Choosing a digital marketing partner to set your dealership up for success
Digital marketing is a crucial way for your dealership to reach today’s online shoppers. But where do you start? There are essentially three main ways you can handle your dealership’s digital marketing efforts:
Paid search: a car dealer’s path to driving more sales
When shoppers decide they’re in the market for a product or service—or they’re generally curious about something—they head to a search engine like Google for information. In fact, billions of Google searches happen every day. Think about how many of those are car searches—or, chances for your dealership to attract potential customers to your site.
While you can rely on search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to help you increase the ranking of your site without spending money, changing algorithms and ranking criteria make it hard to maintain your position in search results. So how else can you promote your dealership and drive new visitors to your site? Through the use of search engine marketing, or paid search as it’s commonly called.
Pickup truck owners feeling the pinch of rising prices, CarGurus survey finds
Last month, CarGurus checked in with current and former pickup truck owners for the second year in a row to see if their attitudes toward the category, its brands, and their vehicles have changed. Overall, the survey uncovered that brand loyalty among pickup truck owners is beginning to decrease compared to one year ago. This becomes especially true when truck owners are asked about their brand loyalty in conjunction with increased prices. The survey results were as follows:
Announcing the 5th annual CarGurus Top Rated Dealer Awards
Congratulations to the dealers that were recognized in the 5th annual CarGurus Top Rated Dealer Awards today!
Based on reviews from car shoppers across the country, these annual awards celebrate a select group of car dealers for their exceptional service and commitment to customer satisfaction. The winning dealers have the highest average review ratings from shoppers on the CarGurus platform.
A dealer’s guide to car photography
There is no underestimating the value of high-quality car photography. Customers can tell a lot about your dealership from your advertising images, which are often the first impression a customer gets of a car.
New models benefit from polished manufacturer stock shots, while used vehicles do not enjoy the same luxury and require a bit more effort. Get it right though, and you immediately showcase the car’s best qualities in plenty of detail, immeasurably boosting your chance of a sale.
However, photography is easy to get wrong–and a lot of businesses do exactly that. A lack of know-how or the scramble to get images online frequently leads to poor-quality shots that leave the viewer unclear about what they’re looking at and questioning the dealership’s professionalism. If you want to sell more cars, then you can’t cut corners with photography. If you have the budget for a professional snapper then go for it–but handling your pictures in-house is perfectly doable whether you’re a veteran photographer or a newbie with a smartphone.
Recognize returning customers to grow trust and sales
How you manage each potential customers’ experience with your dealership is critical to closing the sale
Customers in the market for a car don’t just follow a straight line from wanting to buying. They shift between on and offline resources an estimated four times, but it’s the dealership that almost always closes with an average of 2.4 visits per sale. It’s clear: how you respond to repeat visitors clearly matters.
How to handle negative reviews
A bad online review can be a golden opportunity for a dealer to shine
One day you decide to see what people are saying about your dealership online and you’re appalled at what you find: someone left a scathing one-star review! You immediately feel enraged and want to lash out at the reviewer because they’re giving people a false impression of your business.
But before you do anything hasty, take a moment to consider the best course of action. Bad reviews are a fact of life in today’s digital world where anyone can leave one on platforms such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Yahoo – not to mention auto shopping sites like CarGurus. There’s a smart way to handle the situation, and when done right you can improve your company’s reputation.
Once again, CarGurus wins two “Highest Rated” DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards
For the third year in a row, CarGurus is proud to have won top honors in the DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards for both Used Car Advertising and New Car Leads.
What sets great dealers apart: 3 social media metrics you need to track to understand your campaign’s success
Maintaining a strong social media presence is essential in today’s business world. While it might seem simple to figure out how well you’re doing, there is more to it than just looking at how many likes and followers you have.
Likes, shares, and comments all contribute to social media success, but on their own, they don’t tell the full story. When we boil it down, there are three key areas to look at when we talk about social media metrics. In this article, we’re going to give you the rundown on all of them: what to look at, which numbers to pay attention to, and how to improve those numbers if they aren’t where they should be.
CarGurus dives into car shopping journey in new 2018 Buyer Insight Report
What goes into the car buying journey for the average auto shopper?
At a time when consumers are more indecisive than ever about key decisions, from what vehicle to purchase to which dealership to buy from, this question is crucial. The 2018 CarGurus Buyer Insight Report, released today, provides an answer. The report analyzes the digital purchase paths of more than 3,000 auto shoppers, giving an in-depth look at today’s complex car shopping process. Key findings include: