Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “… in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” As tax season comes to its end on April 15th, dealers across the country are looking for creative and cost-effective ways to clear their lots of winter surplus inventory. So, in this blog, we’re examining Dynamic Remarketing, an oft forgotten opportunity, and how it has become one of the most impactful tactics to re-engage website visitors and encourage more leads.
What is Dynamic Remarketing?
The Google Ads Help center explains it best. “Remarketing allows you to show ads to people who have previously visited your website or used your mobile app. Dynamic remarketing takes this a step further, letting you show previous visitors ads that contain products and services they viewed on your site.”
Inventory feeds are an essential part of a functioning website and advertising strategy, but the mechanics of setting up the inventory feed so that it can be properly enabled to operate as a source of content for remarketing campaigns isn’t the easiest of processes. However, as the saying goes, “the cars are the stars,” and properly meeting the demands of today’s car shoppers means subtle nudges to continue their shopping journey. Showing potential buyers the exact vehicles they viewed or those that mirror them, thus matching their explicit interests, is one of the most technologically savvy and inexpensive ways to advertise today.
How Dynamic Remarketing Works
As mentioned, it’s not the easiest of set-ups, but dynamic remarketing is worth the time and effort. Besides, that’s a major reason why automotive paid search agencies were created: to reduce the headache of figuring out in-the-weeds strategies and set ups.
To get you started, you’ll need to place some remarketing tagging on your site. Once the coding is implemented properly, you’ll need to get things set up in Google Ads. Just like any remarketing campaign, you’ll need to set up some audiences to target. Since we are only interested in reactivating past users with dynamic remarketing, we’ll rely on the information received from that tag to find the users who have been to your website before. If we were interested in targeting new users, we’d be setting up a Dynamic Prospecting campaign, which varies in audience segmentation but is the same overall set up procedure.
After all that complex set-up and connecting feeds with the Google Merchant Center, the real work begins of establishing some parameters for getting those ad impressions.
Think back. Perhaps you’ve added something to a shopping cart on a website but did not follow through with the purchase. You later see an ad encouraging you to go back and complete your purchase of said item. The same logic applies for your remarketing campaign. A user spends a significant amount of time interacting with a vehicle on your website, whether that be valuing her trade-in value or exploring the payment options; that person is likely a great candidate for receiving an impression of a dynamic retargeting ad. The campaign will be set up to show her that exact vehicle she was researching. There’s even the ability to feature some additional vehicles located at your dealership that share similar characteristics.
Why Use Dynamic Remarketing?
There are many reasons why dynamic remarketing is a worthwhile investment. When trying to move inventory off the lot, like around tax season, you want as many eyeballs on cars as possible. Here are all the reasons Google provides for getting started with a dynamic remarketing strategy:
- Ads that scale your products — After a user has a lengthy or multi-touchpoint interaction with one vehicle, then bounces off the site, they may have missed another vehicle that is much better suited for their needs.
- High-performance layouts — Google Ads predicts which dynamic ad layout is likely to perform best for the person, placement, and platform where the ad will show.
- Real-time bid optimization — With enhanced CPC and conversion optimizer, Google Ads calculates the optimal bid for each impression, so waste is as little as possible.
You likely have strategies in place to up-the-ante when trying to move those surpluses of used vehicles off the lot. But ask yourself, or your agency, if Dynamic Remarketing is a part of that strategy. Has Dynamic Remarketing even been mentioned or suggested as a potential investment? If the answer to those questions is a reluctant “No,” contact us today, so we can start reimagining what opportunities your overall paid search strategy could be missing.
Dynamic remarketing will be a must to any dealer’s website’s future success, and if you don’t get in the game soon, you will fall behind the curve and miss out on potential leads and sales.