How are Google Vehicle Listing Ads doing for you?

[Rick Buffkin]

I'm so happy this is localized, fair and working in the dealers favor! (FYI - I'm in TN and this was a local search for a Toyota Camry in Nashville TN)

 

[DrewAment]

I'm so happy this is localized, fair and working in the dealers favor! (FYI - I'm in TN and this was a local search for a Toyota Camry in Nashville TN)

LOL -- glad somebody is seeing it the way I do.

Also interesting to note - that I have been told - that the SRP/VDP conversion value on the venders reports do not take into account these unreal/fake - because that's what they are if the consumer is 2000+ miles away - customer clicks. So your dealer reporting may be off and not showing true local market "conversion"

 

[Tony Giampietro]

Wouldn't you rather the clicks going to your VDP instead of a 3rd party?

 

[DrewAment]

Wouldn't you rather the clicks going to your VDP instead of a 3rd party?

Yep -- kinda being tongue in cheek about the whole thing.

I stand by my previous comment >>>> Hard to believe (maybe not) that Google would allow them to set-up and manage a "merchant" feed when they are not even the merchant (owner) of the vehicles.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Tony Giampietro Yes, you're right. I do want the click to go to my VDP. Some of my vehicles are showing in the VLA's as well. AT is doing some shady $hit and Google is allowing it. Essentially they're trying to drive another dealers VDP stats up on their platform by showing the ads 1500 miles away knowing damn good and well that its basically useless traffic. That dealer prob has a upcoming pitch to talk about how well AT is providing quality VDP traffic. Notice the listing does have the "Reduced Price" badge also!! They promote that vehicles with that get more VDP views. Hummm...

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Hard to believe (maybe not) that Google would allow them to set-up and manage a "merchant" feed when they are not even the merchant (owner) of the vehicles.

Exactly!!!

 

[Auto_NC]

I'm so happy this is localized, fair and working in the dealers favor! (FYI - I'm in TN and this was a local search for a Toyota Camry in Nashville TN) View attachment 7649
View attachment 7650

Thank you for calling this out, I have seen this so many times recently here in the Raleigh market. I just did 2 sample searches for Used Silverado & Used F150 and AutoTrader had VAs running for a Silverado in Fresno, CA & a F150 in Ohio. Makes me wonder how much traffic they are getting off of these and how much of a dealers VDP count is really low quality out of market traffic.

 

[tnfly]

I operate a classified ads service in Middle Tennesee, and I investigated Google Auto Ads to see if there was a way for me to push my dealer partner's listings into it. I thought this might be a good way to add value to my partners and my offering since many of them don't have the means to set up merchant services themselves. I have a dealer who I helped evaluate her Auto Ads performance (not through me), and I was quite impressed with the results. Her CPC was well under a dollar and metrics (bounce rate, website interactions, time on site) were very good.

Unfortunately, I found that I was going to have to link the merchant services inventory to a Google My Business location (that I own), which would have just been strange. They don't permit me to pass them a location per listing. The result might have been like @Rick Buffkin screenshots. The listing location and actual vehicle location would be mismatched.

Edit:
I just realized that they don't actually have a location on their Auto Ad. They are in cahoots with Google on that one. I guess if you bring enough $$, Google will find a way to take it.

 

[ASuave]

I'm going to take the completely opposite viewpoint on this one.

Previously, third parties used the standard paid search text ads on Google to capture traffic, right?

Well now, the cheese has moved, and third parties are taking advantage of this new ad format.

If the third parties didn't take advantage of this feature, Carvana and CarMax would be eating everyone's lunch on VLA's.

And unlike most things third parties do, they aren't charging dealers any additional fees for this.

Sure they are driving traffic to their own website, not our dealership website, but if our vehicles are priced and merchandised well we have a good shot.

So the big question is - if third parties are doing this for their dealer clients for "free", is it worth dealers investing thousands to also compete in the VLA ad unit but drive traffic to their dealership website instead?

That depends. What do you wager the visibility to be if you depend on autotrader to list your inventory on google vehicle ads?
Its a tactic that works significantly better when done direct to the dealership site.
Ive seen average CPCs of $0.50 to $1.50, and would consider this a force multiplier in terms of overall shopper reach. In some markets, google is already demoing delivering a the listing ad when someone searches for a dealership by name.

Dollar for dollar, if you compare the amount of eyeballs you buy on autotrader (or any other 3rd parties) for the monthly subscription cost, vs the $1500-$3000 spent VLAs, its likely that you will reach more overall shoppers on google.
if the traffic converts after the fact, is a tougher question, but I would certainly rank the quality of it higher than display ads or many other current volume drivers available in digital.

 

[jennj]

We have several dealerships running GVLAs, and we've been pretty pleased with what we've seen from them so far. In general:

• Low cost per click
  • @NickA the first month was usually in the $1 - $1.50 range, but after that initial month each campaign's CPC dropped into the ~$0.50-$0.60 range, so hopefully yours will or has already gone down significantly as well
• Higher lead submission rate than some standard paid search campaigns
• Low bounce rates, high time on site

Here is a quick performance metric breakdown from 3 of our dealerships running GVLAs with similar ad spend (goal completions & conversion rates courtesy of DI Goals):

View attachment 7530

As far as launching these things... It is not as simple as a flip of a campaign switch and can be wildly labor-intensive if you don't know what you're doing (speaking from *inexperience*). Launching GVAs can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month and a half, regardless of whether you already have a Google Ads account up and running.

The "recommended" daily budget from Google and certified partners for the GVLA program is $100/day. However, the minimum recommended spend is $50/day, which has been sufficient for most of our dealerships.

If you have any questions about launching Vehicle Listing Ads for your dealership in the US, hit me up!

I'm interested in setting up Google VLAs for a dealership..... It does seem "intense" as you said. I've been trying to find someone to pay set it up and then let me run it.... so far no luck. Do you have this as an option? I've read all the Google Documentation over and over...and I always get sidetracked. Setting it up myself is do-able...I'm just looking to outsource the set up process and then take it over. Any insight?