Case Study 1: Auto Dealership Becomes #1 In Their Market

Massively growing new & used sales at a decreased budget by identifying top ROI models & ad structure

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In 2018 an automotive client came to us who was struggling against their steep competition. They had an OEM preferred vendor who could not seem to help them drive the number of leads or sales they needed to grow or stray competitive. 

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That's where we came in. We worked with our team of digital experts to dig into the client's data and site usability to begin maximizing the client's digital budget. Over the course of that first full year of work, we ended up helping the dealer cut nearly $1 million in overall spend advertising and growing to #1 in their market. 

 

Here's How We Did It:

​1. Cleaned Up Data Collection 

This is a constant - clients always are collecting bad data. This is due to improper implementation and tracking. Most of the time pixels should be avoided, and Google Analytics needs to be set up correctly. This includes tracking Goals (conversions) that have real meaning. Why optimize toward a top of funnel goal? Optimize toward the bottom of the funnel and learn how to increase leads in the most cost effective way possible - especially in a severely competitive market.

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2. Optimized Intelligently

Once we had clean data and we were tracking the appropriate goals, we began optimizing the account only toward the actions that led to real leads.  Instead of advertising toward VDPs (vehicle details page) viewed, we advertised toward calls and form submissions (finance, contact, price inquiry, etc.). Also, with clean data we were able to chase ROI, which we were quickly able to show was in Google Search over Facebook, and Google Display. Interestingly enough the client had a near 50/50 split between Google & Facebook when we took over, because Facebook's own analytics were throwing false positives that were proven incorrect with our tracking clean up (we have since had the client axe Facebook altogether). 

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While we continued to chase ROI we began optimizing our targeted zip codes, keywords, ad schedule, and so on, which allowed us to cut an incredible amount of wasted spend. 

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Also, unlike others, we began to look deeper than the direct conversion, but looked at our campaigns, and keywords by direct conversions and assisted conversions. In other words we made sure we not only used what directly got us our calls and form submissions, but also what was feeding those campaigns (without any guess work). 

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3. Continued To Evolve

As our client grew and saw success, we continued to dive into the data. With our desire to take an economic & investment like approach to our clients, our digital & business experts began to uncover additional data trends. Every month our experts charted dozens of various statistics and variables of the client's account to better hone in on what would get them the best ROI. Through watching month over month sales trends per vehicle model and brand, the corresponding number of clicks, average session duration, sessions, new users, landing pages touched, conversions, entry points, ad spend, and so on, they were able to identify:

• the number of new users needed per car sale

• the vehicle models that are the cheapest to sell through advertising

• how to sell each model at a lower rate

• the needed metrics to hit to best aid a growth in sales

• which keywords/campaigns led to the absolute best ROI

• the 2 to 3 variables that consistently impacted total sales numbers

Through this evolved understanding of the client, which continues to evolve, the client is now growing far outside its original market and beginning to conquest regions in an incredibly cost effective fashion. 

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4. Identified Road Blocks

As our experts optimized advertising, they hit road blocks in growing leads. This is where their business expertise came to the rescue by diving into competitive analysis. Once they had developed their algorithm for growing this client, they could quickly identify issues in lack of leads vs increase in quality users, etc., and in a heavily competitive market (with varying monthly offers) they would quickly analyze the competitions offers and site experience. This data would always be relayed to the dealership for a quick response, allowing for continued growth. 

 

With us optimizing our client's digital advertising, and now consulting on their traditional advertising and overall business strategy, the dealers cost per sale quickly decreased and is now down over $600/per sale. With clean data the dealer was also able to make better business decisions and optimize toward ROI, which allowed them to cut their monthly advertising budgets by just about $80,000 per month.