It’s been 63 years since the field of artificial intelligence (AI) was first introduced as an academic discipline, but put the term in front of the average person – regardless of what industry they work in – and you’ll typically get a glazed look and a mutter of something about computers or robots.
While we’re still lacking the advancements in AI of visionaries like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, AI itself is very much alive and well in multiple industries, and has been for close to a decade. One of those is advertising, where AI processes have been battering down barriers for years, doing amazing work in the form of processing and analyzing big Data to find patterns that might take a team of employee’s months or years to uncover, if they could so at all.
This form of AI, more commonly known as Machine Learning (ML), isn’t taking human jobs, it’s augmenting them, and getting them away from the monotony of bureaucratic jobs and back into the free space of developing campaigns and making big-picture decisions on the best way forward.
Mark Zuckerberg’s social network king might have seen some bumpy back roads the past couple of years over how much data it is collecting and what it is doing with it down the road, but trying to deny the power of social media advertising means you’re either blind of in denial at this point. Until recently, most of the work done by AI in the social media niche was limited to three categories:
The first, was great for things like tweaking emails, web content, and mobile content: Notching the correct keywords, and using the right tone for the right audience are tasks made possible by ML. Testing is also done quickly thanks to the Big Data capability involved. What would take days or weeks to coalesce is whittled down to seconds.
What’s previously escaped social media advertisers with AI has been the social part of things – we’re talking about individual relationships and real-time interactions, not the colder scientific aspects of ML.
That’s before the current round of breakthroughs, which will allow digital marketers to customize messaging in social media advertising to the look and feel of every individual user, not just the customer segment niche they fall into. These will be true one-to-one campaigns, like if your TV could view everything you’ve watched, read, and shopped for in the last 20 years and play you a commercial accordingly.
This type of social media AI is nothing short of a golden goose come home to roost for the auto sales leads industry. Internet advertising has painted with a broad brush when it comes to pairing customer segments with automobile ads. Geography, income level, and gender have always topped the list of what ad to send across that screen.
This sort of AI involvement means it’s time to dream bigger and be bigger than that. Let’s run through an example or two to really grasp the scope of this new tech. The first is Daisy, a young, single professional woman who is ready to move past her clunker from college and invest in a vehicle that fits her station in life. She’s not tied down so she’s looking for something sleek but fuel-efficient.
When the new AI crawls her Facebook and Instagram profiles, it picks up on her age, where she works, and what places she’s frequently checking in to. They are mostly restaurants in the area where she works and fun places like karaoke bars and baseball games on the weekend.
Her pictures feature friends and coworkers, not significant others and children. Even her typical outfit color choices can be read by the ML interface.
The pictures and posts let the ML churn out that Daisy is not married and has no kids, meaning safety and space available for “stuff” are minimal concerns for her when considering a new vehicle. Her outfits trend more towards conservative and fun then outgoing and flashy, so a sports car doesn’t seem like her type of ride.
Then there’s all those check-ins on social media at local restaurants. ML uses Google Maps to plot a course of everywhere she usually hits for lunch and works up a list of dealerships that she regularly passes by to and from lunch, heck she probably sees their dealer names so many times she could probably tell you all the names in her sleep.
And when those names start popping up on Daisy’s social media pages advertising sedans and small SUVs that get solid mileage at an affordable price, they’ll be right in her wheelhouse. It’s not just a blind stab at her business based on where she lives, it’s an efficient use of data analysis to touch on precisely what the customer wants.
Our other example is Oscar, a married father of three who is retiring this year and who is about to start helping his daughter get her toddler to daycare three times a week. Oscar’s been a sports car guy his whole life, loving the American muscle cars of his youth and their modern-day equivalent: Camaros, Vettes, Chargers, you name it, he’s owned it.
He has a few magazine subscriptions to niche publications, has a Hot Rod group he’s been a member of since the early 1990s, and buys the accessories – wheel covers, driving gloves, you name it. But crawling Oscar’s latest posts and inquiries paints a different picture than the middle-aged speed demon. Now he’s joined a grandparents’ group and is asking questions about the different models of car seats for two-year-olds, and is far more interested in rear-seat legroom than torque and horsepower.
He’s gauging safety standards like never before and joining Facebook groups that are full of suburban enthusiasts. Chewing up Oscar’s search patterns and posts reveal that he’s out of the sports car market and will soon be toting around someone who weighs less than 40 pounds and needs to be facing the rear to maximize safety. That means an SUV with plenty of room for playpens and strollers.
