Video is arguably the hottest medium on the Internet. Based on the most recent statistics, the average adult spends nearly one hour watching videos online every day. These users spend a great deal of time watching video content. These statistics make video the ideal tool for advertising on Facebook, and its sister platform Instagram, and quickly developing platforms like TikTok.

What makes Facebook advertising so effective? It's scalability inherent to finding the target audience you're looking for precisely. Essentially, it's taking "broadcast" level tonnage and micro scoping it into meaningful "narrowcasts."

Facebook lets you build targeted audiences based on many factors, including Online Behavior, Demographics, Interests, and Location. Whoever your target audience is, you'll find them on Facebook. However, more important is the behavior of the audience you seek and how Facebook's platform is aligned. Whether it's reach, landing page activity, engagement, video views, or even leads, you won't find a platform more oriented to consumers than Facebook.

Large Advertisers Pulling Out

As of this writing, more than 400 high profile advertisers have announced that they are suspending their Facebook ad campaigns. No matter where you stand on the politics, there is no doubt that this is an opportunity for other advertisers to fill the vacuum these boycotts have created.

Ordinarily, Facebook advertisers bid to place their ads in the best spots. Right now, the reduced competition for advertising makes the cost for Facebook advertising, especially attractive.

While no advertising platform can deliver guaranteed results, Facebook advertising has a proven history of success. Perhaps now is the time to strategically roll out video ads on Facebook in conjunction with your other advertising efforts.

The world of marketing can get pretty complicated. Managing your Search Engine Optimization strategy, optimizing your Conversion Rates for first click or last click, and then following through to tracking the metrics on your marketing dashboard can get overwhelming. Outcomes matter, and even interim outcomes matter.

However, there are times when it's helpful to get back to the basics. For marketing, it doesn't get much more fundamental than the "Four P's." These basic concepts are at the core of all marketing that we do. If you find that you're spending too much time sifting through the mountains of big data and trying to remember what's the purpose of all the marketing and advertising that you're doing.

Then remember that it all – more or less—comes down to the Four P's! If your messaging is missing the mark, it may not be the analytics that set you free; it may just be the marketing.

The Four P's of marketing evolved in the late 1950s. Digital or otherwise, these four keys remain relevant:

1. Product - Product is the good or service you offer to customers. Your product should fulfill existing consumer demand or create a new market. 

2. Price - Price is the amount consumers pay for a product. Both a product's real and perceived value influence pricing, but companies must also consider the costs of production, distribution, and competing products' prices.

3. Place - Products must be available to consumers. Place is concerned with where products sell or where they are delivered. Executives hope to place products in front of the consumers most likely to buy them—and that now may be at a retail location or to the home of the consumer.

4. Promotion - Promotion involves the event. Promotion lets customers know what products are available, and why the present period delivers a promotional opportunity to purchase.

No matter the complexities of your marketing management, the Four P's will continue to deliver as the foundation of your efforts.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves creating relevant, keyword-focused content that helps improve your website’s visibility in organic search results for – purposefully – the things you sell. Keyword stuffing for the cities you service is somewhat old school.

The SEO process includes new landing pages, updating meta titles and descriptions, modifying content, creating videos, and keyword analysis.

But writing for the bots and technology only serves a portion of the purpose. You must write for the people.

Search engines follow specific guidelines when ranking websites, and SEO for car dealers helps improve the relevance and quality of their website.

Automobile dealership SEO best practices focus on the target keyword’s structure for generating the necessary algorithm signals for improving search rankings.

However, if it’s not entertaining or trustworthy, it won’t engage with consumers.

Algorithms used by search engines are mathematical equations that sort and rank vehicle dealerships. The algorithms utilize numerous factors, which are categorized into off-page and on-page automotive SEO.

Yet, this sophistication may not move buyers down the funnel and turn shoppers into buyers of the things you sell.

Today, the best SEO practices a blend of technology AND humanity.

This Fourth of July marks a turning point for the car industry.

