Facebook has been in the hot seat for months now. The trouble all started during the 2016 election cycle, when the once-unstoppable social network was beset with criticisms regarding its role in the spread of “fake news.” Since then, Facebook has announced a series of actions to change its newsfeed algorithms and beef up quality control—all of which carries big implications for Facebook advertisers.

Does your used car dealership spend any ad bucks on Facebook? If so, then we invite you to read up on three of the most significant changes to the Facebook Ads landscape.

To Run Ads on Facebook, You Have to Be Connected to a Page

It used to be that just about anyone could run ads on Facebook, so long as they were willing to pony up the money. Today, that’s no longer the case. If you want to run Facebook ads now, your account needs to be connected to an actual Facebook page.

That’s not much of a hurdle—setting up a page is easy, and your dealership should have one anyway—but it’s something to be aware of, moving forward.

Quality Control is More Rigorous Than Ever

Facebook is also working harder to police the content that advertisers promote—cracking down on “like bait,” in particular.

You’ve probably seen these posts before—a company running an ad, saying “LIKE our page if you love chocolate,” even though their business has nothing at all to do with chocolate.

This is essentially spam, and it’s no longer allowable at Facebook. Henceforth, all ad content needs to be directly relevant to your dealership and its core product and service offerings.

Organic Reach Just Isn’t Enough

Finally, Facebook has once again downgraded the role of organic posts from businesses and brands—meaning that, if your dealership has coasted on likes, comments, and shares, you may find your newsfeed penetration dwindling.

In order to better police the content that consumers see, Facebook really wants businesses and brands to make a go of Facebook Ads—paying to play and adhering to all of the increasingly-stringent rules.

The bottom line for your dealership: The days of doing well on Facebook, without paying for ad placement, are probably over.

Where Does This Leave Your Dealership?

For used car dealerships, there remain huge opportunities to generate highly targeted traffic through Facebook. It requires you to develop compelling ad content, and to pay for placement within the Facebook Ads platform—but really, that’s the way it’s been for a long time now.

If you’re ready to get to work on an effective Facebook Ads strategy, we can help you. Get My Auto provides marketing services exclusively for auto dealerships. Reach out to us today to schedule a consultation!

As the owner or manager of a used car dealership, you obviously want buyers to come down to your showroom or lot. Before they visit you in person, though, most consumers are going to spend some time doing online research. They’re going to look up the information they need to determine whether your dealership is really the best one for them. Of course, this includes a stop at your dealership website.

That website needs to make a powerful and positive first impression. If it doesn’t, some of those consumers may take their business to a competitor. The question is, what should your used car dealership’s website look like? There are a few core components you’ll need to make sure you have in place.

What Every Used Car Website Should Have

Here are a few of those critical elements.

Contact information. We recommend having your dealership’s phone number and physical address on every page of the website. This is partly for SEO reasons, but also because it makes it so much easier for potential buyers to call you, or to plug your dealership into Google Maps as they come to see you in person.

Links to review sites. Hopefully, your dealership has received some positive feedback from online review sites like Google or Yelp. It’s a good move to have review links on your site, as it shows transparency and provides potential customers with social proof. This simply makes your dealership seem more trustworthy.

Links to relevant social media profiles. Your used car dealership doesn’t necessarily need a presence on every single social media platform, but we do highly recommend Facebook. Also, though it’s not a social media site per se, Craigslist is a good channel for used car dealerships to use. Include links to these online assets on your dealership website.

Educational resources. Your website should help buyers feel more confident doing business with you. One way to make that happen is to provide them with articles and FAQs that guide them through the car buying process. We really recommend a blog, where you can educate buyers about everything from financing to auto maintenance.

Rich content. Photos of some of your vehicles can obviously be enticing, but video is even better. A simple clip of a sales representative showcasing some cars, or welcoming buyers to the dealership, can really humanize your dealership, making it feel more personal.

Calls to action. Every page of your site should have a simple and clear direction for the readers—either to call you or to come down and visit you to see some cars!

Get a Hand with Your Marketing

For used car dealerships in Orange County, savvy online marketing is crucial—and that goes beyond having a decent website in place. To learn more, or to get hands-on assistance, we invite you to contact Get My Auto today. We are seasoned marketing pros who work exclusively with used car dealerships, and we’d love to help take your marketing to the next level!

The automotive sales sector is increasingly competitive—and not just on a national level. Even in your neck of the woods, it’s more likely than not that countless dealerships are vying for market share, and that competition is becoming more cutthroat all the time.

