Expanding The Dealership’s Reach

Dealerships spend approximately $640 on advertising for each new vehicle they sell (National Automobile Dealers Association). Therefore, it’s important that automotive advertisers choose partners that can generate and prove meaningful results. When a car dealership in a rural part of Eastern Kentucky wanted to expand its reach to users who were unfamiliar with it and who lived in towns that were approximately an hour away from the dealership, it partnered with a well-respected national publishing company that has leveraged Simpli.fi’s technology for years.

Together, the dealership and media publishing company wanted to generate a CTR of 0.15%, as well as achieve a high percentage of vehicles sold to people who lived outside of the advertiser’s local area. They chose to use Simpli.fi’s Prospecting Dynamic Creative for Auto solution to serve personally relevant ads to users who were beginning the car-buying process and to analyze the campaign’s results at the VIN-level. This would help them clearly see which vehicles within the dynamic carousel were driving results, including when a specific VIN was deleted from the dynamic feed to indicate a sale—once sold, the vehicle would be removed from the dynamic feed to prevent the campaign from wasting impressions on inventory that was no longer available.
 

Reaching Users at the Top of the Sales Funnel

Set in a rural area, the advertiser hoped to expand its audience and attract consumers who lived in towns that were approximately one hour away from the dealership. It wanted to build brand awareness among users in the early research phase and showcase available vehicle inventory through dynamic ads, all without wasting impressions on buyers who were already familiar with the dealership.

With Simpli.fi’s Prospecting Dynamic Creative for Auto solution, the advertiser could reach users at the top of the sales funnel via Search Retargeting and Keyword Contextual targeting. This meant that personalized ads would display vehicles relevant to individual users based on the keywords they searched and the content they read. For example, a user who searched for “GMC SUV” was served an ad featuring a GMC Acadia from the dealership’s inventory, while a user who searched for “GMC pickup” was served an ad featuring a GMC Sierra from the dealership’s inventory.

The media publishing company and Simpli.fi quickly activated the campaign with Simpli.fi’s automated feed import and easy-to-use creative templates. The team simply entered the advertiser’s website URL into the Simpli.fi platform, which automatically imported the advertiser’s inventory feed. Using Simpli.fi’s interactive creative templates, the team swiftly built the dynamic ads by implementing the dealership’s logo, color scheme, and copy into the template’s placeholders. Once a vehicle sold, it was automatically removed from the dealership’s feed, thereby eliminating the possibility of wasting impressions on unavailable inventory. Each vehicle that was shown in the dynamic ads linked directly to the dealer’s corresponding Vehicle Details Page (VDP), making this an ideal solution for the advertiser and media publishing company.
 

Vin-level Reporting Demonstrates Campaign Success

Over the course of fifteen weeks, the campaign exceeded its goal and achieved a CTR of 0.19%, revealing that users were clicking on the ads and visiting relevant VDPs. The campaign also achieved excellent results with its VIN-level metrics. Of the 1,110 VINs that served impressions, 79.01% were deleted from the feed, thus indicating 877 vehicle sales. By comparing these deleted VINs to the dealership’s sales reports, the advertiser was able to report on how the campaign directly contributed to its bottom line. It plans to continue using Simpli.fi’s Dynamic Creative solution to reach users at the top of the sales funnel and to evaluate campaign performance at the VIN-level.

Interested in using Dynamic Creatives for your next automotive campaign? Get in touch at hi@simpli.fi, or contact your Simpli.fi representative.