With Google’s recent changes to AdWords, automotive advertisers can now expect to pay a lot more for their SEM campaigns. In a recent study by Acquisio, more than 90,000 campaigns were studied over a six week time period, and they all came to the same conclusion: advertisers would need to be in the top four spots to avoid a drop in performance, but they will have to pay up to get there.
The study revealed that the number of impressions and clicks for ads below the top four positions were significantly lower. In fact, the bottom four ads experienced up to 20% lower click-throughs. If lower CTR wasn’t bad enough, advertisers can also expect a higher CPC.
Why would CPC be higher if performance is lower? With less spots available, advertisers will be paying not only for results, but just the chance to appear on the page at all.
Dealers who are already used to paying the highest AdWords costs will now see those prices skyrocket even higher. But there is something you can do – change up your digital strategy.
Yes, SEM is a necessary part of a digital strategy – but it shouldn’t need to take up your entire advertising budget. This is especially true now that performance on these campaigns is going to bottom-out.
Where can dealers go for better results than AdWords that won’t suck up their budget? We’ve discovered that the solution is Facebook (Read: 1 Out Of Every 5 Minutes Is Spent On Social Networking: Facebook Still #1 In Digital Audience Penetration & Engagement).
With LotLinx Deeplinking™ for Facebook, custom ad campaigns are created and managed for each dealer’s inventory, VIN-by-VIN. These ads will appear to an extremely targeted audience of car shoppers that are then converted straight to the VDP page.
If you’re sick of paying for clicks, there’s more good news. This service is provided at a flat-rate cost per month, removing the stress over CPCs completely.
So what are you waiting for? Try LotLinx Deeplinking™ for Facebook today to start seeing real sales results from your digital advertising campaigns, without constantly getting hit with higher costs.
For more information, call us anytime at (888) 211-5172 or have us contact you directly.