Dealer.com's CTO urges auto dealers to take advantage of free advertising with a new way to post their inventory and garner local, qualified leads.
The way we buy and sell vehicles has dramatically changed. Instead of circling cars in the Sunday classifieds, more and more consumers are beginning their search online, and many of them begin with Google.
In order to reach these qualified buyers, the automotive industry will spend $1.95 billion in online advertising this year -- an increase of 35 percent from last year -- according to market research firm eMarketer. Auto dealers are increasing their online exposure through pay-per-click advertising, third-party lead generation and other web marketing programs, but few are taking advantage of a new, free advertising tool called Google Base.
Google Base is a free service that allows users to post and search categorized content, including vehicles. Dealers can create listings for each vehicle in their inventory and describe them with what Google refers to as attributes. An attribute is a word or phrase that helps describe the characteristics and qualities of a vehicle, such as make, model, location, condition, price, color, year, vehicle type and mileage. The more relevant attributes you include, the more likely searchers are to find the vehicles you want to sell.
In fact, based on your vehicle's relevance, users may also find it in their results on Froogle, Google Maps and even the main Google web search. Each vehicle listing can be linked to your website, giving your dealership -- and all its inventory -- additional exposure to millions of people. Best of all, Google Base is entirely free.
Meanwhile, pay-per-click costs are rising steadily. You can blow your entire budget bidding on high-priced keywords such as "Toyota" and "Camry," or you can spend absolutely nothing to list them as attributes when you upload your inventory to Google Base. Using well-defined attributes makes it easier for Google to match search queries to your inventory, increases your chances of appearing at the top of their organic search results and can deliver the same targeted traffic as expensive search-marketing strategies at no cost.
Cars.com, Automotive.com and a few other portals are already taking advantage of Google Base, but for the most part, individual dealerships are not-- even though they are the ones who stand to benefit most from the local, qualified leads it generates. Portal listings on Google Base take consumers to the portal's website rather than the dealer's sites. That's lost website traffic for dealers-- lost traffic that could see all of your inventory rather than just one portal listing. Posting inventory on portals is fee-based; posting inventory on Google Base is free, and it is just one more way to drive traffic to your website and sell more cars.
When users type "2005 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 06770" (year, make, model and zip code) into Google's main search engine, two links appear at the top of the results. These links take shoppers to CAM Motors Chevrolet, a Dealer.com client whose inventory is automatically posted to Google Base on a daily basis.
The first link, "Product search results for 2005 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 06770", directs searchers to Froogle. Although there is a link to see all of the local results, CAM Motors Chevrolet has the only listings featured on the opening page. The listings appear with pictures of specific inventory and links to those cars on CAM's website.
The second link, "2005 Chevrolet Silverado SS - $32,995.00 - CAM Motors Chevrolet", states the dealer's name in a very prominent position within the search results, and it takes potential customers directly to the vehicle on CAM's website. That's only one click from the main Google search engine to specific vehicle details on its website, and it was absolutely free.
Whether you have 100 vehicles on your lot or 2,000, your inventory can be part of the largest and most utilized search engine in the world, giving you additional exposure to millions of people each day. Auto dealers uploading their inventory to Google Base will continue to see their inventory become more discoverable as Google finds new ways to integrate Google Base listings into its main search engine. If you have the knowledge, you can set up an automatic feed to post your inventory on Google Base as it becomes available. If not, make sure you work with an automotive-marketing company that can.
Rick Gibbs is vice president and CTO of Dealer.com. Read full bio.