When Being Yellow Is A Bold and Brave Step

If you haven't noticed, about 14% of dealership website visitorsare coming on mobile devices with another 5% on tablets. Your numbers may vary slightly but dealers would be remiss if they did not take mobile shoppers seriously.

Google searches done on mobile phones have a different urgency compared to searches done on mobile devices. How do I know this? The Google Adwords campaigns that I run for mobile devices have a Click Through Rate (CTR) that is four times that of normal SEM campaigns that target desktop users.

The conversion rates on mobile ads range from 30-40% which includes many phone calls generated by the "Click to Call" feature that Adwords provides. If you are not investing in mobile paid search, take a minute to read why I strongly encourage you to get started immediately.

Mobile Advertising and Device Targeting

If you are not familiar with Google Adwords options for mobile devices, speak with the Adwords management company you are using. The degree of granularity is amazing, so you can target specific devices with marketing campaigns that are optimized for their screen size.

By default, many Adwords campaigns are set to target "All Available Devices" which can create inefficiencies and a poor consumer experience. For example, a dealer creates a landing page on their primary website to promote the 2012 RAM 1500 truck. Once the page is published, they create an Adwords campaign to drive traffic to that page.

Most likely, that page does not exist on the dealers mobile website, nor can it be easily added.

So the 15-20% of mobile users who may be clicking on that paid ad for RAM 1500 trucks, will never see the custom landing page. What they will see is the home page of the dealer's mobile website which will not convert very well.

Testing Your Mobile Strategy

Today I am up in Seattle visiting with the team at Cobalt for their Automotive Website Awards (AWA) product demonstrations. This morning I conducted a number of searches on my iPhone that could represent a mobile shopper experience.

I encourage readers of this article to do the same test in their local market on their smartphone. Test new, used, and service searches on your smart phone to see if your dealership is in the first two paid ads that are shaded in yellow.

You need to be in the yellow to maximize the benefits of mobile paid search!

The green stars represents that at least one franchise dealer was showing up in the two paid search ads designed for mobile devices. How is your dealership showing on your smart phone? Please share your experience in the comments area of this blog post.

Missed Opportunities & Review Advertising Warnings

The search for "Nissan Service" in Seattle was a missed opportunity for Seattle franchise dealers which is allowing Midas and Firestone to connect with mobile users first. There were a number of other franchise dealers that were not appearing in search results, it was just not Nissan.

I really like the Adwords Ad Format that Hyundai of Kirkland is running because not only are they targeting mobile users, they have the "Click to Call" feature and their REVIEWS highlighted in the ad. This combination is IDEAL for dealers that have a strong reputation management program at their dealership.

My recommendation for this Hyundai store would be to focus on getting their reviews over a 4-star rating before using this ad format. I'm note sure if I would want to advertise that my store is 3 out of 5 stars, or 15/30. More importantly, the last two reviews on Google+ local are very bad, so this ad format is not really help them,

Since they are running on a Cobalt platform, I would suggets that they contact their Cobalt Pro-Care representative and ask about the Cobalt Reputation Management solution. I had a demo of the product yesterday and the latest update is very powerful and it would fix the problem of not having enough positive reviews for the store.

Mobile Should Not Be Ignored So How Are You Doing?

Take the 30 second challenge on your smartphone today. If your dealership is not appearing in the first two ad spots for your specific list of keywords that would be used by mobile shoppers for sales or service, get that problem fixed immediately.

If you would like to educate yourself on the latest strategies for paid search, join me at AutoCon 2012. I will be conducting three workshops in a series with Anita Avram from Google. Your get register online and save on registration when you register before July 30th. http://www.AutoCon2012.com