Web advertising

Published in Autojournal in May 2017

Manage your investments intelligently

If you've been investing money in Internet advertising for several years without really knowing how your media dollars are being allocated and what their rate of return is, this column is for you.

In this edition dedicated to F&A, so here is this post dedicated to structuring your advertising investments well, taking control of your data and finally getting the most out of your advertising campaigns on the web.

1. Do you own your advertising data?

Advertising data is extremely important and valuable. How do we get this data? Simply by running web media buying campaigns. Google Adwords, Facebook, Instagram, Bing. Let's start with Google Adwords (the most popular advertising platform in Internet advertising).

Did you know that the owner of the credit card to the Google Adwords account owns the data? We recommend that you always own all your vendor accounts, (Facebook, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Instagram, etc.) your web properties, (websites, landing pages, Google Analytics, Google My Business, etc.) as well as your domain names. Additionally, by owning your data, you are able to know exactly how much has been invested in media and also have the flexibility to check your data whenever you want. Demand absolute transparency from your agency or the person managing your internet ads, there should be no ambiguity between your media investments and the management fees. Another benefit of paying your media budgets directly, is that Google doesn't charge taxes, so you will save almost 15% of valuable cash flow and you will earn points or discounts on your corporate credit cards.

2. Do you really understand Internet advertising?

Internet advertising is evolving at a dizzying pace and its complexity is increasing day by day. The easy solution is to hire a firm that offers 360° solutions and hope that the results are there. However, it is important to know that these good results are linked to your Web advertising campaign. The person or firm that is responsible for your online advertising account should be able to simplify this complexity so that you can understand it well and make good business decisions.

Too often, Internet advertising is sold as a product, but in reality it should be sold as a service. To this day, there is no software that can manage all online media. It is still necessary for a human being to manage the different suppliers and especially the daily optimization. Yes, you read that right! The architecture of a campaign is important, but the daily optimization is even more important. The great advantage of the web is that it is possible to modify the campaigns according to the results obtained. Your internet advertising campaign will be as effective as the person who will be in charge of managing it. This person will have a great influence on your results, so make sure you choose this person and not necessarily a firm or an agency. Another tip would be to not commit to long term contracts, keep yourself flexible in the event that the results are not there.

3. Actions to be taken as a dealer

Internet advertising is not an issue to be taken lightly. It is important for you to make decisions about your brand. Not the brands you sell, but the brand you represent, why your potential customers should do business with you. The future success of your business depends on it. Every dealership owner, general manager, sales manager, service manager, should be able to understand an Internet advertising campaign report. There are many ways to measure your campaign other than just looking at cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC). Everything is measurable on the Web, so you might as well take advantage of it. It's your job to make sure you understand the important elements of an advertising campaign so you can make the best decisions about your media investments on the Web.

Finally, it is important to know the average time of your customers' buying cycle. By knowing this data, which corresponds to the time that elapses between the beginning of the shopping process and the final signature, you will be able to better calculate your return on investment based on this period and not only look at it over a month or a year.

Good sales!