The analysis becomes a lead for dealerships in Oscar’s neighbrohood – remember he’s retired and no longer takes that long commute – and next time he logs onto Facebook he has the pleasant surprise of ads geared towards the needs of himself and that beautiful first grandbaby.
SimpSocial empowers modern dealerships with two game-changing solutions: precision-targeted social media lead generation tied to live inventory, and a powerhouse engagement platform that responds, follows up, and books appointments automatically.
In today’s world, it’s no secret that businesses need to learn how to leverage the power of social media to help ensure that they achieve the growth goals that they’re striving for. Social media has proven to be a valuable tool for businesses looking to grow because it provides a window of opportunity, behind which a massive new lead pool awaits.
From there, your goal is to connect with the right target audience, at the right time, and with the right content. Once you’ve mastered the art of connecting with your audience through social media, it’s time to convert your new leads into paying customers.
As a car dealership, you might not fully understand the benefits of the reach that social media offers. More than likely, your typical leads come in the form of a local buyer who is interested in paying you a visit to take a look at a particular car that you have in your lot. And in fact, you’ve probably built your business around this exact type of client.
However, think about the world of possibilities that await you when you extend your reach, pull from new locations and target audiences, and begin to give your competition a run for their money. This could be your chance to achieve the market growth that you’ve been searching for.
The clearest advantages when it comes to social media marketing is the fact that you can quickly and immediately engage and connect with a pool of potential customers. You can push content that targets those interested in particular car brands that you service, and you can be sure that your content appeals to a wider audience spread out across a wider geographical area.
But what about lead generation? Sure, you can push content all that you want with social media. But how can you be sure that your lead funnel is doing its job?
Remember, any advertising or marketing strategy is only as good as the leads that it can generate. With that said, you need to do a little bit of work to ensure that the connections you make with your target audience through social media actually make it into your lead funnel as quality leads that you can work to convert.
For example, when a potential customer clicks on your ad, you can use a simple feature that captures their email address. From there, you have a new point of contact where a member of your sales team can reach out to that connection with some more information related to a particular car or sale that they expressed interest in.
From there, that connection becomes a lead that your sales team can work until they convert. In essence, social media was the direct catalyst that attracted a new potential lead to your business. Once you’ve made that connection, the sky is the limit.
If you’re ready to learn just how to leverage social media to grow your automotive business, Simpsocial would be proud to help. Our state of the art AI enabled customer contact center will make it easier and more automated than ever before to ensure that the leads you create through social media advertising are effectively managed by our AI technology.
Free your sales team up to convert – our AI technology will handle your leads. Learn more today.
Most car dealers still use traditional methods of advertising, like newspaper ads, radio, and television. These are tried and true methods of driving sales and have their place.
But online advertising, especially on Facebook and Instagram, is targeted, cost-effective, and agile. This is the new way to communicate with your potential customers.
Let’s look at each of the above claims as they relate to Facebook and Instagram advertisements:
Using the power of artificial intelligence (AI), such as the kind we use at SimpSocial, you’re able to show potential customers exactly the car their looking for or one that meets their criteria. What we mean is: when they search for 4×4 pickup trucks online, their computer will track that information. When they next go on Facebook, they’re shown ads of the actual inventory you have on the lot.
Since you’re only paying for the people who actually see the ad, you’re going to get a better ROI (return on investment). With a newspaper ad, you pay for the total number of people that buy or read the paper; the publisher has no idea how many people actually read your ad.
With AI and Facebook/Instagram tracking, we can see exactly how many people saw your ad, how many clicked to call you, and how many visited your website. We can even make it all VIN-based to make sure that everyone who searches for your exact vehicle will find it on your lot.
Because it’s all digital, you can change your inventory in real time. Sold a car? It comes right out of your ads. Brought in a truckload of cars? They will be automatically added to your advertisements. Everything runs through our exclusive CRM (customer relationship management software).
For there, you’re able to see everything about the customer and track every step of the sales process. Or it can be loaded through your CRM, as well.
Have you ever seen the movie Minority Report? As the main character, played by Tom Cruise, walks around, the advertisements in the shopping mall change to speak to him, by name and based on his prior purchases. That’s dynamic advertising.
We can do that for your potential buyers online – minus the iri scans that are used in the movie. As soon as they start searching for vehicles online, Facebook, using a cookie tracker that the customer authorized, knows they’re doing it.
When they log into Facebook to see what’s going on or for a good laugh, they’ll see your ad. As soon as they click on it, the Facebook user can become a lead for your dealership.