Basic paid search and social campaigns won’t be enough to convince buyers to go to your dealership instead of the closest competitor. Dealers have embraced digital advertising tactics, raising the bar across the entire industry.

To succeed in the post-COVID normal, there are four digital advertising tactics you need to start using. In this webinar, Jason MacDonald (VP Optimization and R&D, Acquisio) and Jim Flint (CEO, Local Search Group) explain why they’re great opportunities and how to get started.

Primary Learning Objectives

1. Optimize for in-store visits in a post-COVID world.

2. Use AI-powered bid optimization to capture emerging opportunities in a shifting market.

3. Learn more about video advertising for dealerships.

4. Discover new developments in dynamic campaign advertising.

The way we purchase and service vehicles may never be the same due to COVID-19. However, in the stores I visit, it seems there’s more of an evolution than a revolution going on. Enjoy the evolution. 

The staff is down. Inventory is tight. Shoppers are buyers. Contactless sales deliveries ARE up. But only marginally.

Be thankful we aren’t in a revolution and know that it’s a great time to work through the processes needed to improve and execute. Evolutions turn out to be much better than revolutions. We can evolve this change into a more productive, mutually beneficial space for employees and customers.

As dealerships go online, become paper-free, and deliver contactless deliveries, good employees will solve for unknowns. 

However, the best retailers will develop consistencies for their customers so that all of our employees will adhere to a standard that takes associates out of the store and closer to the homes of the customers we serve. 

Are you evolving? It’s more or less time to evolve. Morning walkarounds of used car inventories and role plays for overcoming customer objections should NOW, post-COVID-19, also include scenarios for “contactless” deliveries. 

Consumers will continue to have higher expectations, and your competition will continue to evolve. So too will space and so too will you. 

1. Red Zone Foreign Countries--aka Negative them Out

2. Eliminate Smart Bidding

3. Move Settings for Display off of Recommended

4. Turn off App Ads

5. Use the same Google My Business login that you use for your My Client Center

6. Establish In-Store Conversion Tracking for Service Purposes

7. Ramp or reduce spending to $100 per car

8. Upload Your Target Audiences--then choose to exclude OR include them from the Advertising. Either way make the call.

9. Amplify by 900% on Geography for Dealer Name Campaigns

10. Extensions, Extensions, Extensions--All for One, One For All

All the best for the industry in its rapid recovery.

You could argue that digital retailing places your customers in the driver's seat. Maybe. Maybe not. No matter the driver, though, neither party wants to get caught in a staring contest. It truly is a bad look. Keeping your eyes on the road up ahead is far more productive for all involved.

At the most basic level, digital retailing, virtual retailing, or distance retailing encourages car buyers to easily engage with and maneuver your dealership's website throughout the purchase journey. For retailers, this translates into assisting your customers in the deal-making process at every step of the way by filling out the paperwork and signing them up for in-person or for virtual test drives, for example.

Digital retailing also means transacting online and presenting the vehicle in a contactless, paperless delivery. Possible? Not Probable. Ready? Or not. This isn’t a who’s going to blink first staring contest. Considering the advantages for customers, many are looking for the option of handling most of the car purchase process online.

 
So, how does implementing a digital retailing strategy benefit your car dealership and improve customer experience? Showing car buyers add-on options, discount, and Finance and Insurance (F&I) products early on provides them with important information that they’ll acquire elsewhere if given the opportunity in this information age. The choice to share your information with customers gives you the ability to engage the customer and continue the conversation. No engagement, the customer blinks, looks away, and then walks away--electronically--to the stores (yes, plural) that did reinvent themselves coming out of a global pandemic.

The modern car buyer will also have their vehicle serviced at a dealership with online scheduling and cost estimation options. Your customer does not always want to call in or walk in to schedule a service. A seamless process that starts online makes it more likely to execute a smoother transaction. In the end, your salesperson and service advisors serve as specialists guiding customers through the final purchasing stages. 

To our friends, colleagues, and professional community:

It’s not a great time to celebrate our anniversary. Not with so much going on. So many people impacted by forces well beyond their control. The emotional choice and rational choices are confusing, and we all seem to know that things will be different.

