eBook Chapter 4: Factors that Weigh into your Marketing Efforts
The following is an excerpt from the recent eBook, How Do You Make Online Display Ads Work for Automotive Dealers, discussing how online display advertising has evolved and is changing the way some auto dealerships and their marketing departments approach online advertising. This fourth chapter focuses on the countless factors that weigh into the performance of your marketing efforts, and how they affect your advertising spend.
There are countless factors that weigh into the performance of your marketing efforts, and these will all affect your advertising spend levels.
At the outset, it’s important to realize that trying it out for a month will not give you an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of your approach. More time is necessary, though there’s no hard and fast rule of what you should expect. A common recommendation is to test for a minimum of three months. You will likely see good results in month one — but they will continue to improve as the campaign is optimized for up to six months. Still, you can always improve your results by considering the following factors.
The dynamic content of your ads. Your inventory is one of the keys to great dynamic inventory ads. Do your best to keep photos looking good (live photos are always better than stock), make sure your pricing is competitive, and that you include strong branding and a call to action in the ad creative.
The nature of your business. As a car dealership, you don’t experience the high volatility of other markets, but there are still industry trends to consider. Interest rates, seasonality, holidays and other criteria will affect how long before you see results.
The message you’re delivering. Be sure to test and measure. It might seem like a simple matter, but your content might need tweaking if your display ads are not performing. You might need to vary your taglines, calls to action and vehicle details; alternatively, you might consider a different placement of this information within the display ad. Without testing, you will not know.
