Google Ads for a car dealership business, is one of the best ways to advertise online and reach audiences who are looking to purchase a vehicle.
This of course is a highly competitive automotive sector, and as a car dealer you must leverage every marketing tool available to capture the attention of potential buyers.
With Google Ads, you get a powerful platform that can help you generate quality leads, increase website traffic and ultimately drive sales.
So, in this article I’ll outline the key steps to setting up an effective Google Ads campaign for a car dealership.
1. Set Clear Campaign Goals
Before launching a Google Ads campaign for a car dealership, it’s important to define your objectives. And you can set this at the campaign set up stage and for a car dealer this will include:
– generating sales or leads for car models
– increasing visits to the dealership
– promoting special offers, financing options and events
– boosting online inquiries for cars you are selling
The campaign goal you set will guide the structure and content of your campaign. And if it is to increase test drives for example, you’ll focus on local ads to target people within a specific radius of the dealership.
2. Choose the Right Campaign Type
Next, you’ll need to pick the right Google Ads campaign type for your car dealership. There are several campaigns to pick from including:
– Search – this one is important and your ads appear on Google search results when people search with queries like ‘buy a car near me’ or ‘best car deals’. These ads show high intent with users who are actively searching for vehicles.
– Display – your ads will appear across the Google Display Network on websites and apps including YouTube. This is great for raising awareness and retargeting past visitors who are interested in purchasing vehicles.
– Local – A car dealership relies on local customers, so it’s important that you use Google Local Ads to promote your dealership to nearby searchers or map users.
3. Perform Thorough Keyword Research
Keyword research is the foundation of a successful Google Ads campaign for a car dealership. So, your ads should target keywords that potential customers are using to search for vehicles and car dealerships.
For car dealerships a mix of branded, generic and long tail keywords is important.
– branded keywords – these keywords include your dealership’s name, and the specific brand names of car models you sell for example GMC Sierra.
– generic keywords – these are keywords like ‘car dealerships near me’ or ‘buy used car’ to target people who may not yet have a preferred car dealership or car brand yet.
– long tail keywords – also target highly specific keyword phrases that indicate a higher level of purchase intent. An example of a long tail keyword is ‘best lead deals on Honda CR-V’.
4. Segment Your Campaigns
With segmentation, you can create highly targeted ads for each of your audiences. So, for a car dealership, you may want to set up campaigns for:
– New car inventory
– Used cars
– Specific car models
– Financing options
These are just examples, and you can segment your campaigns and ad groups in any format you like.
And by creating dedicated campaigns for each category, you can tailor your ads to specific audiences. And this increases relevance and improves conversions.
5. Optimize Copy and Extensions
Next, you’ll optimize your ad copy to make it compelling, informative and aligned with your keywords. Here are some tips to write effective ads:
– include offers and promotions – highlight any special deals or discounts you may have for the vehicles you are selling. And phrases like “zero down payment” or ” low APR financing” have proven to work well.
– use strong calls to action – use your ad headlines and descriptions to guide users toward your goal, whether it’s to schedule a test drive, visit your car dealership or explore your online vehicle inventory.
– ad extensions – use all the extensions that are relevant for your business, to promote your dealership and vehicles. So, you should use sitelinks, location extensions, call extensions and more to provide information to potential customers.
6. Set Appropriate Budgets and Bidding Strategies
Setting the right Google Ads budget for your car dealership helps you run an efficient campaign without overspending. And you can set your maximum daily budget and maximum bids for each keyword or ad group.
– daily budget – set a good budget to target automotive keywords that can be highly competitive and expensive.
– bidding strategy – there are multiple bid strategies to choose from, both automated and manual strategies. For a new campaign, it’s best to start with an automated strategy like Maximize Clicks to try and get as many clicks and conversions as possible for your budget.
7. Leverage Audience Targeting
Google has good audience targeting options that you can leverage to improve your advertising. These include:
– remarketing – show your ads to people who visited your website but didn’t take any action. And this includes reminding them of the cars they viewed or special promotions.
– in-market audiences – target people who are researching cars to purchase or who have shown high intent to buy. Google collects data on user behavior online and creates audiences for industries like automotive.
– custom audiences – build audiences for specific criteria such as location, similar search habits or interest in competitor brands.
8. Monitor and Optimize Your Campaigns Regularly
After launching a Google Ads campaign for your car dealership, you’ll need to monitor and optimize it to improve performance. Google Ads provides in-depth analysis on the ad performance, including click-through rates and conversions
You should regularly review your search queries to ensure they are relevant and are closely aligned with your keywords.
And run experiments for your bid strategies to get the best results from your keyword bids.
Conclusion
Setting up an effective Google Ads campaign for a car dealership requires careful planning, ongoing optimization and a good understanding of your target audience. And by determining your goals beforehand and conducting keyword research, you’ll be able to reach car buyers effectively.
As a Google Ads consultant, I’ve worked with many car dealerships across the country. Contact me today to discuss your advertising plans.
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