Generating leads is the key to sales, especially big ticket items, like cars. Using Facebook and Instagram ads, we can help you generate more leads than any other form of advertising. It doesn’t require that the customer or any more than click on your ad.
Once they’ve done that, they enter our CRM and become part of the sales process.
In essence, we’re able to integrate social media in the front to the backend CRM through an AI portal. The artificial intelligence processes everything to your CRM with all the data and lots of guidance.
Your staff can spend a lot less time chasing after weak leads. For example, when someone steps on the lot and had no idea what they want, your salespeople can spend hours going through the cars with them just to help them narrow it down.
Using Facebook Lead Ads, you’ll not only know exactly what vehicle they clicked on and were interested in, but their information will be populated into your CRM and show as a new lead.
These are essentially “self-vetting leads.” The customer is telling you exactly what they’re looking for before you even begin a conversation with them. Hours of guesswork are eliminated. Even if the client changes their mind, they’ve started with an idea so you have some of their preferences to start with.
If you buy a $2000 newspaper ad or a billboard, you have no idea if that’s the thing that brought the customer to you. Of course, those things are great for marketing, the process of building a name in your area. They aren’t great for targeting that one individual with just the right ad at just the right time.
Using Facebook/Instagram ads, we can target the right search words and present the ad to the prospect. More importantly, we can see how many people saw the ad, how many clicked, and how many decided to call you. You will have proof that the ads are working. This information includes the date and time that they clicked on the ad.
Here’s a scenario that you might find interesting: Imagine we find out you have more people clicking on ads on Saturdays at 2 pm than any other time. We can run an ad that invites them down to your business on Saturdays for a special discount or a free item for a test drive or whatever you want to do. We can tell when people are looking so we can adapt your marketing efforts to that information.
Of course, you don’t want to pay for people in Duluth to see your ads. Facebook and Instagram let us set up audiences that can be restricted by location (and gender, income, interests, and much more). This lets us make sure that everyone who sees your ad is someone who might actually buy from you.
These ads will include vehicles that are actually in your inventory, but it doesn’t force you to allow people to purchase online. It will let them see the ad and push a button to call you. They might call and say that they saw the red F-150 and will be right over to test drive it.
That’s okay. We get our information from whatever you’re doing right now or through our exclusive CRM program. You take photos, enter the basic data, and our artificial intelligence takes over. It creates the perfect ads for you and posts them to automatically online. Our team reviews performance regularly and fine tunes the system when needed.
Using Facebook and Instagram ads for your auto dealership is one of the most cost-effective advertising techniques you can use. Best of all, there’s tracking data that proves that it’s working.
Multi-vendor reports are a pain, right?
If you sit down and look at all the reports that you get from multiple vendors, the total sales they take credit for exceeds the total sales you had in that time period.
So, what’s happening?
ROI (return on investment) with marketing and advertising is difficult to track. Unless you have customer who tells you what prompted them to show up at your showroom, you have no idea if it was the newspaper, the billboard, the radio ads, or the text messages that prompted them to come in.
Here are some of the things you need to do track your marketing ROI:
The last contact gets the credit – You can look at the billboard and the radio ad as branding if the last thing to get some in the door was an email they got that morning. When you track ROI, whatever the customer recalls seeing last is the vendor/outlet that gets the credit.
Talk to your vendors – Sit down with each of your vendors and let them know that you’re changing how you track their success. You’ll be looking at only giving credit if the customer recalls their particular outlet. If the outdoor signage company doesn’t get any credit in a month, they might not be around the next month. These might be hard conversations, but in the end, you’ll be a lot happier and making more money from your marketing and advertising dollars.
Track what you can – Some things, like Facebook ads, text messages, and emails can all be tracked right though your CRM. If someone got a message on Sunday afternoon and they show up on Tuesday morning, you can attribute that sale to the latest message.
Ask the customers – This is a shocking idea, but it’s important. “What brings you in today? Did you get a text message from us or see an ad?” Most customers don’t mind you asking. If they don’t remember, you can move on. It’s important to ask the customer what they remember and to track it.
Add tracking – Have you ever noticed those TV ads that say to text a word to their number? Did you ever notice that the word changes? That’s tracking. If I want to know if overnight Saturday ads, which are cheap on TV, are really working, run an ad that has tracking built in. The same for a newspaper ad. Include a texting number and have a special word in the ad. Use a word that’s easy to remember, not some strange code only you understand. When you get those messages, you’ll know exactly where they come from. Even a billboard or a bus stop bench can have a special code that says, “Text TRUCK to 12345 to get a special financing offer.” You’ll know precisely where the customer came from and what they responded to.
