Jeremy Evans, Managing Director of Marketing Delivery, has highlighted the automotive retail sector’s 90% inclination not to bother reaching out to Facebook users who have failed to “Like” their brand.
Evans views this as a missed opportunity, as Facebook advertising constitutes the only way for car retailers to reach 40% of the platform’s users who do not ‘Like’ brand pages. Evans points out that Facebook advertising allows dealers to profile and engage directly with all relevant users according to their location and what they currently drive, as well as by their search preferences when they look for a new car – right down to vehicle marque and model.
Marketing Delivery found that upon analysing the two-month period of September to October 2016, its clients using Facebook advertising alongside other digital and social advertising tools found that up to 60% of their total New Vehicle Display Page referrals came from the Facebook advertising activity, beating the likes of Google and Auto Trader.
Jeremy Evans, Managing Director of Marketing Delivery commented: “The average age of Facebook users on pages that Marketing Delivery oversees is 38, which dispels the myth that Facebook is ‘only for teenagers’. While younger people often ‘Like’ a car dealer’s page, it is the people with the disposable income and purchase ability that are interacting with content and are best reached through social advertising.”
Evans adds, “Facebook provides one of the best platforms for customer engagement at a local level, and advertising on it can allow dealers to target the right people with the right marketing messages at the right time. This type of targeting relies on accurate, high-quality data to be a success; so using a large, generic database of contacts will yield poor results.
“It’s still incredibly important for car dealers to have an active community presence on social media, and to post exceptional content that engages customers and followers; but if they are not using targeting advertising on Facebook as well, then they are missing a trick.”
