Three Paid Methods to Drive Traffic to Your Inventory

We've been very careful with how we approach inventory marketing on dealer websites. On one hand, we know that a dealer's inventory is the primary lead and sales driver for dealers. On the other hand, the concept of driving everyone directly to inventory is a flawed one. Sometimes, it's better to put people on an appropriate landing page rather than push them directly to the cars.

With that said, we've found that there are three very ways to drive shoppers directly into inventory. They are...

PPC

This is the obvious one. The no-brainer. Pretty much every PPC vendor in the industry has ways to pull inventory from the website and create targeted ads to pull people directly into vehicle details pages.

I'm not going to dwell on it, but I will say this: there are certain ads that should not go directly to VDPs. Lower funnel buyers should definitely be seeing inventory, but many ads that vendors run for dealers should be going to appropriate landing pages instead, especially for higher funnel shoppers.

Average cost per shopper ranges from $3-$7 each. Well worth it.

LotLinx

There is so much buzz in the industry right now for LotLinx, and rightfully so. The concept is this: drive shoppers from third party sites like AOL Autos directly into the corresponding vehicle details page on the dealer's website. This is different from the current model that keeps people shopping on these third party sites.

Taking people from these sites and planting them on your own website is one of the most innovative concepts to come about in years.

LotLinx charges $3.99 per unique shopper.

Social Media

This is the one that has the fewest dealers doing it, which is strange because it's the least expensive. With social media "dark post" advertising, dealers can drive shoppers to their inventory search results pages, landing pages, or specials pages without paying a ton for it.

Proper ads can do it for under $2 per unique shopper. We've seen it as low as $0.45.

A Warning

All of this sounds great, but there's always a catch. Be mindful. Watch your analytics to make sure you're getting the traffic you're expecting. Most importantly, all of these techniques should have the end result of increasing sales. Don't get lost in the minutia of looking at too many numbers. If you're spending thousands of dollars on any form of digital advertising, you should see a distinct increase in sales as a result.

2 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of DealerELITE.net to add comments!

Join DealerELITE.net

Comment by MANNY LUNA on October 23, 2014 at 2:06am: Thanks Amy,

No need too, I have all the data I need to know that a 77% bounce rate and 36 seconds time on site (VDP) is not a winning ticket for any of my dealer clients.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Comment by Amy Hughes on October 22, 2014 at 6:59pm: Steven, I am far from an expert on organic search results, if that is what you are asking. However, there are numerous threads here where you can garner plenty of advice on the proper SEO strategies, and the String blog is full of great advice. I simply wanted to reinforce the point that all dealers large and small can now get a pure, unadulterated, vendor neutral view into the metrics that speak to success for their particular mix of media spend.

Manny, as to your request for metrics specific to bounce rate and time on VDP, I'm happy to host a separate screenshare and show you the way our platform, the DPS platform that is, tracks those metrics for every source of traffic on a dealer's site (see above for some metrics on Facebook). However, I've hijacked enough of JD's post with these pretty pictures. As for the question, could a dealer get better results on their own with any website platform, the answer is, maybe. You see there are an infinite number of ways for any dealer can achieve their goals. JD happens to be focusing here on the "paid" ways to draw traffic. We try to help dealers crawl back out of the rabbit h*** that many have fallen down by thinking that there is any one particular seismic impact in any automotive advertising medium. When you don't know what you don't know, everything seems valuable. Valuable stories can get lost in the big picture and dollars wasted can be buried under the minutia of metrics that don't matter. When you remain vendor neutral you can share the truth, let the data do the talking, and let the dealer decide.

Comment by MANNY LUNA on October 22, 2014 at 6:04pm: Amy,

Are you saying a dealer website can't get the same or better results with your website platform?

I have nothing against the product, but our dealers wouldn't need to spend 4.00 a view to get better results.

Can you provide any bounce rates and time on VDP please.

Thanks

Manny Luna

CEO

VL Digital Marketing

Comment by steven chessin on October 22, 2014 at 5:53pm: Thanks Amy - I have had good results getting direct contact from Youtube / Google if the effort is made to do the best possible organic tagging. Can you comment about that "grassroots" approach - especially for small dealerships without big marketing budgets ?

Comment by Amy Hughes on October 22, 2014 at 4:49pm: JD, Lotlinx is looking strong as a referring traffic source in our platform. As you point out, tracking those referrals through analytics, the conversions that result from them and geoplotting the user sessions around your store will help dealers maximize their investment. Just had to share that there is traceable proof of success! Thanks.

Comment by Dan Ferguson on September 23, 2014 at 3:56pm: Great post, JD....YouTube pre-roll that only targets in market shoppers is also a great channel. You can actually target the customers preferred vehicle of interest based on searches the user has performed and sites/vehicles the user has looked at previously.

Comment by steven chessin on September 22, 2014 at 11:56pm: Mr Rucker - Could you add some thoughts regarding Youtube ? That is where I devote my attention. There isn't anywhere else that I can begin with stronger content and stronger partners with paid-advertising options available.