The days of “tens of thousand people a day drive past it” are gone. There are far too many ways to track exactly who saw what and when and what they did about it to accept the old idea that eyeballs on ad justifies its price.
Don’t bother with newspaper ads that aren’t trackable. As we noted above, it’s not hard to put tracking into these advertisements, but you need to plan ahead and do it well.
If there are multiple vendors under a single contract, simply assign them a portion of the sale each. If there are four vendors under a single contract and you can’t figure out which one helped make a sale, they get ¼ of a sale each.
At the end of the month, add up each source to figure out where you’re getting the best ROI. The number of sales credits should be less than your total sales for the month. If it’s more than your sales, someone is getting credit they shouldn’t.
This process might take time, but it’s worth it. Eventually, you can narrow down where your sales are coming from and invest more money there. This increases your ROI and reduces your cost per sale. And isn’t that the goal of all advertising? A great ROI?
From the Silent Generation (1924 to 1942) to the Millennials(1981 to 1996), there are a lot of people who have very different ways of communicating.
The Silent Generation can remember party lines and payphones. The Millennials have always had cell phones and can barely remember flip phones.
So how can you market to all of these generations with one simple communication channel? Texting or SMS.
Text messaging is the number one way to communicate on cell phones.
They’re Already Here
With almost everyone who owns a cellphone using it to text, it should make sense that texting is a great way to sell cars. More than that, they’re already using their phones and tablets to research cars. “More than half (53%) of automotive internet shoppers use a mobile device in their quest for automotive information.”3
With more than half of auto shoppers already using mobile devices and all of them texting, it’s time for auto dealerships to start using text messages to sell cars.
If you’re not sure what’s going on with your customers, look in the repair waiting area, look around Wal-mart, take a walk in a park. Everyone is looking at their phones, young and old.
How to Make Texting Work for You
There are a few steps you should take before you start using texting for your dealership.
Get a sales floor cell phone. This is the number you will publish online and in your print ads.
Your sales team will take over your text messaging if you let them. This will present a whole bunch of problems for you. First, you won’t have access to those numbers later to market to. Second, you have no idea what was said by any salesperson to a customer. Third, if they’re busy, the text will go unanswered.
Remember: Over 95% of texts are read and most of those within five minutes. (If you don’t believe those statistics, consider your own phone use). People expect a quick response from texting. Be sure they get it.
You will want to get your messages onto a computer screen where they’re easier to manage. There are a lot of services available that will let you send and receive messages on your computer. Both Android and iOS have free applications that will do it right from your texting app. Most other applications will let you send bulk text messages to market your dealership. Again, over 95% of text messages get read. There is no other way of contacting your customers that’s more effective.
Have the computer application where someone can watch it, on the manager’s computer, or the receptionist’s, or on a shift phone that someone is assigned to carry around every shift.
Build a text marketing strategy
Using an online service to send bulk messages, create a text marketing strategy. Look to use those text messages to promote specials on the lot or to remind customers when it’s time for an oil change.
You can increase your brand loyalty through text messages by being consistent, not texting too often, and giving good information that everyone can use.
Be sure that any incoming texts are responded to quickly, within five minutes, and that your outgoing texts are professional and informative. Keep it short and don’t hard sell via text. Through text messages is not the time to start asking a thousand questions and doing the “Come down and we’ll show you,” tactic. Be cool and responsive. That’s what people who text are expecting and need.
Text messaging as a superpower
Text marketing has not been adopted by many dealerships, in spite of the number of people using it and how easy it is.
If your dealership starts doing text marketing, you have a good chance of dominating your area and building a whole new group of loyal customers.
The world of selling vehicles has changed a lot.
The classic car salesman (and they were mostly men) waited for the customer to hit the lot. The customer usually arrived because they knew the make of the car or the dealdehip was the “best one in town.”
As soon as a toe crossed the line, the salesman would ask the question, “How are you today?” Oddly, everyone knew that he didn’t care. It was a formality that really meant, “How fast can I get you into a car and earn a commission?”
That’s all changed. Today, the buyer is in charge. The world is different and sales people are finding that they need to adapt.
Recently, we sat down with one of our long-time clients, Oliver. He discussed why he was using SimpSocial and how it affected his business.
SS: Why did you choose to use SimpSocial?
O: Well, I realized that everyone around me was using social media. My kids, my grandkids, my sales people – everyone is social media all the time. I asked my adult daughter how often she went on Facebook and she told me that she looked at it about five times a day. That convinced me that I needed to look at using social media to promote sales.
