Facebook Marketing Partner, Dealers United, recently announced a movement to help automotive dealers list their vehicles in Facebook Marketplace for Autos without monthly fees.
Through this offer, the company aims to provide the only true “no-catch” Facebook Marketplace solution in the industry. Their goal is to easily give dealers more exposure through the Facebook platform without requiring any additional product purchases.
Similar to third-party classifieds like Craigslist and eBay, Facebook Marketplace carries for-sale listings for local shoppers, such as real estate, automobiles, and furniture to help people buy and sell items within their communities.
Since its launch in 2016, Facebook Marketplace has quickly attracted shopper attention, specifically from in-market auto shoppers. A recent status update from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated, “Marketplace is now used by 800 million people — and is emerging as one of the most popular places to buy vehicles online.”
However, in order to post multiple vehicles into Facebook Marketplace automatically, automotive dealers are required to work with one of Facebook’s approved Inventory Partners.
While Facebook doesn’t allow their Marketplace Inventory Partners to charge per post or per lead, their Help Page asks for dealers to “keep in mind that there may be fees to work with our partners.” Commonly, some Inventory Partners package the listing service with other mandatory monthly fees, product bundles, upsells, or commitments.
“We were seeing a lot of unnecessary markups from other vendors in the space,” said Pete Petersen, CEO of Dealers United. “While there are certainly costs associated with syncing inventory feeds to Facebook, we’ve automated the process to give every dealer the chance to post on this powerful platform for free each month. With us, there aren’t any recurring fees.”
Dealers United does require a small, one-time activation fee to get started, which covers pulling the inventory feed from the dealership’s website or feed provider and setting up the 24-hour vehicle sync to Facebook’s API. The feed then runs daily, posting unlimited vehicles with live inventory updating automatically.
“When we first launched the campaign, we had hundreds of dealers calling in saying that it seemed ‘too good to be true,’ or wondering what the catch was,” said Brooke Jensen, CMO at Dealers United. “There is no catch. Once you pay the activation fee, you’ll have unlimited Marketplace posts.”
The announcement arrives on the heels of the company’s recent rebrand as “the Facebook and Instagram advertising solution for the auto industry.” Originally focused on bringing digital solutions to dealerships nationwide, Dealers United now is making a bold statement to purely align with Facebook’s mission in automotive.
“Many dealers aren’t yet taking advantage of the power of Facebook,” said Petersen. “We view this as an opportunity to show dealers how Facebook’s platform can increase their exposure and help them drive more sales conversations. Marketplace is a great starting point.”