By its very nature, which is rooted in a bidding system for premium ad placement, PPC is very competitive form of marketing that breeds competition between brands. A PPC strategy that many business owners use is bidding on their competitor’s branded keywords. Bidding on your competitor’s branded keywords can open your business up to customers who you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. On the other hand, a shot across the bow at your competitor may cause your competitor to retaliate and bid on your branded terms – driving up the CPC for both terms. So before you decide to open the can of worms of bidding on your competition’s keywords, consider the pros and cons. Pros: In general, branded keywords are a great way to attract customers who are high in the sales funnel and still weighing their options between brands. These are customers who may not have known about your brand, otherwise. Bidding on your competition doesn’t cannibalize your organic search listing. Chances are that you probably rank pretty high in organic search listings for your own branded terms. By … Continue reading →
Category: PPC
Reasons Why PPC & SEO Are Better Used Together
Like Michael Jordan & Scottie Pippen, peanut butter & jelly, and under appreciated R&B 70′s duo Herbs & Peaches – reunited and it feels so good – SEO & PPC together is greater than the sum of its parts. Some people may disagree with that statement and make this analogy, “Why should I pay for the milk (PPC) when I have a cow that will give it away for free (SEO)”. This argument might be valid if we’re talking about bovines and dairy products. However, we’re not talking about free milk; we’re talking clicks and conversions. Those who treat SEO and PPC as two mutually exclusive online marketing tactics will be missing out on tremendous digital marketing opportunities. Here are some reasons why you should be utilizing both SEO and PPC in your digital marketing campaign. The Rules of Real Estate Think of the SERP (search engine results page) as valuable real estate. Any screen space above the fold can be considered valuable waterfront property. Screen space below the fold on the first page is a rather nice neighborhood … Continue reading →
Why Half of Your Used Cars Won’t Sell
Digital marketing is continuing to grow in all industries and now accounts for 1.5 out of every 4 dollars spent in the auto industry. That being said, we also know that 90% of all customers that enter dealerships have done some sort of browsing on the Internet before purchasing a car. Google is predicting that digital advertising in the auto industry will quadruple over the next few years. Looking at the numbers, 50% of all visitors that come to ANY car dealer’s website from any source, click on the “Search Used Cars” button. This is great information to know, but doesn’t necessarily tell the complete story when it comes to helping customers find the right car they are searching for. The story and question I would like to discuss is this; what is your “used car digital strategy” to get customers’ eyeballs on all of the different brands of inventory you carry? For example, when I look at most Chevrolet dealers’ inventories, I see that at least 40 to 60 % of the used cars on the ground are not … Continue reading →
What is Geofencing and how will it effect car dealers?
By definition, geofencing is a technology that can register when someone enters a predefined geographical area. This is measured by GPS or RFID. Some marketers have begun using geofencing as a way to target coupons and ads at people within a certain distance of their dealership. Google currently does not offer a direct way to advertise using this through adwords. They do, however, offer developers an API for creating geofences. Since use of geofences is currently limited to user-installed apps, the possibilities are still somewhat limited, but 3rd party companies offer ways to make use of geofencing to deliver deals to nearby customers. I’m not sure when this technology is going to become available for everyone, but it would be pretty impressive to be able to serve an ad or display a coupon for your dealership when a customer is nearby, or better yet, when they’re in the waiting room for a competitor. Kevin Drongowski Integrated PPC
SEO, PPC, and ROI for your Dealership
SEO and PPC have very different costs and results. For PPC/search advertising, your ROI is pretty clear. You spent X dollars, you got Y clicks, of which Z people converted. However, when it comes to SEO and content development, the results are much less clear. When you put the time or money into writing quality content, you might not see any benefits in the first 30 or even 60 days. Over time, though, the more high quality articles you publish, the more your traffic will improve and the more it will benefit your search ranking. This can make SEO very discouraging to pursue, but the results are far more sustainable. With PPC, you buy a click, and boom, it’s over. You either made a sale or you didn’t. With SEO, you are building authority and relevance, which will continue to drive traffic for months or even years. This makes it hard to convince someone just starting out that it’s worth the time and money, but when it comes to long term results, a strong SEO effort will pay dividends. … Continue reading →
Dealer Lab’s Advanced Marketing Report to Dashboard
The Marketing Report pulls all Pay-Per-Click (PPC) statistics from Google Analytics, Google AdWords, call tracking, and chat leads, and displays them in an easy-to-understand format so you can track the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. This report is the most transparent way to view and analyze the following data: The number of clicks your ads have received The number of impressions (appearances on a search results page) your ads have gained The total number of unique (new) visitors that reached your site from the ad campaigns The number of lead conversions that resulted from the ad campaigns The total amount of money spent on the campaigns Network specific data (Google Search vs. Google Display) Campaign and AdGroup Breakdown The information above is then broken down at the Campaign and Ad Group level. Campaign level data gives you an overview of how your campaign is performing based on your objectives for that campaign. For example, you can view how your New Cars campaign is performing relative to your Used Cars campaign. Within the campaign, you can view performance statistics … Continue reading →