SS: How did you decide to use SimpSocial?
O: When I started, I had no idea what to do. I gathered my sales team, a group of younger men and women, and asked them what they thought. I don’t really use Facebook or Twitter or any of those other platforms, but I know that they all did. “What do you think we should do?” I asked.
They told me that we should do social media advertising, then use text messaging and emails to develop a relationship with the lead.
One of my salespeople, Kelly, showed me some messages she got from a competitor. They were interesting.
SS: Then you started looking for the right service?
O: I asked my sales manager to bring me some recommendations. He came to me with three different companies. We chose SimpSocial because it was the right price, the right services, and is oriented specifically to auto dealers.
We looked at a couple of other companies, but they didn’t specialize in what we do. I’m sure they can do a fine job, but I don’t want to have to explain our goals and priorities. SimpSocial was the answer.
SS: And how has it been?
O: Great! SimpSocial created Facebook Lead Generation ads for us and linked them to the CRM. They helped set up a communication system that pretty much runs itself. My sales manager assigned someone, Kelly, in fact, to keep track of leads and sales.
The leads we get have been very productive. Kelly tracks leads from the time they first fill out a form to the time they buy a car or truck. We’ve been well into the 30% success rate and that’s just in six months. I’m told there are leads that might not pan out for a year or so, but that they’re moving through the sales process and will buy.
Since I don’t have to pay per lead and I don’t pay someone to sit and make calls all day long, it’s a great return on investment.
SS: What do you say to dealers who are thinking about their advertising and sales?
O: I would say, look at social media. Everyone is doing it. I’m an old guy and it’s not my thing, but it doesn’t have to be. The best part about hitting SimpSocial is that I didn’t have to learn to do anything but read a screen on the CRM. I can see what the lead has been doing, what they clicked on, and if they’re active.
Once in while, I just open the CRM and make a couple of [one calls. All I do is introduce myself.
SS: How has it affected your advertising budget?
O: Honestly we’ve gone ahead and cut out most of the ads that we used to do. No one buys the paper, the phone book is a thing of the past, and billboards were never all that great for us. SimpSocial and my team have turned this new technology into a really great tool for our dealership.
I’ll tell you the truth. I was dragged kicking and screaming to this idea. I know I make it sound like I was relaxed and happy about it, but in reality, it was something I resisted until my daughter convinced me that it was probably the easiest way to reach people.
Like I said, I’m not young, so these ideas are not foreign to me, but I’m glad I listened to her and to my team.
Salespeople are notoriously hard to manage. Auto salespeople doubly. The industry has a high turnover, lots of rookies, and a bad reputation as a place to work. There are some things that a manager can do to change that climate, keep their staff, and improve their business.
The high turnover on the sales floor has a huge impact your business. Many dealerships have simply learned to deal with it, but it hurts your business.
Your customers come to your business to work with experts to buy a car. Today, they can buy a car online without ever speaking to anyone, why should they come to you? They look to someone to answer all their questions. If that person can’t, because they’re new to the company or even new to selling, they might find themselves going someplace where people know what they’re doing.
Many dealerships have a core of salespeople who stay for years. They might joke about it, but the constant turnover is taxing. There’s always someone new to train, someone else that has to be broken in. They waste time teaching someone enough to get them on the floor and that person is gone in a few weeks. It’s exhausting and dieting.
You’re wasting time hiring someone new all the time. The resumes, the paperwork, the training, the schedule – everyone comes to you with their own life and you have to accommodate. You find yourself needing to get used to a new person every few weeks, follow them around to how their doing, and retrain them in the ways of your business.
Plus, you’re responsible for their performance. How can you meet your goals if half the people who are supposed to be selling for you have been here a week?
Every new employee costs your money. The cost of the ad. The cost of the processing and paperwork. The cost of training. There are a lot of costs associated with bringing someone new on.
There are three major changes you can make that will help you keep your staff.
Take the time to train your staff and retrain your staff. Look for new tools, new techniques, new information to share with them. Rather than seeing their work as a job, help them to see it as a career.
Training the “old guys” will be tough. They often walk into a room thinking they know it all. They’ve been selling cars since Edsel was a baby. You will need their buy-in to pull it off. The best way to do that is.
Explain to the old guys why training is important for keeping the new people. Explain to the new people how training will help them make more money. Explain policy changes and new structures to everyone so that they can see how the change makes the company better.
If you can, bring your staff into the decision-making process when changes are needed. If you can’t, at least respect them enough to tell them why the change.
Hold everyone accountable equally. There should be a set of expectations for the team and everyone should be held to those expectations. If someone doesn’t meet their goals, hold them accountable.
