Digital Retailing Exposes The Fallacy That Google Ads Is Working Effectively For Auto Dealers Today
Automotive manufacturers (OEMs) are clearly moving toward a greater focus on consumer direct sales models. The evidence can be seen by certain OEM’s decisions to create a national sales portal where consumers can configure, price, accessorize, and reserve vehicles. Who will be the first traditional OEM to enable their national sales portal to execute a complete financial vehicle transaction, including all taxes, fees, F&I products, with a legal esignature? Time will tell, but the move towards a true ecommerce experience is accelerating.
Until then, U.S. franchise dealers are being encouraged (or forced) to install an OEM approved digital retailing tool in one of three frameworks.
1)???The first framework gives the dealer an option to install digital retailing software on their websites. The price exploration, financing workflows, and F&I product presentations occur on the dealer’s website as an overlay. ?Companies that sell software tools in this framework include CarNow, Gubagoo, Cox Automotive, AutoFi, WebBuy. Modal, and Dealer eProcess.?
2)???The second framework is to install a digital retailing platform as a subdomain off the dealer’s website. Companies that sell software tools in this framework include Roadster, Digital Motors, and Toyota SmartPath.
3)???The Third framework requires the dealer’s website call-to-action (CTA) buttons to be updated to send consumers off the dealer’s website to a national sales portal or separate website experience when a pricing, payment, or trade button is clicked. Examples of this offsite framework national portal include General Motors (Shop-Click-Drive) and Stellantis (E-Shop).
Everyone Is Working in Technology Silos
The challenge with each of these frameworks is that no single vendor controls the shopping tools and conversion channels associated with organic and paid traffic to a dealer’s website. The crisis, that no one want to address, is that dealers who invest in marketing are losing engagement and conversion signals to improve Google Ads and Facebook marketing/bidding strategies. Positive advertising outcomes, when sent back to ad bidding/placement engines, help improve campaign performance, correct?
Test me.
Ask any dealer’s ad agency if their Google Ads campaigns, for new or used cars, are being optimized based on the sales opportunities the campaigns generate (sales phone calls, sales chats, sales messaging, digital retailing leads, website sales forms, etc.).
Most all will quickly say “yes” but sadly they are not. The standard playbook for Google Ads campaign configurations is mixing sales and service conversions and calling them great “sales” outcomes. The makes matters worse, most Google Ads agencies are omitting clear sales conversions from digital retailing because they don't know how to set up conversion goals (hard and soft)!
Most Google Ads agencies have not taken the time to educate their teams on events that Roadster, CarNow, Gugaboo, WebBuy, Cox Automotive send into Google Analytics to track engagement and conversions. How do I know this? Rarely (close to never) have I inspected a Google Analytics account that has been properly configured to optimize Google Ads campaigns for variable operations.
It would appear to me that OEMs, website companies, digital retailing companies, chat companies, and marketing agencies are all pointing fingers, and no one is proposing a solution. ?
I have a solution that will address most of the issues that I have uncovered in my recent research report on Google Ads campaigns. ?You can download the report here: https://www.brianpasch.com/google-sem-report/. Dealers and agencies that want MORE from their online sales marketing campaigns need the new insights that I will be sharing.
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Who Should Inspect Online Retailing Configurations?
One might think that OEM marketing management companies like Shift Digital, J.D. Power (Autodata), Unite Digital, or Ford Direct would be ideal to create standards for sales/service marketing outcome measurement. Sadly, as online retailing tools have grown in sophistication, the accuracy in sales marketing measurement has decreased, and marketing blunders are accelerating.
Example: why are most Google agencies importing all call conversions to optimize sales campaigns when most of the phone calls are for service and parts?
I mentioned that digital retailing tools have become the dominant shopping tool on dealer websites, installed in one of three frameworks. In the first framework that uses overlays, digital retailing tools become the primary lead generator replacing most “boring” website forms. In the second framework, most of the engagement and conversions on SRPs or VDPs are off the dealer’s primary website, which makes it critical for digital retailing vendors to connect Google Analytics with their subdomain to see the shopping path. The third framework is the absolute worst for dealers because they lose analytics insights, engagement, and conversion by marketing source/session.
Three Frameworks; Which is Best?
I wish I saw a consistent winner. Every month I call digital retailing companies and request that they send engagements and conversion events into Google Analytics. Every month I’m calling Google Ads agencies to show them how to create the correct hard and soft conversion goals to optimize new and used car sales campaigns, when dealers use digital retailing technology. I can’t count how many times I’ve called agencies to request that they connect Google Ads with the dealer’s Google Analytics accounts.
In the rush to push out digital retailing technology, OEMs and vendors are destroying advertising feedback loops that are supposed to optimize Google, Facebook, OTT, Display, and even email marketing campaigns. Our industry needs to take a deep breath, a virtual step backward, and assess what is the new approach for online advertising with these three retailing frameworks.
Be The First To Obtain The New Playbook
At the 2021 Automotive Analytics & Attribution Summit (AAAS), I will be unveiling a detailed proposal that builds the correct Google Analytics views, goals, and proactive alerts to optimize sales and service campaigns for franchise dealers. When I state that 95% of franchise automotive dealers have their Google Ads campaigns configured incorrectly, the real number is more like 99%.
Dealers who invest in online advertising are encouraged to attend AAAS 2021 as well as the hands-on workshops that I will be providing, to build the most effective online advertising campaigns that dealers have seen since the introduction of Google Ads in October 2000.
Google AI and campaign optimization technology is the best in the business. Sadly, all franchise dealers are sending mixed signals to Google, which continue to produce vastly more service opportunity than sales opportunities. It's time to send PURE sales signal to Google and decide to use common sense and a fresh framework to be a better retailer.
Any dealer who is investing in online advertising or any agency that is selling Google Ads, is invited to attend my hands on workshops at AAAS which will give you the new playbook to create more effective sales campaigns.
Conference info here: https://automotiveattributionsummit.com/aaas-2021
P.S. Email me if you want to special event discount code for dealership and OEM employees. You can reach me at [email protected]
Senior SEO Strategist ? Analytical ? Data Driven ? AI Motivated ? Fractional Digital Consultant
3 年Ok, I read through your entire report. I appreciate the insights, of course. Much of it was not new to me, however you did provide a few gold nuggets to keep in mind. My takeaway is that most dealers, or businesses in general, that are signing up with an agency to provide ads for them are not aware of the process to begin with. That results in only believing what the agency is telling them. How the agency is setting up the goals/events/conversions and how the agency is providing the reporting dashboard. What I have experienced is that most businesses do not realize they own all of that data and can view it on their own (I am not a fan of someone else's numbers). That is where your recommendations come into play. Get the goals and events aligned with KPI's that match your business goals and not what one might consider relevant for a website goal. Once I was able to gain access to our accounts setup by the agency, red flags where found and as a result, money was saved over the last 6-8 months. When you have an agency that copies and pastes from one client to the next and tends to "set it and forget it", you are left with just writing the check. I am not a fan of that. Keep up the good work, I follow for a reason!