As a company, Local Search Group established our values early on via our 7 C’s. It’s what we stand for collectively, and more recently, our core value of “change” has never been more important.

As we acknowledge a decade’s worth of digital marketing and the corresponding journey, Local Search Group, one of the fastest-growing ad agencies in the nation, grew quickly, and we changed.

Our journey continues to change. This year alone, we’ve experienced more change than arguably the previous nine years combined.

The journey starts and continues with people and the stories they tell via the experiences we share. Change continues to move us forward from employees as the foundation to our incredible clients to the customers that we connect with.

With a focus on the service aspect of our business and the personal relationships we’ve built from the beginning, we’ve continued to thrive.

While we will continue to change and grow, we will embrace our service DNA via the 7 C’s of our culture.

As much as some things change, other things stay the same. In the beginning, we wanted to be the “Now Part of a NOW business.” This motivation sustains.

Thank you to all the people that have contributed to the Local Search Group story through the years, it’s incredible what we have accomplished in these fast-changing times.

Display advertising helps you to keep your dealership's name in front of customers. Since people are spending 80 percent of their auto shopping time online, why not engage them as they research, browse, and compare different vehicles?

Set the expectations correctly, though. Done right, display ads reconnect and engage with web visitors that have specific models in mind. The results will not include high click-through rates and more conversions. Ads create awareness for the right customers at the right times.

Whenever a potential buyer looks at a specific vehicle on your website, they are cookied and then served with relevant display advertisements as they navigate away from your site. Google recently announced they would begin to phase cookies out in just over two years on their popular Chrome browser, but until then, there's plenty of opportunity.

Engaging customers as they browse the web, knowing the intent, helping the customer receive the right targeted display ads at the right times – thereby connecting with your in-market audience directly and right on time.

Google doesn't hold all the keys to this kingdom; display ads are ideal for reconnecting with web visitors from Facebook that are interested in specific models, too. Delivering an ad on the unit that the customer just viewed from your used car inventory along with 30 other units from your stock sets the right tone in a carousel ad on Facebook. Moving customers from Facebook to your website is the goal – not the other way around.

Another key – while your competition reduces their budget to only Google Ads, you get a direct match to potential car buyers via the integrated facets of Google's platform. Display and YouTube have all the same powerful shopping information included. This is especially so for those agencies with that competitive intel.

As an industry, we overspend on search and track specifically to conversions. Think about the value of display advertising from an impressions basis and we know where they've been via the cookie concept. Then serve ads of your most appealing in-stock inventory to an already engaged buyer. It's part of the equation as we move forward in 2020.

Two months ago, the world as we know it changed. COVID-19 became up close and personal in the first week of March. Virtual Retailing, Digital Retailing, Distance Retailing -- call it what you will -- arrived. 

Social norms evolve. Consumers adjust. My three big takeaways as we glance back before moving forward, come mainly from watching things from a New York state of mind.

1. 1. Online time and overall spending increase as consumers stockpile on items that they can utilize without leaving their homes. Peloton (PTON) had an incredible quarter. Sales on a $2k+ bike are through the roof and on backorder. With headquarters and studios in NYC, the company flawlessly moved classes to the instructors' homes and kept operations up as everything moved inside and online.
2. 2. Keeping it clean takes on a whole new meaning. Simple practices like washing hands have become more enthusiastically embraced while hugs have gone to the wayside in the modern era of social distancing. More extensive sanitizing methods have become the key to encouraging customers to reconnect, albeit in different ways. For example, new elements include self-checkout counters and contactless delivery for parts, sales, and service.
3.  
4. 3. Bring it to me. Safety brings the change; however, convenience for the shopper and competitive advantage for dealer operators keeps the change. Look no further than Brian Benstock and Paragon Honda to see how they pick up and deliver service vehicles in Queens, NY.

Some may argue that the reality, instead of leaving the safety of their homes, is that you now only need to visit a dealership for the test drive and the signing of the paperwork. Aggressive retailers and new societal expectations will change even that.