The Main Reason Why Car Dealers Balk At Advertising On Google

Many car dealers have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to advertising on Google. The story usually is the same, they spent a lot of money without getting anything in return.

The problem with this is all about keywords, and choosing the right ones. Some car dealers have tried the campaign themselves, and some have hired specialty marketing companies to set up the Google Adwords Campaign.

Finding the right keywords to bid on is the challenge, and if you’re too vague then you will spend a ton of money with little results.

Remember, a car dealer sells cars. If you are a Chevy Dealer, forget about bidding on “Chevrolet Dealer”. That’s what Google Local listings are for, and they’re free. You need to focus on your inventory.

Let’s start with the Chevy Tahoe. It is now 2010, but I’m sure you have some 2009’s out there. You would want these keywords:

• 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe
• 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe
• 2009 Chevy Tahoe
• 2010 Chevy Tahoe
• 2009 Chevy Tahoe LS
• 2009 Chevy Tahoe LT
• 2009 Chevy Tahoe LTZ
• 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe LS
• 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe LT

OK, I think you can figure out the rest. You need to do this with all of your models. As you set up each campaign, be sure to create separate ones for each model. It’s important for the text to read “Chevy Tahoe”. Not only will you get more action, you will achieve a higher quality score from Google. The higher your quality score, the lower you will have to pay per click.

The screenshot above is what a proper campaign that performs will look like. I remember paying $1,200.00 for 50,000 impressions from a local newspaper website when I worked for a car dealership. Now I can get well over a million more for the same price.

Another important part is to link to the proper page. When you set up the Tahoe Campaign, be sure to link to your Chevy Tahoe Page on your website. Don’t just link to your main site and make the user have to go fishing, because they won’t. Having the link go to the proper place will also give you a better quality score.

It may take you a half a day to do this, but it’s well worth it.

Now, let’s focus on your used. Used cars will bring in more UPS than new vehicles. Let’s say you have 75 used cars, and we’ll start with the first one.

We have a 2006 Corvette. Lets create a separate campaign for Corvettes. We need these keywords:

• Used Corvette
• Used Chevy Corvette
• Used Chevrolet Corvette
• 2006 Corvette
• 2006 Chevy Corvette
• 2006 Chevrolet Corvette
• 2006 pre-owned Corvette

Be sure to stay on top of these campaign, and delete each as a vehicle is sold to avoid wasting your advertising dollars.

This can be tedious huh? What if I told you that Showroom Logic can automate the process? We can take every new and used vehicle you have and automatically create a campaign for each. As your new inventory rolls in we can set up each car automatically, and as each vehicle is sold we can delete each campaign.

The screenshot above is what a proper campaign that performs will look like. I remember paying $1,200.00 for 50,000 impressions from a local newspaper website when I worked for a car dealership.

This dealer received over 1 and a half millions impressions in three weeks, and paid only 1 cents for each. The bottom line is simple, most people go to Google to look for vehicles. Not third party companies, not Yahoo and certainly not Bing.

Car Dealers need to start fishing where the fish are when it comes to the internet. You have 200 cars on your lot, and their are people searching for each one of them on a daily basis.

If you want to learn more about our product, check out this video of our tool in action.