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Facebook vs Google Ads

RMSFL

Green Pea
May 14, 2015
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Matt
hello everyone,

I wanted to get your opinion on Facebook vs google ads. We are a small independent family owned dealership who does our own financing. Our ad budget is smaller than most here by far, from what I've read. Also, am I better off spending those dollars on general dealership ads, or marketing specific vehicles?

Any help is appreciated. With the size of our lot, I wear many hats, but am wanting to put emphasis on our online advertising but my knowledge is limited.

Thanks!
 
Currently, I am in Alabama; previously, we've chatted here.

I would do a combination of both. You get a lot of bang for your buck with Facebook (target specific demographics easier), the cost per impression is very low. Obviously Google AdWords there is a ton of reach and it's fairly ubiquitous across most 3rd party platforms if you plan on doing display and / or video pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll. I'd put 75% of your budget into Google AdWords; 25% into Facebook.

Additionally, since your budget is small I would not go dynamic for AdWords, meaning taking your inventory feed, parsing it for ad creation purposes (per unit) for specific make, model, color, trim, etc. although that can easily be done with Kenshoo, Marin, Acquisio, Search Force, etc. IOW, I would go general with the following types of campaigns (there's a lot of breakdown under these).
  • Used General (Used Vehicles)
  • Used Brand General (Used Brand Vehicles)
  • Dealer General (Dealer + Competition / Brand or even Conquest / Out of Brand)
  • Brand Dealer (Dealer Name + New / Brand, etc.)
  • Trade Value (KBB, NADA, Edmunds)
  • Service / Fixed Ops
  • Special Finance
As for Google Display Advertising sizes, see http://static.googleusercontent.com...display-business-trends-publisher-edition.pdf and from a case study I recently had done. You should use at least the top three there and also 300 x 600 IMO.
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Additionally, using Behavioral Targeting / Marketing techniques is smart. Behavioral targeting comprises a range of technologies and techniques used by online website publishers and advertisers aimed at increasing the effectiveness of advertising using user web-browsing behavior information. In particular, "behavioral targeting uses information collected from an individual’s web-browsing behavior (e.g., the pages that they have visited or searched) to select advertisements to display".

If you've CRM dB's on your customers, you can import / use remarketing lists those into Google AdWords and target / retarget them through various campaigns. There is MUCH to this process and if you grow, it's probably smarter to go with an agency to manage these processes. I work in this specific field.

BTW, the same can be done with Facebook. Previously, Facebook advertising had been too generic / broad, which probably suited Zuckerberg just fine in that they were still making a lot money, but at the same time wasting the efforts of their advertising customers. Lack of being able to drill down to a current customer and universe attack level.

It was a matter of time before they integrated a better advertising mechanism into their system. Basically, Power Editor is a matching tool, which they have always had (a weak predecessor), but previously was not built on a CRM integration level (importation of CRM dB's for use in customer matching). Having to match up customers or potential customer manually was a painstaking experience. I'll be interested in seeing how dealerships cope with this new requirement and what CRM's actively support them.

Custom audience targeted ads will be much more relevant than ads just targeted to a business fan’s or some biographical demographic. They can reach people who a business is sure purchased its products before, or that haven’t thanks to exclusionary targeting. Yes, businesses could just email these existing customers for free. However, Facebook can help them hone in on certain demographic segments of their customers by overlaying additional targeting parameters, and reach them vividly through the news feed instead of their dry inbox.

An automotive rooftop with E-mail addresses of its customers could target “buy a new SUV” ads to people who bought an SUV 5+ years ago, while targeting “Find nearby charging stations” to those who recently bought an electric vehicle.

IMO, it's a ploy by Facebook to sell more ads through customization techniques, which is smarter than what they were doing. It should have better results for dealerships, especially since most of them have a CRM of some type that exports out CSV and/or XML for importation into the Facebook Power Editor.
 
Ha... and no reply or maybe you read this and thought eh, this guy is a crackpot.
Ha! Sorry, Wednesday and Thursday are big auction days, so I haven't been in the office since Tuesday. I'm going to go over your posts again after I get caught up, although I think I'm going to need Google Translator because a lot of that is like another language.

I appreciate you responding.
 
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Hey Matt, how are you?

Growing your business is really exciting isn't it?

As an owner you really have to learn a lot about everything before you can truly trust any recommendations made by a marketing vendor like myself.

However, google offers a ton of information on how to best reach your target market effectively, so it really is a lot easier to learn than it was back in the day.

Generally we counsel clients to really break down who their ideal client is, to even go so far as to write a profile about them, much like an FBI profiler on NCIS would, before you invest in any advertising.

Think of it like flyfishing, before you select the bait, you think about what type of fish are in the lake, what they like to eat and when they get hungry. Bait selection takes care of itself after that.

I don't know if you enjoy fishing or not, but we like to simplify stuff to make it easy to remember later on.

Once you've identified who your buyers are, where they live, what they like and what matters to them, you will find it much easier to select the proper channel to reach them.

