AUTOMOTIVE ADVERTISING & MARKETING

Automotive PPC Advertising

Automotive PPC Advertising Helps Dealerships Sell Cars

JKRAdvertising / Automotive Advertising, Automotive PPC /

February 13, 2014

Customers are searching online for cars; quite often the exact vehicles your dealership has in stock. So it only makes sense for automotive dealers to advertise on the popular search engines. Automotive PPC Advertising lets you do just that on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads are the ones you typically see on the very top or on the right-hand side of the search engine page. Each time a customer clicks on a PPC ad, they immediately are linked to the dealership’s Website – and the dealership is charged a fee for the click. Ultimately, the dealership is charged only for the clicks they get; otherwise, they pay nothing.

Automotive PPC Advertising is Fast and Easy

All by itself, the idea of only paying for the clicks you receive is a nice perk … but perhaps the most appealing part of automotive PPC advertising is its immediacy. PPC campaigns can be up and running in a matter of days. Ideally, your dealership does both PPC and organic (SEO) marketing, which allows you to dominate the search engine pages and therefore increases your chance of getting more than your share of the online shoppers. (Please see our previous article on Automotive PPC Advertising Benefits that covered this topic in detail.)

What’s more, lead tracking software is available to give you all the pertinent statistics of your Automotive PPC advertising campaign, including costs, clicks, Web leads, credit applications and inbound phone calls.

Why You Need Automotive PPC Advertising

Need another reason to invest in Automotive PPC advertising? Chances are the competition down the street is already there. Do a Google search on some of your competitors and see what comes up in the area where PPC ads appear. Are your competitors buying your dealership’s name? Would you like to have your ad appear when consumers search for your competition?

FREE Automotive PPC Advertising Review

If you’re new to PPC or just not sure what it can do for your dealership, fill out the form on this page for a FREE Automotive PPC Advertising Review. We’ll examine your current PPC efforts and give you our expert advice.

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Post-Pandemic Dealer Gross Profits are Down – But They Don’t Have to Stay There!
March 13, 2024
It is no secret that dealer gross profits per vehicle are down sharply in the post-COVID automotive world. According to a recent article in Automotive News, gross profits of the six largest publicly traded dealership groups plunged significantly from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023. One of them was actually down 35% per vehicle!

The article explains: High interest rates, more expensive vehicles and a steadier post-pandemic supply chain continue to soften demand and bring it closer to pre-pandemic levels. Still, new-car buying has remained strong overall …

This means that, while sales volume is similar, overall bottom lines are lower for many dealers due to the reduced gross profits. What about your dealership?

Being Realistic
It’s time to turn the page! The time for dealers to simply be order takers for people willing to pay MSRP for a vehicle (and in some cases more) has passed and dealers have to work hard once again to achieve acceptable gross profits.

Selling a high volume of cars doesn’t control gross profits, no matter how much you wish this was the case. Correct processes and menu pricing – and strict adherence to them – do!

What kind of processes?
∙ Slow down the transaction! Your sales staff has to once again sell the customer on the features and benefits of every new and pre-owned vehicle on your lot.

∙ Your salespeople and managers should devalue the customers’ trade-in value (politely, of course) as much as possible. After all, if the customer expects you to lower your price, shouldn’t you be able to do the same on their trade? Remember, you’ll have to fix it up, put your name on it and resell it to someone else with all the tenacity you would a brand-new car. So make sure you buy it right … because the profit is made when you buy it, not when you sell it!

∙ To that end, management should be ready and willing to leave the desk and do thorough walk-arounds on each trade to ensure the best outcome for the dealership.

The Cure for Low Gross Profits
If you are like a lot of dealers these days, you could use some good news. Here it is: while you may not have the capability to achieve profit margins similar to those you enjoyed during the pandemic, they could likely be improved. JKR’s clients enjoy the benefit of attracting not only more customers, but better ones, too!

If meeting and exceeding your sales goals (and increasing gross profits at the same time) sounds great to you, you need to call us. Don’t settle for reduced gross profits when help is out there to get you closer to where you’d like to be.

Want to know how we do it? Reach out to Senior Partner Richard Brauns (407) 701-4233 or Partner/Vice President Jon Albert (407) 718-2494 today.

JKR Automotive Advertising: We Move Cars.

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