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I recently found an interesting, informal study about search engine advertising (PPC) done by a self-proclaimed “marketing technologist” and wanted to share some of the results with you.  The entire study is available by clicking here.

What really caught my notice was the question:

“When you avoid the ads for a particular search, what are the reasons why?”

Over 40% of non-marketers (and almost 50% of those in the marketing industry) responded that it was because they didn’t trust the advertisers.

When searchers do click onto your pay-per-click search engine ads, increase their trust by showing them that they have reached the right place–use landing pages as a part of your PPC campaigns.  If someone searches for “Baltimore Nissan” and are then shown your dealership’s home page, they may not instantly recognize they are in the right place and could click off.  If you show them a page dedicated to finding a Nissan in Baltimore, they will trust your dealership more because they were given exactly what they asked the search engines for.

If your dealership’s pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign doesn’t include landing pages, contact your search engine marketing provider to find out how to make sure it does.  Start building trust from the beginning by using landing pages and showing your future car buying customers exactly what they are looking.

According to the Google AdWords blog, Google will now show its AdWords users the number of searchers that saw your pay-per-click (PPC) ad, didn’t click on it, but bought from your dealership within 30 days.  Google calls these “View-through Conversions.”

This new reporting can be helpful when determining your return on investment (ROI) for your PPC ad campaigns.  By combining this data with the data of those who actually clicked on your dealership’s PPC ads, you should see a more accurate picture of how much your PPC campaign is earning for your dealership.

It can also be helpful when deciding which keywords your dealership should continue to pursue in your PPC campaign.  While customers may not be clicking on your ad when searching for a certain keyword, if they are seeing it and buying a car later, then it may make sense to continue to bid on it.

The down side to all of this…the view-through conversions report is only available to those dealerships that have conversion tracking implemented.

If having this type of insights into your dealership’s PPC campaign results is something you’d be interested in, consider having your auto dealer pay-per-click campaign managed by a PPC expert.  While it might be difficult to get the view-through conversions tracked, most will be able to track the phone calls your auto dealership receives, as well as all of the necessary web metrics and tracking.

Google’s Quality Score play a big role in determining how much your dealership pays for your pay per click (PPC) ad campaign and the location of your ad on the search results page.  The higher the Quality Score, the less your dealership has to pay for the same location on the results page.  Since Quality Score is determined by the relevance of your landing page and the click through rate of your ads, following these simple tips can help improve your dealership’s Quality Score.

Make sure you are targeting only relevant keywords.  Look at the list of search terms people are using when they see your ad.  Drill down on any that aren’t directly related to your dealership, then re-work your keyword list to help make sure your dealership ad isn’t showing for those kind of searches.

Always research the language your future customers are using.  By bidding on and using the words people are searching for will make it more likely they will see and click on your PPC ad.  For example, is the web traffic in your market area searching for “dealer” or “dealership”?  “Chevy” or “Chevrolet”?  These little differences can make a huge difference on your PPC campaign reaching those trying to find your dealership.

Continue to measure and adjust your PPC ad campaign.  Since the search terms people use online continually change, your PPC efforts need to keep changing as well.  When your landing page and ad copy are continually relevant and effective, your Quality Score will benefit.

Given the complexity involved with running a dealership’s pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign, Google is trying to make the self-management of PPC campaigns as easy as possible with the introduction of their bid simulator.

Existing Google AdWords users will be able to use the new bid simulator to see the potential difference in clicks compared to a higher or lower maximum cost-per-click (CPC).  To use it, click on the “Keywords” tab in your AdWords account, and then click on the bid simulator icon (it looks like a mini-graph) in the “Max. CPC” column.

The bid simulator uses data from the past seven days, and shows your auto dealership how many times your dealer ads could have been shown had the max CPC been higher and lower.  This will allow your car dealership to decide which keywords are worth spending a little more, and which you are spending too much money on.

Of course, Google is quick to point out that past data does not predict future results, so take all of this information with a grain of salt.

While this tool can help make optimizing your auto dealer pay-per-click campaign a little easier, it by no means makes it easy.  Successfully managing and running your car dealer PPC ad campaigns requires someone at your dealership to be extremely dedicated and knowledgeable.  Using an expert PPC management vendor will free your dealer staff to sell more cars, as well as give your auto dealership the results you need from your PPC campaign.