In many ways, the growing importance of SEO has only compounded this competition. After all, the best way for dealerships to distinguish themselves—and to win the business of consumers—is to become highly ranked in local Google search queries, and Google’s “map pack,” in particular. But the map pack now has room for just three local dealerships—meaning that many are shut out altogether.

Making it into the map pack, or attaining stellar online visibility more generally, has never been harder, and it’s never been more important. That’s why many dealerships are reaching out to SEO companies, and in particular to those with automotive experience. The question is, which local SEO company is the best for automotive marketing?

Choosing the Best Local Search Company

There is much we could say to advise you on picking the best local SEO agency. Remember, above all else, that you’re looking for a good fit for your dealership, and that means interviewing some different companies and feeling out which one seems most capable of helping you reach your goals—all while respecting your budget.

Some additional tips we might offer include:

Ask about particular expertise in the automotive sector, which doesn’t necessarily behave the way other industries do. You don’t want a general SEO company, in other words. You want one that knows how to market car dealerships.
Ask about integrative marketing, and make sure the SEO company talks with you about many different aspects of its strategy—from on-site optimization to social media to PPC. A good SEO company will take a holistic, comprehensive approach.
Ask about pricing, too, and look for straightforward, upfront answers. Be skeptical of companies that refuse to be transparent about pricing.
Go with your gut! Remember that you’ll be working closely with your SEO company, and it is important that you like them and trust them. If you just have a bad feeling about it, move on to the next company on your list.
Finally, be sure to pay attention to the questions your SEO firm asks you. They should have an interest in your objectives and your long-term plans.

Picking the Best SEO Company for Your Dealership

We’ll close simply by noting that Get My Auto has years of experience in integrative marketing, and in local SEO in particular—and we work only with auto dealerships. We know this industry inside and out, and are ready to leverage our expertise to help you fulfill your goals.

Ready to learn more about local SEO effectiveness? We encourage you to contact Get My Auto today and arrange a consultation.

Imagine this scenario: A buyer comes to your used car dealership and asks to see a car. You show them one, and they politely decline. “No thanks,” they might say. “This isn’t the car for me.”

What would you do, as this hypothetical buyer turns to leave? Would you simply let them go? Or would you try to follow up with them, to pursue them, to build their trust, ultimately to persuade them?

We’re guessing your answer falls into the latter category. Well, if that’s how you do things in “real life,” why don’t you do it that way on the Web?

What is Remarketing?

That’s what Facebook remarketing is all about. With remarketing, you can create ads that follow potential buyers and leads around the Web. For example, a buyer might visit your dealership website, look at some of the cars you have listed, then leave. Remarketing allows you to target that buyer with a series of ads, reminding them of your dealership and encouraging them to come back and complete their purchase.

This can be really powerful—a great way to build brand visibility among interested buyers, and to guide them through the sales funnel. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Consider that many of the world’s biggest retailers, including Amazon.com, run aggressive remarketing campaigns of their own.

Remarketing on Facebook

If you’ve ever used the Google AdWords platform for remarketing, you know basically how it works. But while Google AdWords allows your ads to be displayed throughout the Google network, Facebook’s remarketing tools allow you to show your ads across Facebook itself.

But how do you use this powerful tool? To start with, you’ll need to know how to create Custom Audiences. This is something we’ve addressed in a previous post; basically, you can create Custom Audiences based on an existing contact list, devise Custom Audiences made to mirror your current ad demographics, or formulate a Custom Audience based on people who’ve visited your website in the recent past. This last option is the one you want for remarketing.

You will also need to learn about Facebook Pixel. You can generate this little bit of code on Facebook itself, then easily add it to your dealership website. This is necessary for enabling Facebook to “track” buyers on your behalf.

Different Ways to Do Remarketing

Something else to note is that there are many different options for remarketing—for example, selecting people who have visited your site more or less recently, targeting people who have looked at certain pages or products, etc.

We recommend learning more about remarketing before you dive in—and one way to do that is to work with our team. Get My Auto provides customized marketing programs for auto dealerships across the country—and we’d love to work with your dealership to enact a remarketing campaign. Connect with Get My Auto today to begin that conversation.

While Craigslist is no longer a flashy or widely-hyped online destination, the simple truth is that it’s still one of the most popular websites in existence; it’s still a prime channel for online retail; and it’s still a must-use resource for your used car dealership.

