Figuring Out Facebook

By Justin Osburn

Published in the NIADA Used Car Dealer Magazine December 2017 Issue Volume 46: NO. 12

20 Groups are rooms full of the sharpest dealers across the country. These days, one of the most popular “Hot Topics” is how to effectively use social media to drive traffic and generate sales. Dealers and senior leaders are still trying to figure out the “secret sauce” to generate traffic using digital. Unfortunately, too few have put the puzzle completely together. BHPH, as a whole, has been a step or two behind utilizing the digital tools currently popular. BHPH dealers have weighed the benefits (which they have not always experienced) advertising on social against the potential negative feedback, ratings and reviews they anticipate if they open the social flood gates.  For this article, I offer a very solid case study why selling on social media will benefit your leads and sales if done correctly.

Before we begin, I challenge you to sit back in your chair and ask how much money you are currently throwing at advertising. Where are you spending your hard-earned dollars and are you or is someone in your organization responsible to report what the benefit from each channel is? How many sales does each channel generate? Are you branding your dealership or are you advertising and converting sales? Are you measuring the results of your investments?

Go Auto is a Canadian auto dealership that created a multi-channel strategy to encourage potential car buyers to upgrade their current vehicles.  They found that Facebook delivered the lowest cost per lead and the highest number of attributable sales.  Are you still wondering how to use Facebook to promote your lot and vehicles, here is exactly what Go Auto did.

First, they developed a 60-day campaign. However, they wanted to measure the results this campaign would have on not only Facebook, but other traditional marketing channels as well. So they opted to run the campaign in both lanes, across a variety of both traditional and digital ad formats.

The campaign was very focused. It was a contest to pay off the winner’s auto loan balance.  On Facebook, Go Auto developed a series of comical images, including a “yoga dog” in quotes saying “Car Paid. Namaste.” The call to action directed people to an online submission form. It did not direct them to the dealer’s home page, pro tip! Be sure to use landing pages in digital marketing (for more info on using landing pages, email me at [email protected].) The online form requested details of the car make and model and current car payments.

Go Auto used these details to later retarget people with tailored ad campaigns, such as services to offer lower their car payments, trade their vehicles, service and more. Additionally, they used Facebook’s location targeting and segmentation tools to optimize the campaign and reach as many people living near one of their dealerships.

They used two Facebook ad tools: ads and core targeting. 

The results revealed the best performing media for its target audiences. The Facebook campaign successfully achieve the following results:

?   46% lower cost per lead than traditional media

?   23% lower cost per lead than other paid online media

?   68% more vehicle sales than the next best advertising medium

Russ Fenske, Director of Marketing for Go Auto said in response to the case study, “Facebook has been our strongest performing media channel for this type of campaign. The more we use it, the more we like it. We can effectively target large scale audiences using multiple advertising messages. Actively experimenting and constant testing make it easy to find a winning formula fast.”

Facebook ads allow you to choose your audience based on demographics, behaviors or contact information. The ad formats are eye-catching, flexible and work on every device and connection speed. They also have their own ad reporting tools to show you how your ads impacted your business in visual, easy-to-read reports. Facebook will allow you to create an ad, show it across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network to improve your reach.

Core Targeting is a fancy term for “an easy way to connect with your audience”. With 2 billion people on Facebook and more than 500 million accounts on Instagram, the customers you want to reach are… on Facebook. Perhaps you want to “target” prospects based on age, location or hobby, core targeting can help you connect to the those likely to be interested in your BHPH business.

If you would like more case studies conducted by other dealers on Facebook, or if you would like more details about the tools Facebook and Instagram offer, write me at [email protected].

This Case Study and tools described were directly referenced from https://www.facebook.com/business/success/go-auto and https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-choose-audience/.