Search engine marketing via pay per click can provide tremendous benefit for your dealership if you understand it’s real value, implement it intelligently and understand it’s limits. If used in correlation with effective search engine optimization your dealership can receive a great deal of traffic from online shoppers.

Studies have shown that the heavy clickers of online display advertising fit into a certain demographic and if your dealerships objective it to drive this type of traffic to your offers it is a huge win.

From a study by Starcom USA - The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

What this says is that 50% of your pay per click ad spend will attract a demographic who only account for 6% of people who use the internet who will probably need help with special financing. This also means that these clickers probably do not have a problem filling a lead form and are looking for online interaction. It does not necessarily mean they are the ideal customer for your dealership, unless you cater to this demographic.

All is not lost though as for other valid uses of paid ad placements. The study also shows paid display advertising can also deliver a branding message and that traffic should not be your only goal with search engine marketing

….Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

If you are effectively trying to manage your brand online it has its place but should not be looked at as a primary traffic source. Unless of course you are trying to reach the heavy clicker demographic. Other studies have shown that pay per click advertising is nowhere as effective as organic search engine optimization as far as driving web traffic or lead volume. Typically SEO can be very low cost as compared to pay per click and be almost just as instant if you know or have someone who knows how to accomplish this and the traffic will continue to come even after the initial spend or time investment.

Here are some heat maps that show how much more traffic is delivered via search engine optimization compared to pay per click.

Here are some take aways from the images and data they represent from Hubspot.

1) Organic results get 75%+ of the attention. People don’t click on the ads nearly as much as the organic results.

2) The first organic result gets over 25% of all clicks. Within the organic results, the first result gets the most clicks by far – more than double the second result.

3) Within the ads, the first ad also gets the most clicks. But, since you pay per click for the ads, you should care less about volume and more about if the traffic will actually convert and what your cost per lead and cost per sale will be.

4) There are a good number of clicks on all top 10 organic results. Even the last result gets about 3% of people to click on it – this is about the same rate as the second pay per click ad, and unlike the ad, its free!

What does this mean for car dealers?

If you are targeting the demographic mention before and wish to drive traffic from consumers who spend an exorbitant amount of time on the web, who will and knows how to do a ton of research online, pay per click and online display advertising is for you.

You will get better results, more traffic, from an aggressive search engine optimization campaign versus pay per click and reach a broader broader section of online users from all demographics.

Search engine marketing in most cases should be relied on as a tool for online branding and not as a top traffic generation source.Relevant well optimized pages or additional properties to reach consumers at different phases of the buying funnel can bring more value and be lower cost than pay per click. A mix of the two, search engine optimization and pay per click, can bring value, one to drive real traffic and the other to deliver a branding message or deliver offers targeted to the heavy clicker demo. This does not even take into account you can not deliver both message simultaneously using pay per click unless you have multiple properties and professional search marketing management or have someone on staff that really knows and understated search engine marketing.

Online marketing awareness must rise for car dealers if they are to be highly successful in their efforts. They also need to realize that marketing is not sales. Just like with other forms of marketing (print, radio and tv) it needs active hands on management and is not a set it and forget it process. Dealers have been lulled into a false perception of how Internet marketing is viewed, because online initiatives are easily tracked versus antiquated methods, and force people who manage these efforts to rely, most of the time, solely on Internet tracked sales or even worse be a one gal or guy show.

Are you really taking advantage of the web in the most efficient manner?

That is really only a question you can answer and what works for your dealership. Money today goes further online than it does offline and will deliver more buyers by far if you have an actively managed online marketing campaign in place. You cannot win online by just having a website and use misguided methods to drive traffic.

Vendors that offer Pay Per Click Management or Tools:

• Puredealer.com
• Dealer.com
• Reach Local
• TK Car Sites
• not listed leave a comment – More than one link and not using your real name gets your comment deleted

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