You probably already have a Facebook page for your car dealership. Why wouldn’t you have an account on today’s most well-known social media platform? Are you marketing your dealership to Facebook’s 2 billion active daily users? Click here to check out our guide on how to drive traffic to your dealer Facebook page and engage with your customers.
Facebook has two different types of search marketing ads. The first is a traditional Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ad that works similarly to Google Ads or remarketing ads. The second is to directly advertise on the news feeds of users that are relevant to your business. Utilizing one or both of these methods is a great way to expand your reach to tons of new customers.
Before you get started, you need to make sure your dealership's Facebook account is a business account. Once that’s set up, you can go to Facebook’s Ad Manager to get started.
Step 1: Choose an Objective
Facebook offers 10 different objectives for your campaign to select from. If your goal is to drive your dealership website traffic or gain more leads, we’re going to recommend that you choose “Send people to your website” or “increase conversions on your website” as your objective.
Step 2: Narrow Down Your Target Audience
The goal of marketing is to reach people that will engage with your dealership. To attain that goal better, you will want to find a specific audience to send your marketing messages to. Facebook offers a tool that lets you choose who you want to show your ads to using location, age, gender, occupation, and more.
Most people aren’t willing to drive a long distance to visit a dealership or purchase a car. They are more likely to search for dealerships in their area. For that reason, we recommend that you select an audience that is within 100 miles or less of the location of your dealership.
Step 3: Create a Budget
The most popular way to set a budget for Facebook ads is to create a daily budget. A daily budget means that Facebook will pace your ad spending each day to the amount you set it to. If you’re not sure how to set up a budget, a good idea is to start it at $10 per day and see where it goes from there.
The other type of budget you can set is a lifetime budget, which means that your ad stops running when you hit the maximum budget. This method may work better for you if you know exactly how much you want to spend on your Facebook ads and aren’t as concerned with daily consistency.
Step 4: Be Consistent
How often do you want to post on Facebook? Is it a few times a week, once a week, or even once a month? Whatever it is, make sure to stay consistent. People don’t want to follow pages that post sporadically one day and then disappear.
It is also important to think about the branding of your dealership. Find a style of writing and photos that represents your dealership and creates the image that you want. You don’t want your posts to look like they were all written by completely different people.
Step 5: Create Your Facebook Ads
Now is the time to get creative! Before you start writing or designing any content, think about what it is that you want to get out of your campaign. This will help guide you throughout the process.
Here are some of AutoJini’s top tips when it comes to copywriting and designing ads:
- Avoid buzz words
- Make sure all of your text is easy to read and see
- Consider the car buying process for consumers
- Make sure your landing page is relevant to your specific ad
- Don’t make the design of your ad too cluttered
There’s no need to worry if things don’t go perfectly right away. It takes some time to learn and get used to using Facebook ads, but practice makes perfect.
Are you already on top of your game with Facebook marketing? Then check out our step by step guide on how to master Instagram as a car dealership!
If you have any questions, AutoJini is happy to help! We also provide Facebook ads services if you want to leave it to us while you work on the more important stuff in your dealership.