According to a recent eMarketer survey, nearly 75% of retailers in North America list personalization as one of their top priorities when it comes to customer experience.

Retailers want to provide personalization to both first-time and repeat customers with relevant content and recommendations, but the reality of its implementation seems a little more complicated.

However, according to Drew Giovannoli, product marketing manager at Bazaarvoice, it doesn’t have to be so complicated. We interviewed Giovannoli to get the scoop. 

“They’re not expecting anything futuristic. They just don’t want retailers to waste their time,” said Giovannoli in a phone interview with DrivingSales. “They aren’t trying to learn and navigate your store – they want what they’re looking for without having to go in a million different directions.”

Giovannoli is the product marketing manager in charge of personalization data products at Bazaarvoice, a company that has been working with leading retail and brand clients for over a decade. In the interview, he said a common conversation he holds with clients tends to focus on personalization and giving a better experience to customers, which then provides returns for the business.

However, there’s often a disconnect between what retailers think they’re doing and what customers feel like they’re getting. Add in the difference between personalization and customization, and the waters muddy even more. 

“You can customize into different segments, but when you personalize it, it’s really talking about that one-to-one experience,” he said. Many times, Giovannoli added, retailers are catering to an A/B Test.

“For example, let’s say you sell three different types of ice cream. You ask Joe what his favorite flavor is, and he says chocolate. Customization would be knowing Joe prefers chocolate, but going with strawberry because that’s what the largest group likes,” he said. “It’s personalization if Joe says he likes chocolate ice cream and that’s what we give him.”

“Where the disconnect really occurs is when a retailer starts to cater to the masses instead of to the individuals,” Giovannoli said. “If we are tailoring an experience at all, we’re often just splitting among a demographic instead of tailoring to the individual preferences.”

So, what are the best dealerships doing to maximize the customer personalization experience? Making recommendations based on what shoppers are looking for, not based on who the dealership thinks a shopper is. You don’t want to just know who they are; you need to find out “what this person actually cares about,” said Giovannoli.

“63% of folks who are actively shopping automotive retail say a personalized home page makes it easier to find items that they like,” said Giovannoli. “But only 26% of those same folks have actually experienced a personalized homepage.”

When it comes to personalized sites, customers should rarely be viewing content thats feel “new” to them, according to Giovannoli. Rather, it should feel like they landed in just the right spot. Things like relevant videos and content, display, production recommendations, and search personalization are great tools for improving site personalization.

On the other hand, the least effective dealerships are catering to the masses rather than the individual.

“Businesses start to fail when they treat everyone the same,” Giovannoli said. “When someone walks into a dealership, you can start to figure them out immediately, but that immediacy isn’t available online, so you have to find a way to bring that same experience to your website visitors.”

The idea and implementation of personalization is hardly limited to a single industry, but there may be a notion that it isn’t as applicable in the automotive industry, said Giovannoli.

“In retail automotive, there is a huge interest among consumers when it comes to finding what they’re looking for, and there are a number of different factors: are they more of a premium customer or a value customer? Sports or adventure?” he said. “Personalization is not just for high-end apparel retailers; taking advantage of this kind of data can give automotive retailers a huge competitive advantage.”

Could this small change make a big difference? If you already do this, have you a seen a difference from before you did it?

Whether you’re a veteran digital marketer or you’re fairly new to the game, you (I hope!) already know that the importance of keywords can’t be overstated when it comes to your ad campaigns. But there’s another, equally important component that a vast number of marketers -- including some of the most seasoned ones -- are full-on neglecting: negative keywords. In fact, research conducted by WordStream has found that, over the course of one month, nearly 50% of digital marketers fail to add a single negative keyword to their AdWords accounts. And the reality is that if you’re one of those who aren’t incorporating negative keywords into your PPC and search strategies, you’re almost certainly tossing boku marketing bucks straight into the trash can. As the folks over at Google have summed it up, “One key to a highly targeted campaign is choosing what not to target.”

What Are Negative Keywords?  As we know, Google functions like a type of auction, where you bid on keywords you’ve deemed most relevant to your dealership’s website and marketing objectives. But what you may not know is that you can also tell Google the search terms for which you don’t want your ads to appear. These are called “negative keywords” (they may also be called “negative matches”). Here’s how Google defines negative keywords:

When you run a PPC campaign, you fork over money every time someone clicks on your ad -- even if that person isn’t a member of your target audience and doesn’t give two hoots about the product or service you’re offering. When this happens, you’re paying good money for a totally useless click: not exactly an ideal way to distribute your ad spend. To illustrate, here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re in charge of digital marketing for a Ford dealership. A classic cars enthusiast -- we’ll call him Sam -- wants to find parts for his Ford Edsal, a model that was in production from 1958 until 1960. He performs a search query for Ford Edsal car parts, and an advertisement for your dealership appears in the search results. Sam’s not in the market for a new car and he’s not looking to have his current vehicle serviced, but he accidentally clicks on your ad (or maybe he clicks it on purpose, thinking that a Ford dealership would sell the parts he needs). Boom. You just spent precious marketing dollars on a useless click. Or maybe you’re paying per impression, and your ad shows up on Sam’s blog, which is a forum for people who are obsessed with restoring vintage cars. The result is the same: wasted money. Enter negative keywords, which “offer an opportunity to strategically restrict your PPC advertisements so they only reach your best potential audience.”

Benefits of Using Negative Keywords.  As I’ve just illustrated above, using negative keywords can save you money and increase your ROI. But implementing them into your digital marketing strategy also has some other, less obvious benefits.

For one thing, it can help you create more relevant ad groups: “By weeding out keywords that aren’t related to your business, you tighten the relevance of your ad groups. Small, closely-related ad groups allow you to craft a single message that speaks to your entire group of keywords.”