Part of accountability is retraining and teaching. If someone is struggling, take the time to not only tell them what they’re doing wrong but to teach them the right way to do it. This will create loyalty. You’re not just yelling at them and expecting them to figure it out. You’re helping them to improve.
There’s a myth that Millennials are snowflakes who want to be coddled and aren’t willing to work hard. The reality is that they, and almost everyone else, understands that most companies aren’t loyal to their employees and that there are a lot of people who just skate by. “Why work hard if that guy doesn’t have to?”
Times have changed. The old days of seeing salespeople as endlessly replaceable are over. It’s expensive to replace them and many are willing to make working for you a career, if they have the guidance and respect they deserve. You get a team you can count on for years. They’ll not only help you meet your goals, but will make it their goal to impress you.
According to the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA), over 56% of all dealer advertising dollars went to the internet. Some of the old staples, like TV, radion, and newspapers, have fallen off a cliff.
While we lament the loss of great local papers, business must continue.
So the big question in 2026 is: Where should I put my internet dollars?
Website – You must have a great website. Period. Many people won’t even visit a business that doesn’t have a great website. It’s like the front window of your business.
You don’t need a big fancy website, but it’s wise to have one that makes it easy to search your inventory and to ask questions.
Social media – Check out these numbers from Hootsuite:
All of these numbers indicate one thing: You need to advertise on social media.
YouTube is the number one social media platform. Yes, it’s considered a social media platform because you can comment on things, leave information, and read what others think. However, very few people open YouTube to communicate with their friends.
The number one social media platform that’s real platform is Facebook. Almost all of the 69% of Americnas who have a social media account have a Facebook account. It’s that simple.
What about Instagram? Instagram has over 1 billion active users. Facebook, by contrast, has over 2.45 billion users worldwide.
So why’s that important? Facebook owns Instagram. When you set up an ad on Facebook, you have the option of showing it on Instagram without having to create another ad.
Here’s the thing: There seems to be no limit to how many leads you can generate using Facebook Lead Generation ads.
On average, dealers spend about $20 per lead.
So if you want leads, you just need to figure out how many times you can afford $20 for a viable lead.
Facebook offers some success stories on their website:
“Hub City Ford reached auto shoppers in the market and drove purchases over a 60-day period between November 2017 to January 2018.
Hub City Ford generated qualified leads, resulting in:
“Camping World improved its shopping experience and connected with shoppers showing purchase intent. Between January 24 and April 17, 2018, Camping World’s ongoing campaign delivered:
Even Facebook’s own direct numbers indicate that they generate leads that buy cars.
Even if you low ball the average price of Ford at Hub City Ford to $25,000 per vehicle, they made $850,000 in sales in two months. There’s no way to spend that much on ads in the same amount of time.
Their ROI was massive.
Again, if we consider the average auto is $25,000 and the average lead on Facebook costs $20, Hub City only spent $3000 on ads. The other $847,000 they made was ROI.
In more competitive areas, you’ll end up paying more than $20 per ad. You might pay less. Either way, it’s nearly impossible to not get your money’s worth. Particularly since Facebook charges you for the lead, not for the impression. If someone doesn’t click on your ad, you don’t pay for it.
As long as you’re setting the ad up correctly (and we can help if you need it) and you have a follow-up plan (we can help there too), you should start at $1000 per month. See what results you get and how you might improve your process.
No matter what you do, you’re going to get a more traceable and provable return than you ever will with a billboard, a newspaper ad, or a radio ad.
Try it and see if you can generate all the leads your team can handle. We’re betting you can.
SimpSocial empowers modern dealerships with two game-changing solutions: precision-targeted social media lead generation tied to live inventory, and a powerhouse engagement platform that responds, follows up, and books appointments automatically.
Facebook lead ads are a unique tool that is more than simply an advertising system. Facebook has created ads that are designed to specifically generate leads. One of its biggest strengths is the ads are created to capture leads on mobile devices.
Everyone is on Facebook. Seven in ten (69%) Americans are on Facebook. The vast majority of them go on Facebook every day.
That means that Facebook is one of the most reliable places to advertise. In fact, only YouTube has more visitors in the world of social media. Yes, YouTube is considered a social media platform.
Facebook allows you to keep your ads very localized. You can reach out to people at a specific distance from your dealership.
The ads on Facebook mobile are unique. The viewer taps a single button and a form pops up. The form is pre-populated. All the person needs to do is confirm that the information is correct and it’s sent to you.
