Google Ads for Car Dealerships

Car dealerships are always wondering how they can get atop Google search results. The answer is easy. It’s not simple!

Google Ads is a great way for you to generate website traffic and generate leads for your car dealership. Opting to manage Google Ads on your own can be time-consuming and extremely costly, especially without the proper knowledge or credentials. Google Ads for car dealerships is more than targeting keywords and bidding the highest. There is a strategic approach that must be taken in order to achieve success.

Why Google Ads

If you aren’t currently using Google Ads for your car dealership, it might be time to get started doing so. These are a great way for you to be seen first when someone searches for your dealership, a car dealership near them, a specific vehicle that you sell, or a service that your service center provides.

You can stand out against your competitors, retarget website visitors, attract higher quality leads, and more. But most importantly, you can adjust to your budget each month. It’s an extremely flexible option for every type of marketing budget.

Kick off your Google Ads account today.

Keyword Targeting

Determining the keywords you want to rank highly for is crucial to your campaign’s success. For starters, you’ll want to rank for the vehicles you sell, but keep in mind you’re competing against the car manufacturer and your competing dealerships.

For example: Chevrolet is a highly trafficked keyword, which means competition for it will make it difficult to rank highly for. You’ll want to take a strategic approach and hone in on a keyword such as “Chevrolet dealership near me”. When someone in your area searches for that phrase, you’ll be more likely to show up as you’re directing your focus to these targeted phrases.

Understand what you want to rank for, the level of competition, where you currently rank, and what you could rank for. A few keyword planners to help get you started are Google Keyword Planner, SEM Rush, and Ahrefs.

Bidding Strategy

Your Google Ads bidding strategy is something that needs to be monitored every week. Your ads may not appear often, if at all, if your bids are too low or if your ads aren’t relevant to the keywords you want to bid for. There is an option which allows Google to manage your bidding strategy, however, this is only recommended after you’ve allowed Google to analyze your account to optimize your strategy.

It would be best to start your bids on the lower end and use a PPC strategy. This way you’ll only pay when your leads are clicked. The more they’re clicked, the more impressions you get. But with all of this comes a higher cost. If you want to increase impressions, you’ll pay for every 1,000 impressions your ads get.

While there are multiple options for you to manage your bidding strategy, it all depends on your allotted budget. It’s very easy for your ad spending to increase in just one day if you aren’t using the correct bid strategy.

Local Ad Targeting

Targeting prospects in your general location is the recommended strategy for an effective campaign. Google allows you to target prospects in specific locations so you can maximize your marketing budget. This also helps in your retargeting campaigns so you can continue to appear when local prospects either return to your site or are looking for local car dealerships.

Many people aren’t willing to drive over 100 miles to purchase a car. This isn’t to say it never happens, but, it is less likely and you could save money by not targeting them.

Managing Google Ads for Car Dealerships

Start getting your car dealership to show up on the top of search pages and be seen by your target audience. We’ve been helping car dealerships manage their marketing campaigns for over 20 years and we’d love to speak with you to see where you currently stand.

We’ll work with you to create a premium Google Ads for car dealerships campaign that attracts high-quality, sales ready leads. Start showing up on more searches and increase the number of leads your car dealership is seeing each month.

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