Facebook Search Advertising. Get ready everyone! More to follow on this quickly developing space.

Check out the chart below and/or re-read this blog to help serve as your guide to growing your business.

The internet, if not the information age, changed the sales funnel. Forever. Previously marketing goals such as Awareness or Consideration could be delivered via tactics such as Broadcast TV or Direct Mail. With the internet, you jump from top to middle to lower funnel at your whim.

The mobile phone upped the ante. 

Well, that and Attention Deficit Disorder. You have about 1.5 seconds to gain someone’s attention online.  Think Instagram, and how do you create a thumb-stopping experience? That’s what interruption looks like today.

So you must show the product. Hello Consideration. And fast. In today’s digitally ubiquitous times, the brand is built AFTER the purchase because of the speed of the interaction.

Think that sentiment doesn’t apply to automotive? Despite what OEM’s and their Advertisers may want to believe, it applies because that’s the way consumers shop.

Heads up on Carvana. 

They are a marketing experiment turning automotive operations inside out. To date, they have NOT made money, AND they actually charge customers more than dealerships. The business model isn’t robust in that regard; however, the top-line growth is noteworthy because the consumer sentiment is strong. 

Speed and Customer Comfort continue to reshape the sales funnel. 

How are you and your stores adapting?

On a recent trip to NYC, I noticed Facebook had a Times Square advertisement—with an estimated annual cost of $1.5 million--that really wasn’t all that much about Facebook.

For a company with a market cap of well over $500 billion, it’s not a huge number, but not insignificant either.  

While intriguing financially, the real piece to consider is the strategy. It’s worth noting what a digital company is conveying--on a static billboard of all things--just off the edge of Times Square. 

In an era that will be remembered for how Facebook handles Trust and Privacy issues for their consumers and content creators--one in the same mind you--the answer can be found in Facebook Groups.

The next big thing--no doubt--is Groups. In the concrete jungle of NYC, Facebook advertises for people to join 35k other members in a group called “Big Tree Seekers”.

This move and the corresponding commercials for NYC minded “Dads and Daughters” helps out with the marketing side of privacy issues as people opt-in to different sections of Facebook with other, like-minded people. It helps us “trust” Facebook again in the safety of our carefully selected Groups.

It doesn’t solve for advertisers . . . yet. However, like most things Facebook it will monetize soon enough. So, marketers, agencies and dealers alike get ready, get set, and go ahead and create your Groups. Get people to join them. Then get ready to pay-to-play on the advertising front somewhere down the line.

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1. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022315/high-cost-advertising-times-square.asp