Display advertising helps you to keep your dealership's name in front of customers. Since people are spending 80 percent of their auto shopping time online, why not engage them as they research, browse, and compare different vehicles?

Set the expectations correctly, though. Done right, display ads reconnect and engage with web visitors that have specific models in mind. The results will not include high click-through rates and more conversions. Ads create awareness for the right customers at the right times.

Whenever a potential buyer looks at a specific vehicle on your website, they are cookied and then served with relevant display advertisements as they navigate away from your site. Google recently announced they would begin to phase cookies out in just over two years on their popular Chrome browser, but until then, there's plenty of opportunity.

Engaging customers as they browse the web, knowing the intent, helping the customer receive the right targeted display ads at the right times – thereby connecting with your in-market audience directly and right on time.

Google doesn't hold all the keys to this kingdom; display ads are ideal for reconnecting with web visitors from Facebook that are interested in specific models, too. Delivering an ad on the unit that the customer just viewed from your used car inventory along with 30 other units from your stock sets the right tone in a carousel ad on Facebook. Moving customers from Facebook to your website is the goal – not the other way around.

Another key – while your competition reduces their budget to only Google Ads, you get a direct match to potential car buyers via the integrated facets of Google's platform. Display and YouTube have all the same powerful shopping information included. This is especially so for those agencies with that competitive intel.

As an industry, we overspend on search and track specifically to conversions. Think about the value of display advertising from an impressions basis and we know where they've been via the cookie concept. Then serve ads of your most appealing in-stock inventory to an already engaged buyer. It's part of the equation as we move forward in 2020.