Facebook advertising, it’s certainly not a new concept. Dealerships have been using Facebook to advertise their sales and service promotions for years, but what does that exactly look like?

Facebook has a total of 2.3 billion monthly users and people tend to spend 35 minutes per day on their Facebook account. People also specifically go to Facebook and Instagram to engage with content, comment on posts, like interesting articles and share their favorite content.

When working with dealerships to launch Facebook campaigns, we often see a trend of managers only wanting to launch Facebook campaigns once a month, to advertise the monthly OEM incentives or when running a larger sales event. The reason for this often boils down to dealers not having the time, or the budget, to run these ads for every minor promotion. This is because it’s not just the ad spend associated with your Facebook campaign that you need to consider. Dealers don’t have the time to learn the Facebook Business Manager, or coordinate with their agency for every minor promotion, or even work with their graphics team to get Facebook ads built. So, what happens? Dealers will add the minor promotion onto the fourth slide on their homepage carousal, sit back and watch the money roll in…

Not so fast.

Your website visitors are likely going to your site for one of two reasons: to book a service appointment or browse through your inventory. It’s unlikely that your visitors are hanging around your homepage, waiting for your fourth slider to appear with information on your incredible service promotion.

If you do have a few visitors that find your promotion this way, that’s fantastic! However, this is purely a reactive sales strategy and not at all proactive. It’s important to share these promotions with the community to generate new business and keep those new customers continuously coming back.

If you have a fantastic service or sales special on now, there are so many other successful ways to get this message out, one of which being Facebook Ads.  

Now, not all Facebook Ad campaigns need to be time-consuming, agency requiring, graphic designer demanding Facebook Ads. There are tools available that help to simplify this process, to cut down on time and allow anyone in the dealership to launch their own campaign, for any department.

Look for a tool that allows the Facebook Ad creation to be simplified on many levels including content creation, audience building, landing pages and behavioral tracking.

Content Creator

Odds are, only a small portion of the specials you’re running in your dealership make it to Facebook. I’ll work with dealers who launch five marketing emails on a monthly basis, but only run one Facebook campaign throughout the month. Dealers tend to save only their big events for Facebook, but fail to advertise their smaller, perhaps more important, communications. For example, dealers will advertise their cash box events, weekend BBQs and tent sales, but won’t advertise their new model launches, oil change discounts or detailing packages.

Typically for a weekend sale promotion, dealerships will set aside a larger budget. They will work with their graphic designers to create some appealing content, work with a marketing company to get the message out to their customer database and request that all mediums have a campaign running, advertising this promotion.

When it comes to oil change promotions, offering a $10 off coupon doesn’t necessarily call for an extravagant campaign, especially when you need to work with an agency to communicate the message.

Look for a content creator that has pre-populated templates for dealership promotions, across all departments. Putting an ad campaign together isn’t something that you need to outsource, your content creator account should already have all the resources you need to get started and build a nice-looking campaign, no matter what you’re advertising. Just select your theme, switch out any of the vehicles or images using our OEM-specific file manager, and there you have it! An easy-to-create custom ad, for any dealership promotion.

Custom Facebook Audiences

Facebook has a very large selection of audience options for any campaign. Working with agencies, I’ve noticed that ad audiences aren’t something that’s commonly discussed. Agencies will usually use their best judgement to select a remarketing list, select a few good behavioral or interest categories that have worked well in the past and call it a day. Now this isn’t a negative by any means, after all, this is why dealers hire agencies in the first place. You trust their judgement and are happy with the results that they generate.

Dealers who don’t want to outsource their Facebook campaigns or who want to save some money should look for simplified audience selectors with custom audience groups built specifically for your automotive business. This makes creating your ads so much easier and ensures you’re targeting all applicable people for your business, and for your campaign.

Engagement-Focused Webpages

When it comes to traditional Facebook marketing, whether you’re a dealer or an agency, odds are you end up spending a few hours putting together your Facebook campaign.

Say you want to introduce the launch of the new 2021 redesigned SUV in your lineup. This new vehicle is going to be the hottest trend since heated seats, and you need to get this message out. You work with your team to build and develop your promotional idea, have a special ad created by your designer, carefully select your audience to target and craft the perfect text to be delivered alongside your vehicle lifestyle image. And where does your ad go? To your vehicle inventory list of course!

I see this time and time again. Dealers or agencies put so much thought into the ad itself, but little to no thought on the actual landing page. What’s the purpose of spending money on clicks or engagements if all that effort draws traffic to a page that’s only partially relevant to your message? Visitors who you spent your carefully planned marketing dollars on, aren’t given the proper resources they need to actually make a purchase decision.

If you’re introducing the 2021 SUV of the decade, your landing page needs to express that. You need to include walkaround videos, brochures, coupons, links to build, prices, reviews, etc. Use the excitement you’re creating within your ad and carry that through to a webpage used to enhance your message.

Your content creator should make it easy to continue the excitement. All Facebook ads automatically have a personal webpage connected to the campaign. This personal webpage includes downloadable PDFs, video options, printable coupons, click-to-calls, form submissions and so much more. 

In-Depth Behavioural Tracking

Now, the least exciting aspect of any good marketing platform, but arguably one of the most important components, brings us to reporting. Because why would you continue to use an agency, platform or ad direction, if you aren’t seeing success?

Answer: You shouldn’t!

Look for a service with in-depth behavioural tracking on all campaigns, one that carefully measures all actions across webpages and track the number of clicks you’re generating with your campaign, but also what content is being engaged with. Is your audience more engaged with your videos or PDFs? Do they prefer your click-to-call options, or online chat options? This information gives you powerful insights to maximize your campaign performance time and time again.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. Facebook advertising isn’t a new concept. If you haven’t launched Facebook campaigns for your dealership, I’m probably not speaking your language. If you are currently launching Facebook campaigns for your dealership, there is always room for improvement. Consider launching more regular Facebook Ad campaigns to help communicate your important messages, and if you don’t have the time to put these campaigns together, there are great tools out there to assist you.