Taking it back to fishing for a second, make sure you're net ( i.e. landing pages, call to actions, websites) are solid. Otherwise the fish will fall through the holes and fail to land in your boat.

Hope this helps you and saves you time and money, Matt!
 
Wow, that was a lame ass pitch, Eduardo. OP is looking for advice, not to setup a call to discuss a potential client relationship.

Matt, to answer your question - it depends.

FB is going to give you access to your exact demo and work very similar to display advertising, including a CPM-based billing. The targeting is granular (in-market, your region) and the creative is certainly more eye-catching than a text ad but Google has one thing FB doesnt; point-of-sale users.

Sure, you can find in-market buyers on any platform, but you will rarely be able to find someone actively searching to buy or test drive a vehicle. Adwords allows that. Of course, you may end up paying a large CPC for that ability, but it backs out for most companies and with a little optimization it can be a very steady source of conversions.

If it was me I'd run both. Always test. FB might be a great way to generate interest from a larger pool of potential customers, and Adwords could be your base of consistent traffic. It's all testing. You need to find out what's right for you.

Hope that helps.


Hey Matt, how are you?

Growing your business is really exciting isn't it?

As an owner you really have to learn a lot about everything before you can truly trust any recommendations made by a marketing vendor like myself.

However, google offers a ton of information on how to best reach your target market effectively, so it really is a lot easier to learn than it was back in the day.

Generally we counsel clients to really break down who their ideal client is, to even go so far as to write a profile about them, much like an FBI profiler on NCIS would, before you invest in any advertising.

Think of it like flyfishing, before you select the bait, you think about what type of fish are in the lake, what they like to eat and when they get hungry. Bait selection takes care of itself after that.

I don't know if you enjoy fishing or not, but we like to simplify stuff to make it easy to remember later on.

Once you've identified who your buyers are, where they live, what they like and what matters to them, you will find it much easier to select the proper channel to reach them.

Taking it back to fishing for a second, make sure you're net ( i.e. landing pages, call to actions, websites) are solid. Otherwise the fish will fall through the holes and fail to land in your boat.

Hope this helps you and saves you time and money, Matt!
 
It's all good, hope it helps.
I've finally had a chance to respond @Alexander Lau , sorry about that. Google has delivered fairly good results...I think. My Google CPC ads consistently account for about 20% of my traffic daily. It is hard to get good placement there though, as I am in a market that has multiple DriveTime dealerships and they really dominate the paid search. The problem is, I don't know if those ads are worth the money I'm spending, i.e. I see that they're coming to my site, but that's really it.

Facebook sends less traffic (although I dont have an ad consistently running there like I do Google). But the people from these ads stay longer and view more pages. Again, I'm not sure if that really means anything, but it seems like it should.

We run weekly "down payment deals" specials on our website that generate pretty good interest. I'd like to send an ad out for that, but not sure the best way to do it on Google or Facebook. Any ideas?

Thanks for your response too, @trappstick.
 
I've finally had a chance to respond @Alexander Lau , sorry about that. Google has delivered fairly good results...I think. My Google CPC ads consistently account for about 20% of my traffic daily. It is hard to get good placement there though, as I am in a market that has multiple DriveTime dealerships and they really dominate the paid search. The problem is, I don't know if those ads are worth the money I'm spending, i.e. I see that they're coming to my site, but that's really it.

Facebook sends less traffic (although I dont have an ad consistently running there like I do Google). But the people from these ads stay longer and view more pages. Again, I'm not sure if that really means anything, but it seems like it should.

We run weekly "down payment deals" specials on our website that generate pretty good interest. I'd like to send an ad out for that, but not sure the best way to do it on Google or Facebook. Any ideas?

Thanks for your response too, @trappstick.
Although most PPC / SEM groups will never do this for you (partly because it holds them accountable for their work), you need to be able to measure quality score such as you see @ http://www.wordstream.com/quality-score

relevance-plus-user-experience-equals-quality-score.PNG


What is Quality Score?
Quality Score is Google's rating of the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads. It is used to determine your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process. Your Quality Score depends on multiple factors, including:
  • Your click-through rate (CTR).
  • The relevance of each keyword to its ad group.
  • Landing page quality and relevance.
  • The relevance of your ad text.
  • Your historical AdWords account performance.
No one outside of Google knows exactly how much each factor “weighs” in the Quality Score algorithm, but we do know that click-through rate is the most important component. When more people who see your ad click it, that’s a strong indication to Google that your ads are relevant and helpful to users. Accordingly, Google rewards you with:
  • Higher ad rankings
  • Lower costs
Additionally, it would be a wise decision to use a tool such as Brian Pasch's VistaDash (formerly ROI-BOT) connecting it with your CRM API in order to measure your cost per lead and cost per acquisition from specific campaigns, etc.

It's interesting that you're seeing Facebook ad arrivals staying on-site longer. Hmmm... might be an anomaly...? Keep an eye on that, your demographic might appreciate or trust Facebook ads even more so than Google, one never knows.

As for your question, not really, Google it. I've listed what works the best typically speaking.

Good luck!
 
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