To get the most out of Craigslist, you have to know how to structure a compelling and persuasive ad. There are a few components that are absolutely critical here. Get My Auto reviews them, in the paragraphs below.

Your Craigslist Ads: A Checklist for Dealers

The technical specs of the auto.

Obviously, you’ll want to make sure that you list pertinent details about whatever vehicle you’re trying to sell—make, model, mileage, and price. Also, be sure to highlight some of the key selling points. You don’t have to mention every last detail about the car, and in fact we don’t recommend it—but do play up the major features and the biggest perks.

Information about your used car dealership.

Remember that you’re not just selling the car; you’re also selling your dealership. The person viewing your ad may not be interested in that particular model, so be sure you give them a reason to call you, head to your website, or come down to the showroom to see what else you have to offer. Highlight the biggest selling points of your dealership, and play up the trust factor—awards, customer satisfaction scores, positive online reviews, etc.

Make sure you include photos!

Take a few good photos to show off your inventory—including some pictures from different angles, the interiors, under the hood, etc. We recommend taking pictures somewhere scenic and green—not just inside a stuffed garage or in your dealership showroom. Images like those can quickly grow tedious.

Always offer a call to action.

Don’t make the assumption that your readers will know what to do. Tell them, straight-up. Your call to action can be as simple as: Call us today to learn more! But always provide your readers with the next action step.

Don’t forget your contact information.

Of course, if you’re going to ask people to call you or to visit your website, you’ll want to make sure you provide a phone number (hooked up to your call tracking software) and website address. It sounds obvious, yet you’d be surprised how often this information is neglected!

Discover the Simplest Approach to Effective Craigslist Ads

If you still wonder how you can ensure that your ads are clean, clear, and effective, look no further than to our Craigslist Wizard app—a program designed by Get My Auto to lead used car dealers down the right path, and to make it simple and breezy for them to develop their Craigslist ad copy.

Learn more about Craigslist Wizard by reaching out to the marketing team at Get My Auto.

Before you can sell anyone a used car, you first have to earn their trust. Buyers need to feel comfortable at your dealership, and confidence engaging with your sales representatives. Given the common characterization of used car salesmen as shady and dishonest, this can be a bit of an uphill battle. With that said, there are a few things used car sales reps can do to earn the assurance and trust of buyers.

Here are eight recommendations from the used car sales experts at Get My Auto.

How Used Car Sales Reps Can Earn Confidence and Trust

1. Get the name of each customer on the front end—and make sure you remember it!Before you start into a sales pitch, make sure you know who you’re talking to—and keep reinforcing that personal connection throughout your interaction.
2. Do a lot of listening. Some sales reps chat a mile a minute, but that’s usually not a good way to earn trust. In fact, it’s really just a good way to reinforce that stereotype that used car sales reps are, well, “salesy.” Make sure you spend plenty of time listening to what your customer wants, and tailor your pitch accordingly.
3. Show some patience. You want to make your sale as quickly as possible, yet you don’t want to come across like you’re rushing your buyer through a big decision. Always give them breathing room.
4. Make sure you know your products. This one might seem like it goes without saying, yet you’d be amazed at how many used car sales reps can’t answer basic questions about the vehicles they’re selling. Be sure that you’re ready to address any specific inquiries or concerns your buyers bring up.
5. Don’t lie. Or, to be more precise, don’t simply tell people what you think they want to hear. If you need 20 minutes to talk to someone in your finance department, tell your buyer it’s going to be about a 20-minute wait. Don’t tell them it’s going to be 10, then keep them waiting!
6. Maintain a clean work area. Sooner or later, you’re likely to end up with the buyer sitting across from you at your desk. The last thing you want is to have a flurry of paperwork or a pile of fast food wrappers you need to hastily clear away. Be tidy and professional!
7. Don’t say negative things about competing dealerships. Stay above the fray and focus on the benefits you can offer. That’s what customers care about, and it’s how you’re ultimately going to win them over—with value, not pettiness.
8. Follow up. You may not close the sale on that first visit, but don’t give up. Instead, follow up! Stick with it until you get a definitive answer.

As a used car sales professional, it’s vital that you do anything and everything to make your dealership feel trustworthy—and that starts with conveying a strong sense of professionalism. Use these tips to guide you—and for more, reach out to the pros at Get My Auto!

We’ve been blogging about some of the basic principles of Facebook Ads for auto dealerships. So far, we’ve touched on profile creation, targeting, buyer personas, Custom Audiences, and much more.

