• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Need a PPC Expert Please!

Jump to latest Follow Reply
ajholland

ajholland

Boss
Nov 29, 2009
172
12
First Name
Aaron
#1
We currently use Moore and Scarry for our PPC. We have seen very good increases in our unique visitors w/o a big increase in bounce rate. However, we have not seen any movement in leads or showroom traffic. Is this typical? If there isn't any increase anywhere, should we be investing in PPC?

Our dealerships are in relatively rural areas, most competing dealerships are about 45 minutes apart and the pump in/pump out is fairly low. Since this is the case, is it worth doing conquest PPC? Should we just defend our territory and go after competing makes and dealerships in our town?
 
#2
ajholland,

I'd like to think you already have PPC experts on your side :)

PPC is not unlike any other advertising effort - different philosophies will generate different results and be successful for different dealers. Some dealers live on saturation mail filled with gifts, while others see it as a waste and focus on data driven mail programs.

We can talk to you and make sure our efforts match your goals - either lead gen or traffic generation.

Our primary philosophy is traffic generation with a focus on KPIs that show an interested shopper.

Let's begin with some recent statistics. According to JD Power in 2010:

- 22% of auto purchasers used the Internet to research their purchase AND submitted a lead
- 61% of auto purchasers used the Internet to research their purchase and DID NOT submit a lead
- 17% of auto purchasers did not use the Internet to research their purchase

This data makes sense to us. People shop online and attempt to protect their identity and email address. In addition, the retail auto industry is described as a ROPO industry (research online and purchase offline).

If you were going to focus your advertising efforts on a particular segment of customers, would it be the percentage that's 17% of the consumers, 22% of the consumers or 67% of the consumers? We tend to focus on the larger segment.

How we do this and track performance is by watching a set of KPI's (key performance indicators) and anecdotal search query data. The KPI's we watch are average time on site, average pages per visit and whether or not a visitor reached a key page like a vehicle detail page or map page. These indicate a shopper.

Second, we monitor search query data (what people are actually typing in before they get to the site) and make sure it is inline with in market shopping.

In 4Q of last year we did a major study that indicated that the number of visits a web site garnered was more indicative of dealership sales volume than email conversion rates.

In the end - our goal is to be more forward thinking than focus solely on lead generation and try to attract in market shoppers and watch for cues as to their intent.

However, we can focus our efforts for you towards any particular KPI (or lead generation) that you'd like. Feel free to reach out to me directly tomorrow at (239) 689-4000 so I can make sure we are meeting your needs.

Duncan Scarry
 
#3
Yes PPC is always worth it.. If you are optimizing it correctly! It seems like you're running ads in your entire city/state, and you're so far away from them they are not interested. So it's driving the traffic and you're taking it away from competition, but when they see your location and don't find anything over the top to make their drive worth it, they don't create a lead. Why not try this? Anyone who lives over 20 miles away get's a free $15 gas card for stopping by and visiting your dealership. Create an incentive for them to make the trip and make that lead and make the connection regardless of the distance.

To be honest though, it's really impossible to tell.. I need to see how big your ad radius is, what your keywords are, etc. to figure out what to change. Let me look into your area and website and report back.
 
#4
Also those STATS and STUDIES mean NOTHING if the dealer is not making sales and producing leads off PPC. It's like everyone hyping up social networking and investing thousands of dollars into it, and it not converting.. But the stats are there.. There's x billion people on it, traffic is blah blah.. Well guess what? It doesn't convert as you'd expect. But you have to look past that and figure it out for yourself.
 
#5
AJ,

I could talk for hours on this topic alone. The hardest part (for all of us) is the shopper prefers to remain invisible. Because of this FACT, it forces us to look for clues.

What clues does the shopper leave us?
If you look at your post sale survey (see my example), and Google analytics and your leads...


Your Survey Says...
  • 75% of your buyers consider themselves "frequent internet users" (>10 hours per week)
  • While your undecided buyers were car shopping, 71% got most of their ideas from the Internet
  • 85 out of 100 of your buyers were at your site prior to purchase.
  • Over 70% of these buyers were at your site 3 times or more.
  • Over 40% of your buyers were "looking for a vehicle" for 1 month or longer (30% 2 months or longer!!)
Wow! That evidence is over whelming. Ok, so the evidence clearly says the Internet is where the smart money is... Ok, Where are all these shoppers?

THEY ARE NOT CO-OPERATING WITH YOUR NEED TO DEMONSTRATE ROI (aka not emailing you). I am going to KILL THE SACRED COW RIGHT NOW...

If 85% of your buyers are at your site prior to purchase, yet we use emails as "proof of performance", we all must ask ourselves, WHY isn't email important to YOUR buyers?

Think about it (we all know why!).

90+% of your buyers NEVER sent in an email, and, of those shoppers that do send in an email, we only close a fraction of them!!

Our scoring system is flawed.
We obsess about the lead counts, yet, the majority of buyers know that becoming "visible" is of no help to them.

If you prefer to obsess about the majority of your visitors (rather than the minority), then you need look into Google Analytics to make sure they are happy shoppers (aka bounce rate, time on page, time on site, % that return, days between return visits, etc..).


It's hard to fail if you use HayStack (or similar longtail PPC tool). Your shopper keys in "2012 Ford Focus for sale" and your ad should take them right to your Ford Focus inventory.

Where can PPC fail?
If you have a small inventory (relative to your competitors), then your shopper may not return. If your pictures suck, or, your options and descriptions are weak, then your shopper may not return.

