I don't buy any of it anymore for this simple reason: I'm on a mission to find my car dealer, so I type that name into Google. I'm not on a mission to find anything else.
We are talking about car dealerships. Someone is typing a specific car dealer's name into Google. They're so far down the funnel they are not being converted. People are just clicking the first thing that is my dealer's website. Dealers are paying to give the customer, they already won, the convenience of not having to scroll a few pixels.
This is true! But as dealers, we live in a constant "fear of loss state" and are easy targets to over spend on advertising! It's easier to spend the money and just not worry about it!
Ex: Some of those clicks are from shoppers (used vehicles) on 3rd party websites looking for a specific vehicle at your dealership, they open another tab.. google your name and another dealer appears first.. they click on their website and find other vehicles of interest and never visit your website.. you've missed that shopper Mr. Dealer because you weren't buying your own name.. boom fear of loss!