Today, we’re going to turn again to a rather technical topic—bidding and budgeting. If you want your Facebook Ads endeavors to be successful, it’s vital to understand how the platform’s bidding system works.

Facebook Ads: Introduction to Bidding

The first thing to know about Facebook Ads is that, like so many other online ad platforms, it employs an auction system. You don’t actually pay outright to run a particular ad, but rather you place a bid on available ad space. In other words, your bid doesn’t reflect the total dollar amount you’re going to pay, but rather the maximum amount you’re willing to pay.

Facebook limits the number of ads shown to any given user, which in turn limits the opportunities you’ll find for showing ads. This makes for quite a lot of competition, especially in the automotive advertising space.

The flipside is that not everyone using Facebook is looking to buy a car. A lot of different people use Facebook for a lot of different reasons. So, you’re not actually competing with every business, or even every car dealership; you are only competing with others who want to show ads to your targeted audience—e.g., to car buyers in your geographic area. Those are the people you should keep in mind at each stage of the Facebook Ads process—devising buyer personas, creating the ad, targeting, and bidding.

Different Ways to Bid

Something else to consider, as you bid on a Facebook Ads campaign, is that there are a couple of different approaches you can take. Specifically, Facebook will allow you to choose either a daily amount or a total amount you’re willing to bid.

For example, you can choose to spend $30 each day for your ad set, or you can choose to spend $400 over the course of the campaign, and then select the start time and end time. Facebook will try to split your budget as evenly as possible over each day of the campaign; they usually do a good job of this.

The key difference here is that if you choose a daily budget you don’t have to establish an end date; you can create a continuous campaign and tweak the amount of money you are spending as you go. This can be a good option for dealerships still learning the ropes of the Facebook Ads platform.

Get Help with Facebook Ads Bidding

Now, there is really a lot more that could be said about Facebook Ads and its bidding system. Our closing advice: Ask for help in selecting the right bids for your campaign. Bid too little and your ads won’t display; too much and you could blow your budget prematurely.

We’d love to advise your dealership on these key points. Reach out to Get My Auto for a consultation.

For some used car dealerships, Craigslist is their secret weapon—their ace in the hole. It allows them to move units, stay connected with buyers, and improve their bottom line. For other dealerships, however, Craigslist turns out to be little more than a waste of effort. So what’s the difference? How can you ensure that your dealership’s Craigslist ads fall into the former category and not the latter?

We’re here to share the seven essential components of any strong Craigslist post. This checklist will provide you with a firm foundation for Craigslist sales success!

The Essentials of Used Car Craigslist Ads

1. Great photos. Cars lend themselves well to pictorial advertising; buyers can tell just from looking at beautiful, hi-res images that a car is stylish and appealing. Use this to your advantage, and provide plenty of compelling photos in your listings. (Craigslist will allow you up to eight.)
2. Great titles. In addition to photos, you’ll also need compelling photos. Make sure yours calls out the essential selling points of the vehicle in question. We’d generally advise against listing the price in your title, unless you know you have a big competitive advantage here.
3. A compelling description. Here we’d generally recommend keeping it simple, and giving buyers an easy way to reach out to your dealership with any further questions or comments.
4. Landing pages. This one might surprise you. In addition to the Craigslist ad itself, you need a landing page where you can send interested buyers—ideally one that is specified to the vehicle in question. Here, you might provide additional vehicle facts and figures, a strong CTA, and perhaps even a lead capturing form of some sort.
5. Call tracking. Make sure you have integrated your Craigslist postings to your call tracking or CRM system, ensuring none of these leads slip through your fingers.
6. The right timing. You don’t want to spam Craigslist by posting the same ad over and over again. Generally, we’d recommend not posting the same vehicle more than once every 48 hours.
7. The right price. New cars are notoriously hard to sell on Craigslist. Simply put, people don’t go to Craigslist looking for brand new vehicles. Keeping your cars under $25,000 is recommended.

Perfect Your Craigslist Ads

There’s obviously a lot to consider here—and plenty of ways for your Craigslist ads to go wrong. Eliminate the guesswork by working with our Craigslist Wizard app, which ensures that your ads always rank within the top page of Craigslist search results. That kind of visibility is sure to improve your bottom line, especially when you pair it with our robust call-tracking capabilities.

The Craigslist Wizard app will help you become an old pro at selling cars on Craigslist, and it’s incredibly easy to use. Start using the app today, available exclusively from Get My Auto.