Because this system is as simple as possible, there are many fewer lost leads. Facebook users are able to reach out to you with just two clicks and no typing.
Using the Facebook audience defining system, you can target people who are looking for a vehicle, either actively or passively.
This audience function is the hardest part of the job. You must define your audience well and completely.
One of the major advantages to the Facebook contact forms is you can add your own questions. This allows you to start the qualifying process well.
Start by asking questions that build trust and help you understand the lead. The questions shouldn’t go straight to trying to sell a vehicle. They need to be subtler and help you build a profile of what that person needs.
After that first round of questions on the contact form (no more than 2 or 3), you can send messages or emails to learn more about this person and their needs.
Facebook ads integrate directly to your CRM. All the data, including the day and time, are delivered directly to your customer management system.
This is the most powerful part of their system. Having this information in your CRM instantly, you can trigger everything. Send a text. Launch an email. Schedule a call. The sales process isn’t delayed waiting for data to be downloaded.
Your lead ads can be designed to do a lot.
The choice is yours as to how you want to entice your lead – stop click the button.
Once you’ve created the pipeline and started to get leads, you will start seeing those soft leads turn into sales. The process can be almost entirely automated, so that the leads arrive in the showroom ready to buy.
SimpSocial empowers modern dealerships with two game-changing solutions: precision-targeted social media lead generation tied to live inventory, and a powerhouse ai automotive crm engagement platform that responds, follows up, and books appointments automatically.
Marketing has a major issue, an issue that has quickly become its Achilles heel: most of the information that marketing agencies give to their clients means nothing.
The KPI Problem
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the numbers and metrics that show how an ad campaign has been performing.
Most lists of KPIs include a lot of numbers that mean very little:
All of these jargons dance around the real issue. The thing that every business—especially an auto dealer—needs to know is how much money did they make from the money they invested.
Return on Investment (ROI) is the one thing that everyone needs. How much money are you making from the marketing and advertising you’re paying for?
Make the Change
If you’re a dealer, you should require your marketing agency to help you calculate ROI. In the age of everything being trackable, they will be able to help you figure out exactly how much you’ve made from every advertising dollar.
If you’re an agency, you need to create an ROI pathway for your clients. Show your clients how you can make them money by tracking each client from initial contact to purchase. This change for agencies, especially digital marketing agencies, will bring back credibility to a field that has gotten a lot of money in the recent past, but has left some companies feeling taken to the cleaners.
Go Big or Not at All?
There are a few really big advertising agencies that outsource work to smaller agencies. They will get big contracts from businesses. The agency will then hire a smaller agency to do the work, usually for much less than the work is worth.
Many of these big agencies overcharge for their services, selling a lot of “pie in the sky” and not a lot of actual performance.
These agencies don’t have the clients’ best interests in mind. They are there to grab as much money as possible and leave the contractors holding the bag.
Smaller agencies have struggled against these big agencies. They try to make inroads, but many dealers and other businesses will opt for BIG, instead of local.
How to make the change
The most important changes that need to happen are:
Making a Difference
At SimpSocial, we work on ROI, not just KPIs. Our job is to deliver sales, not just a lot of clicks and follows.
Social media is a place where you can get a lot of activity, but not all of it is productive. Knowing how to get the most from your social media marketing is a matter of experience, training, and understanding.
We can show you how marketing can drive sales, not a “general” concept, but in numbers and facts.
Back in the day, every dealership set up a Facebook page and invested a lot of money and time in getting “fans” or likes to their page.
It didn’t take very long before they realized that all those likes weren’t translating into sales.
The marketing guys start talking about “Facebook is for branding, not sales.” While branding is important, auto dealerships live and die on sales.
That’s when it got worse. Many dealerships paid someone a few hundred dollars a month to maintain their Facebook page. Usually, it was a low level employee who had no power to make anything happen and wasn’t looking for creative ways to engage people. They were just putting up posts to keep the page alive.
The next stage was Facebook ads. At about the same time, Google ads became a thing and everyone stood around confused as to which to use.
It took a while for everyone to figure out that Facebook ads and Google ads did two different things.
Then, Facebook changed their ads and created Lead Gen ads. These are ads where a person can click a button that takes them to a contact form. The form is prefilled. If they’re on a mobile device on the bus, they don’t have to type in all their information on a tiny keyboard.
These customers are still “high funnel”, meaning they aren’t necessarily ready to buy right away, but they’re prompting the contact. They’re ready to talk to someone about something.
The leads generated this way are people that you’ll nurture to the sale. Take your time, provide them with information and contacts, and help them make a decision about buying a vehicle.