PPC can fail if your super agressive going for general search terms like "Ford Dealer" or "Car Dealer" and if your inventory is small (relative to your competitors), they your shopper may not return. REMEMBER, if you're PPC advertising "Car Dealer" (or similar), your competing with AutoTrader and Cars.com.

Think about it. Your PPC campaign needs to match your stores profile.

I could ramble for hours... but I will say that a smart PPC campaign (that matches your dealer profile) in conjunction to a great internet merchandising effort (great pics and product info) along with CHAT and a HookLogic test drive reward should be all you need to knock it over the fence!

Need more clues?
See your Chat Transcripts: Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused? (Very Revealing info!)

Need more Ups?
Reward the stealth shopper with Test Drive Teaser! HookLogic
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#6
JoePistell said:
AJ,

I could talk for hours on this topic alone. The hardest part (for all of us) is the shopper prefers to remain invisible. Because of this FACT, it forces us to look for clues.

What clues does the shopper leave us?
If you look at your post sale survey (see my example), and Google analytics and your leads...


Your Survey Says...
  • 75% of your buyers consider themselves "frequent internet users" (>10 hours per week)
  • While your undecided buyers were car shopping, 71% got most of their ideas from the Internet
  • 85 out of 100 of your buyers were at your site prior to purchase.
  • Over 70% of these buyers were at your site 3 times or more.
  • Over 40% of your buyers were "looking for a vehicle" for 1 month or longer (30% 2 months or longer!!)
Wow! That evidence is over whelming. Ok, so the evidence clearly says the Internet is where the smart money is... Ok, Where are all these shoppers?

THEY ARE NOT CO-OPERATING WITH YOUR NEED TO DEMONSTRATE ROI (aka not emailing you). I am going to KILL THE SACRED COW RIGHT NOW...

If 85% of your buyers are at your site prior to purchase, yet we use emails as "proof of performance", we all must ask ourselves, WHY isn't email important to YOUR buyers?

Think about it (we all know why!).

90+% of your buyers NEVER sent in an email, and, of those shoppers that do send in an email, we only close a fraction of them!!

Our scoring system is flawed.

We obsess about the lead counts, yet, the majority of buyers know that becoming "visible" is of no help to them.

If you prefer to obsess about the majority of your visitors (rather than the minority), then you need look into Google Analytics to make sure they are happy shoppers (aka bounce rate, time on page, time on site, % that return, days between return visits, etc..).


It's hard to fail if you use HayStack (or similar longtail PPC tool). Your shopper keys in "2012 Ford Focus for sale" and your ad should take them right to your Ford Focus inventory.

Where can PPC fail?
If you have a small inventory (relative to your competitors), then your shopper may not return. If your pictures suck, or, your options and descriptions are weak, then your shopper may not return.

PPC can fail if your super agressive going for general search terms like "Ford Dealer" or "Car Dealer" and if your inventory is small (relative to your competitors), they your shopper may not return. REMEMBER, if you're PPC advertising "Car Dealer" (or similar), your competing with AutoTrader and Cars.com.

Think about it. Your PPC campaign needs to match your stores profile.

I could ramble for hours... but I will say that a smart PPC campaign (that matches your dealer profile) in conjunction to a great internet merchandising effort (great pics and product info) along with CHAT and a HookLogic test drive reward should be all you need to knock it over the fence!

Need more clues?
See your Chat Transcripts: Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused? (Very Revealing info!)

Need more Ups?
Reward the stealth shopper with Test Drive Teaser! HookLogic
Click to expand...


Thanks Joe for taking the time to respond in such detail. I really like the survey...we use one currently, but I may give yours a try. I really try not to focus on lead counts so my concern really only raised when I didn't see any increase showroom traffic or overall sales for the dealership. There is no way we drop PPC, I'm just curious if we need to tweak based upon our market and competition. My challenge (like many) is that I am asked to grow the internet department, I invest in PPC, but I have no way to show the results (my sold/commission) of our PPC at the end of the month.
 
#7
ajholland said:
Thanks Joe for taking the time to respond in such detail. I really like the survey...we use one currently, but I may give yours a try. I really try not to focus on lead counts so my concern really only raised when I didn't see any increase showroom traffic or overall sales for the dealership. There is no way we drop PPC, I'm just curious if we need to tweak based upon our market and competition. My challenge (like many) is that I am asked to grow the internet department, I invest in PPC, but I have no way to show the results (my sold/commission) of our PPC at the end of the month.
Click to expand...

I feel your pain. Damn invisible shoppers.

I have a special script that switches the toll free phone number if the visitor came from a PPC ad. This maybe helpful. FYI: I get 100 phone calls per 15000 PPC visitors

Also, I'd really look into Hooklogic. Maybe they can work a way to mark your PPC visitors.
 
Last edited:
#8
Back of the napkin projection.

Take your number of total sales over the last 12 months and divide that by the number of unique visitors for the last 12 months.

Example:
100 sales from 10,000 visitors = 1%

I run about 2% (sales to visitors)

Assuming your PPC and site campaign are working well, multiply your sales to visitor ratio against your PPC traffic (REMOVE any PPC traffic that has the dealer name in it (most likely service call).

In my case, I cut this PPC sales estimate by 50%. This will give you a rough estimate of what impact your looking for and what your PPC costs PVR may be.

I am sure Duncan will help you get your campaign dialed in.
 
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Menu