Not all Facebook Ad campaigns are the same. They can vary in their content, in their targeting, in their budgeting—but even more fundamentally, they can vary in their type. Facebook allows advertisers to choose from a number of different types of ad campaigns, and it’s important for dealerships to understand what they are and what they mean.

Don’t underestimate the importance of this! You can write the world’s greatest ad copy and you can be meticulous in choosing your targeted audience—but if you have the wrong  bidding strategy, and put down too much money on the wrong kind of ad, that can effectively nullify everything else you have done.

With that said, we’re going to devote some space in this post to outlining some of the different Facebook Ad campaigns that dealerships can choose from.

Different Types of Facebook Ad Campaigns

CPM Bidding

This stands for Cost Per Mile, and when you choose this option, what you’re basically doing is choosing the maximum amount of money you would pay to deliver 1,000 impressions to buyers within your target audience.

This is unpredictable at best, and it’s fairly easy to spend a lot of money without getting a lot of measurable results. We’d generally caution dealerships to stay away from this, unless your sole objective is to blanket Facebook users with brand mentions, and to just get your name in front of as many people as possible.

CPC Bidding

This one stands for Cost Per Click, and it works similarly to how CPC functions work on other advertising platforms. That is, you only have to pay when a user clicks on your ad.

The upshot? You can have your ad seen by more than 1,000 people, but if none of them actually click on the ad, you won’t pay a cent. The worst-case scenario, really, is that you get a lot of brand visibility for basically no money. Meanwhile, if you do end up paying, it’s because a potential buyer actually clicked on something—and that’s usually something you’ll be alright paying for!

CPA Bidding

A final option we’ll discuss today is Cost Per Action, or CPA bidding. If this is the route you go, Facebook will do everything it can to deliver your ads only to those target audience members who are seen as the most likely to convert. In other words, Facebook will try to help you fulfill the goals of your ad set. And you can set different goals—likes, page engagement, link clicks, etc.—to fit your dealership’s marketing goals. This is a highly recommendable option for the simple reason that it lets you eliminate the risk of paying for ads that simply don’t work.

Choosing the Right Type of Facebook Ad

So, which type of Facebook Ad makes the most sense for your dealership? We generally recommend CPA, but we’re happy to walk you through the pros and cons of each ad type. Reach out to Get My Auto for a full Facebook Ads consultation!

Information is a precious thing—especially the information you collect from your customers. Take, for example, email contact information. It’s easy enough to gather email addresses from your customers and website visitors, but knowing what to do with it is tougher. Your dealership could certainly benefit from an email marketing list—and in fact, you can use your email marketing list in more ways than one.

Build Trust Through Thought Leadership

One thing you can do is to send out an email newsletter—weekly or monthly—and provide your recipients with tips, tricks, and suggestions about buying, financing, or owning a vehicle. This information shouldn’t be “salesy,” though it should tie in to the core services of your dealership. Basically, you’re just trying to show that you have the knowledge required to guide buyers through the vehicle purchase process—to become their trusted ally. Earn their confidence!

Promote Sales and Discounts

Of course, you can and should use your email newsletter to let people know about ways they can save money at your dealership—touting upcoming sales events or simply displaying some exciting new inventory. You never know when one of your recipients might be on the fence about buying a used car—and your upcoming sale could be all it takes to get them into your showroom.

Cultivate Loyalty with Discount and Coupons

Another use for your email list: Let your existing customers know that you appreciate them and give them a reason to buy from you again. One way you can do that is by including discount codes or coupons in your emails—whether for a few bucks off a car or for something like a free oil change or service visit.

Recycle Your Blog Content

Still another smart way to use your email list is to repurpose the content you write for your dealership blog, turning it into fodder for one of those “tips and tricks” emails we mentioned above—or for that matter, just including links to a few recent blog posts in each newsletter. Get the biggest bang for your buck out of your dealership’s newsletter!

Start a Dialogue

Remember that marketing isn’t strictly about promotion; there’s also a time and a place for listening. Email can come in handy here. Send a survey to your customers and look for ways you can improve your dealership; make it clear that you value what people think about their experience in your showroom, and that you take their input seriously.

Turn to Get My Auto for Marketing Help

Email can be an important tool in your digital marketing toolbox—but what about the big picture? Get My Auto is an automotive marketing company that can help you put together a comprehensive approach to boosting your brand and increasing your sales, using all the tools at your disposal.

Learn more about marketing your used car dealership. Reach out to the Get My Autoteam today.