One of the best ways to do this is to use text messages. Craft texts that are low-key, don’t push sales too hard, but keep the lead informed about what you’re doing and how they might be able to get a vehicle soon.
The strength of text messages is that over 90% of them are read and about 70% are responded to. Make them personal, speak to what that person might like, and you’re likely to get a sale sooner rather than later.
There needs to be change in how your salespeople approach these contacts.
Many Facebook leads aren’t ready to buy just yet. They need to be approached with a bit more of a delicate touch.
Salespeople need to build a relationship, ask questions, and even talk about the person’s personal life.
The difference will be that they should work on really getting to know the contact rather than pushing to get the sale immediately.
Make sure that everything is put into a CRM so it’s there for the next person or not forgotten by the salesperson.
While the Facebook pages didn’t work, Facebook Lead Gen ads are great for auto dealerships. They allow you to target the right area, the right demographics, and people who are really interested in your vehicles. They might not be ready to buy yet, but they’re ready to learn about what you have to offer.
SimpSocial empowers modern dealerships with two game-changing solutions: precision-targeted social media lead generation tied to live inventory, and a powerhouse engagement platform that responds, follows up, and books appointments automatically.
There are two types of buyers in the world of automobiles: transactional buyers and emotional buyers.
A transactional buyer is a haggler, a competitive shopper, who isn’t swayed by the beauty of a machine. They want to know that they got the very best deal on a vehicle. They see paying more than the next guy as an insult.
An emotional buyer is exactly the opposite. They don’t care as much about the price they pay as they do about getting the car that makes them feel a certain way. You can sell to an emotional buyer with the feeling of the drive, the way that everyone will see them behind the wheel, and how much pleasure they’ll get from the car.
Throughout most of the auto industry’s history, the only people that most dealerships saw were the in-market customers, people who are ready to buy as they stepped onto the sales lot. Most of these people were emotional buyers, people who were inspired by an ad to purchase a car.
Traditional advertising operates almost entirely on the emotional level. TV commercials that show people driving cars on mountain roads, along beaches, and with lots of beautiful people in the car are emotional images. Most will end with a shout-out to the transactional buyers with a list of costs, rebates, and more.
Once the social media revolution arrived that changed. Dealers began advertising for in-market transactional shoppers, people who were ready to buy based on the price they could get.
This new customer base is somewhat problematic. These are people who expect the very lowest prices. This causes a rush to the lowest price by all of these dealers. Many were within a few dollars of losing money. While dealers were making sales, they were barely making money on a sale.
One of the most powerful aspects of social media marketing is that you can market to both types of people. With Facebook advertising, dealerships are able to run multiple ads to multiple audiences. This allows dealers to speak to each type of buyer in their own language.
For the emotional buyer, the key is to try to get them to imagine themselves behind the wheel.
The power of social media to use images, videos, and more to set the emotional hook. Then you can convert them and get them in the door at the dealership. This makes Facebook incredibly powerful and probably the ideal way to market an auto dealership.
Selling to emotional buyers requires an emotional buy-in from the salespeople. Salespeople need to love the cars that they sell and be able to convey that. Now this is a problem for dealers as most are set up to handle transactional shoppers, those looking for great deals, not for those who are buying for the experience of the vehicle.
Facebook ads can bring both types of buyers to your auto lot, but each type of customer needs to be treated differently.
For the transactional buyer, the logical way to get started is to simply pull out a calculator and start crunching numbers. Get to the bottom line, talk about financing, and keep everything aimed at how much they’re going to spend.
With emotional buyers, salespeople need to learn to take their time. This is the time to get them into the car that they saw in the ad or into an upgraded vehicle.
This will be difficult. If you’ve ever walked onto an auto lot, you’ll get the breathless feeling that the salespeople need you to sign on the dotted line and make way for the next person. With emotional buyers, they’ll want to slow down, take their time, and love the cars with the buyers.
The key to getting these two types of buyers in your door is to setup two separate Facebook ad campaigns, one for the emotional buyers and one for the transactional buyers. Use the audience information to retarget those people with type of ads that will keep the conversation going.
Using the specificity of Facebook ads, your dealership can work to bring both types of buyers to the table. Once there, you can adapt your selling style to the customer’s approach. You’ll end up with more closes and have loyal, new customers who feel heard and appreciated.
SimpSocial empowers modern dealerships with two game-changing solutions: precision-targeted social media lead generation tied to live inventory, and a powerhouse ai automotive crm engagement platform that responds, follows up, and books appointments automatically.