Using negative keywords can drastically impact your click-through rate (CTR), as well. By eliminating uninterested users from your audience, you automatically increase the likelihood that those who do see your ads will click on them -- and eventually make a purchase.

Choosing Negative Keywords.  Not sure how to decide which keywords should make your negative keywords list? Google suggests looking for “search terms that are similar to your keywords but might cater to customers searching for a different product.”

You can use the same discovery methods for negative keywords that you already use to find regular (“positive”) keywords. For example, you can search for a term in Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner tool, just as you’d search for a positive keyword. As you browse the list of related keyword searches, look for items in the list that you know are irrelevant to your dealership and marketing objectives. Likewise, you can use the Search Terms Report tool within AdWords. Because this tool shows you the actual search queries that have triggered your ads, you can use it to eliminate those that are irrelevant by adding them to your negative keywords list.

How to Add Negative Keywords to a Campaign or Ad Group.  Google provides the following instructions for adding negative keywords to your campaign or ad group:

• Sign into your AdWords account and click Keywords from the left-hand page menu.

• Click Negative Keywords, and then click the blue ⨁ button.

• From here, you can apply new keywords, add a new negative keyword list, or add an existing negative keyword list to your campaigns or ad groups:

  • Apply new keywords or add a new negative keywords list:

    • Select Add Negative Keywords or Create New List.

    • Choose whether to add negative keywords to a campaign or ad group, and then select the specific campaign or ad group.

    • Add your keywords, one per line, making sure your negative keywords don’t overlap with your positive keywords.

    • Click Save.

  • Use an existing negative keywords list:

    • Select Use Negative Keyword List.

    • Choose the campaign to which you’d like to apply negative keyword lists.

    • Check the boxes of the negative keywords lists you’d like to use.

    • Click Save.

A Note of Caution.  It’s important to remember that negative keywords don’t work for Display and Video Ad campaigns the same way they do for search campaigns. According to Google, “[d]epending on the other keywords or targeting methods in your ad group, some places where your ad appears may occasionally contain excluded terms. For Display and Video ads, a maximum of 5,000 negative keywords is considered. You can also avoid targeting unrelated sites or videos by implementing site category options and content exclusions.”

Google this week went live with its new ad blocker for Chrome. Wait, what? Doesn’t Google rake in massive revenue from internet ads? Well, yes. Keep reading.

Turns out, Google just wants to block annoying ads. The hope is that if ads are more engaging and useful to Chrome users, then fewer people will be inclined to install third-party ad blockers. Specifically, Google wants to accomplish three things: (1) decrease the use of third-party ad blockers; (2) present users with more useful and engaging ads; and (3) encourage marketers to publish less annoying and intrusive ads.

With these objectives in mind, the search giant joined the Coalition for Better Ads, a group that has devised a set of criteria dubbed the “Better Ads Standards,” and has now adopted those standards into its Chrome browser.

The Coalition for Better Ads officially describes the Better Ads Standards like this:

The obvious question for marketers now is, of course, “How do I know whether my ads are compliant with these standards?” What follows is a quick-and-dirty overview of how the ad filtering works and what types of ads don’t meet the Better Ads Standards (a more complete and detailed description can be found on the Chromium Blog).

There are four types of desktop ads and eight types of mobile ads that do not meet the Better Ads Standards.

[The images below are from the Coalition for Better Ads website.]

Desktop Ads

• Auto-playing video ads with sound 
• Prestitial ads with countdowns 
• Large sticky ads 
• Pop-up ads 

Mobile Ads

• Pop-up ads 
• Prestitial ads 
• Ad density higher than 30% 
• Flashing animated ads 
• Auto-playing videos with sound 
• Postitial ads with countdown 
• Full-screen rollover ads 
• Large sticky ads 

But don’t panic: Google isn’t exactly planning to embark on a massive, hired-guns-style, ad-blocking rampage. If a website’s ads fail the Better Ads Standards, the site owner will be given an opportunity to remedy any ads identified as problematic. Here’s how it works:

• Google will evaluate the site for violations. This evaluation will be based on a sampling of pages from that site.
• The evaluation will result in the assignation of one of three possible grades:
  • Passing
  • Warning
  • Failing
• If Google identifies any violations during the evaluation, the owner of the site will be notified and will have 30 days from that notification to address the violation and resolve it.
  • Once they’ve fixed the identified issues, the site owner can submit their site for re-review.
  • If the violations remain unresolved after 30 days from the owner being notified, Chrome will start blocking ads on that site.

Publishers won’t simply be left out to dry, though. Google has taken steps to help site owners and marketers understand and comply with the new criteria.

• The Ad Experience Report. This is a new tool developed by Google to provide site owners and ad publishers with a clear idea of how the Better Ads Standards apply to their own websites and pages.
• Guidelines & Recommendations. Google has published some guidelines and best practices, including recommendations on what types of ads to use in place of those that fail the Better Ads Standards. Those resources can be found here.

We asked Michael King, founder of NYC-based digital marketing agency iPullRank, whether search is more of an art or more of a science. Here's what he told us.

Scott Hill, Executive Chairman and Cofounder at PERQ, shares why the "control the process" mindset is becoming obsolete for dealership sales.

Yesterday, we published an infographic with some interesting stats about the power of local SEO. Now, here are some quick tips for improving your dealership's local SEO to leverage that power.

RELATED: 5 Tips to Improve Your Local SEO

David Bell, professor of marketing at the prestigious Wharton School, talks about why digital native customers' expectations are different.

Scott Hill, co-founder and executive chairman at PERQ, describes what "lead traps" are and what they can mean for lead quality.