Happy New Year! The beginning of the year is always both an interesting and uncertain time for any dealership. For one, it’s a time to reflect on the 12 months that have just passed, what you did right and what could have been done differently. IF you had a great year or a stellar end of the year you’ll be wondering if you’ll be able to keep that momentum alive for the following year.
While you’ll always need to make sure your fixed and variable ops are running smoothly and make adjustments along the way as needed, one thing all dealerships need to do is begin to look at how marketing will effect their sales and lead gen efforts in 2014. While many things were discovered in 2013, the dealership that will rise above their competition will be sure they are investing in four specific strategies this year. This is the first in a series of four articles that will take an in depth look into all four. But for today we will look at a newer player in the game known as RTB (Real Time Bidding).
According to NADA statistics, the average consumer spends roughly ten hours online researching the vehicle they want to buy before they pick up the phone or step foot inside your dealership. Now let’s be real here, a consumer is NOT going to stay glued to their computer for ten hours researching every little bit of info about the vehicle they’re looking for. It comes in waves. An hour here, an hour there, twenty minutes here, and forty five minutes there.
People get distracted while doing their research as well. They get emails, see interesting articles, log onto social media, etc… What if there was a strategic way of putting your dealership in front of those people who were interested in the vehicles you sold? AND, what if you could drive them to your website and then have an ad “follow them around” as they go about their digital day online?
RTB, or Real Time Bidding will be gaining some serious interest this year, and the dealership that invests early and builds a solid campaign now can be sure to see their share of the market increase drastically. So what exactly is RTB? Millions of websites sell advertising space; it could be a small box in the upper right hand corner, a large banner at the top of the web page or a “skyscraper” that takes up a good portion of the right hand side of a web page. After reading this article go check out some random websites and you’ll see the different sizes of ads.
In most situations where a company buys ad displays, they have to buy in bulk, and depending on the website, it’s usually not a small number. A website will sell them the ad space and keep their ad up for a certain amount of time, but in most cases until a certain number of people see the ad, regardless of click-through. This is known as cost per impression (CPM)
With RTB, think of it like the stock exchange for online display networks. A computer algorithm buys and sells for you in real time. You bid to be shown on a certain website and the CPM (cost per impression) is, in most cases, based on 1000 views. So you pay for 1000 people to see your ad show up on a certain website. What makes the RTB system different and far more effective is that you have access to terabytes of information on demographics and search behavior at your fingertips. Thus making where your ads show up more effective than if you were to just buy advertising space on a website. Buying blind in this economy and in this day and age is like a quarterback throwing a hailmary; hopefully it will work, but there’s a serious chance it won’t.
So what does this mean to your dealership? Depending on whom you go with as your provider and how much data they have access to, you have the opportunity to develop laser targeted campaigns! For instance; Let’s say you’re a Volvo dealer just outside a major city. There are two other Volvo dealers within a 30-mile radius from your store and you consider Volkswagen and Subaru as off brand competition. Let’s say there are two Volkswagen and four Subaru stores within a 30-mile radius of your store.
You can set up a campaign to target people who are in the market for a Volvo thanks to 1st and 3rd party data, you can also target people who have searched for Volvo. Want to get more specific? You can target people who are searching in your area, or your competition’s area. Want to target an entire county? Now you can. If you’d like to turn a potential Subaru or VW buyer into a Volvo buyer, you can set up a campaign to target those interested in and/ or searching for those vehicles near your dealership or outside your PMA.
Perhaps you have an idea of who your “perfect” client is. With Real Time Bidding, you can market specifically to your perfect, or “dream” customer. If you’re a Volvo dealer, perhaps you want to target 35 – 55 year old families with young children, 650 or above credit rating, who have a combined household income of over $100,000 who like golf, enjoy gardening and cooking. YES! You can get THAT specific with the right provider and a savvy enough campaign manager.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! That’s just targeting, now let’s talk about retargeting. If you are unfamiliar with what retargeting is, think of it like an Internet b-back. Thanks to advances in technology you can place a piece of code within your website that will install a cookie on the web browser of anyone who visits your website (be it from an ad or just browsing). After they leave your website and go about their day online, from time to time, they’ll see an ad for your dealership pop up on websites they are viewing. The more they see the ad, the more aware of your dealership they begin to become, until they go back to your website again and again. Before you know it, they’re calling your BDC department to schedule a test drive.
In regards to retargeting, you can also get very specific. You can choose to retarget certain vehicles based on what a website visitor has searched on your website. So if we continue with the example of a Volvo dealer; let’s say someone came to your site and was looking at S60 sedans. After they leave and go about their day, they might see an ad for your dealership, but the next time, they’ll see an ad for an S60. Some providers can even put your real time inventory into the ads for people to view (this is known as dynamic creative optimization).
As you can see, the possibilities with RTB are almost endless. We suggest doing both a targeting and retargeting campaign together for maximum results. This will allow you to reach the audience you want, and continue to market to them as needed. And don’t worry, most people clear their browsers after 15 – 30 days so you’ll have plenty of time to grow top of mind awareness. If your dealership is strapped for cash, or simply doesn’t want to spend much money on this new shiny object (that is only going to grow in effectiveness), we recommend, at the very least, doing retargeting. That way, you can get people back to your website quicker.
Keep in mind when choosing a provider that no two are the same; some don’t have budget limits, others are very strict about minimum spend. You’ll want to find a provider who is not only reliable but is creative enough to offer you a wide array of campaign ideas that will allow you to gain an edge over your competition.
Stay tuned as we reveal the other 3 marketing strategies your dealership needs to be doing in 2014.