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Tips for Success: Auto DealersMake the most of AdWords with customized tips designed to help auto dealers boost traffic, increase sales, and improve return on investment. In this tips section you'll learn how to:
Target your customersIf your dealership is in Santa Fe, New Mexico, you probably don't need to advertise to someone shopping for a car in Fargo, North Dakota. AdWords makes it easy to target the geographic reach of your campaigns. Use the regional targeting function to make sure that only Internet users in your area – however big or small that may be – will see your ad. You can target regions of any size, from the entire world to a 20-mile radius. Targeting options that work well for dealerships may include:
By creating a regionally targeted campaign, you're saving yourself a significant amount of time since you won't have to type out repetitive keywords. Why? The targeted region is automatically tagged onto each of your keywords, leaving you free to enter shorter, more general terms. For example, instead of using the phrase new cars Akron OH, you can simply use the phrase new cars. Your ad will be shown to users in the Akron area or those who include that area in their search term. Show 'em what they're searching forPut yourself in the shoes of your potential customers. If someone is searching for a Ford Taurus, seeing that type of car advertised in your ad text, and then seeing it again on your landing page, reinforces a "string of relevancy" (keyword – ad text – landing page). How do you achieve this effect? Create separate ad groups for each make and model of car available on your lot. In each ad group, target your ads and keywords to that specific vehicle, and choose a landing page that features the car front and center.Spruce up your ad textHighlight special offers and features available at your dealership. Do you accept trade-ins? Free quotes? Do you specialize in hard-to-find models? People love to find a deal, so be sure to inform them of any special offers in your ad text.Be sure to update your ads frequently to reflect new inventory, pricing, or special offers. Do your vehicles undergo multi-point inspection? Are you offering a low financing rate for a limited time? AdWords lets you alert your customers instantly about new offers, which helps you keep your advertising current and avoid wasting money on out-of-date marketing materials. Try the following to boost your ad's appeal:
When writing your ads and keywords, make it clear whether you sell new or used vehicles. If your dealership offers both, you should create two different ad groups for each type of car you offer (for example, "New Ford Taurus" and "Used Ford Taurus"). Be sure to include phrases like used or pre-owned in your "Used" ad group's keyword list. By making your ad text and keyword lists highly specific, you can bring potential customers closer to the purchase point. Bring in the right trafficEqually as important as targeting the customers you want is weeding out the ones you don't want. For example, if your dealership only offers new vehicles, then you don't want to waste money on clicks from customers looking for used cars or auto parts. Using negative keywords like used, pre-owned, parts, or irrelevant years like 2003 or 2004 will filter out Internet users who aren't interested in your products. This can help improve the targeting of your advertising campaigns and your return on investment.Reach the browsers and buyersA great way to expand your reach while still promoting your services to a targeted audience is with Google's content network, an extensive network of high-quality news pages, industry-specific websites, and blogs. It's a cost-effective way to show your ads on a wide variety of sites that auto consumers visit each day. By showing your ads on both search and content pages, you'll reach potential customers at all points of the buying cycle, from creating awareness of your dealership and services to closing the cycle with a conversion. And with the range of available ad formats – text, image, Flash, and video – you can appeal to potential customers in a unique and eye-catching way.It's a good idea to create a separate, content network-only campaign for the ads you want to show on the content network. This way, you can allocate your budget with more precision and test out new ideas without affecting your search campaigns. AdWords looks at the overall theme of your ad group to determine if your ad relates to a particular site, so be sure that each of your content network ad groups focuses on a specific topic and audience. Get more optimization tips for the content network. 
Find auto-related sites available in Google's content network. Analyze your site's trafficYour website is crucial to driving business, so chances are the following questions have kept you up at night:
Don't just guess. Find answers with Google Analytics, a powerful tool that integrates with AdWords and tells you everything you want to know about how visitors find and interact with your site. With a variety of useful data delivered in a number of formats, Analytics helps you focus your marketing resources, improve site navigation, and increase ROI. You can easily visualize and track the performance of all of your online advertising initiatives, including search campaigns, emails, and banner ads. You can even use the Analytics benchmarking service to compare your metrics to other websites in your industry. You can use this data to gain broader context for your site and identify areas for improvement. Available categories include:
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