Objectives

The Brown Automotive Group looked to Digital Air Strike, the leading social media and digital engagement company, for help in reaching more people to increase website traffic and generate better leads without increasing its marketing budget.

Brown's Marketing Manager, Michael Lopez, asked Digital Air Strike to begin with its Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC dealership with locations in Devine, Eagle Pass, Laredo and Del Rio, Texas. Because the dealership needed an influential digital marketing campaign but couldn't afford to drastically increase its spend, Digital Air Strike designed a program to capitalize on the powerful targeting feature of Facebook ads.

Digital Air Strike knew that consumers looking to purchase a vehicle nationwide were already primed and motivated to buy in response to a barrage of national advertising by car manufacturers and were actively reviewing their options online. The challenge was to reach that audience, push them to the website and convert them into leads for Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC.

The team agreed on the following quantifiable objectives:

Strategy and Execution

Strategy (Research)

Digital Air Strike began by looking at existing data from the dealership's traditional media campaigns to see what could work for Facebook. Digital Air Strike has a deep understanding of the most effective tools to reach consumers on Facebook. Not only is Digital Air Strike able to leverage the knowledge accrued from its leadership position in the automotive industry as Facebook's largest agency partner for automotive, the company also produces its own annual automotive social media trends study.

Each year, this study helps the company determine the most effective ways to reach automotive consumers and provide the most powerful results for its clients. The study includes findings from over 2,000 car buyers and 2,000 service customers who either purchased or serviced a vehicle within the previous six months. The study covers all major U.S. geographic regions and represents domestic and foreign automotive brands, with even distribution across age and gender groups.

The following research was used to create the strategy for this campaign:

• Facebook ads continue to gain use and awareness; 66 percent of car buyers / shoppers or owners who have seen a Facebook ad say they have clicked on it, up from 33 percent in 2014.
• Vehicle incentives and coupons on social media are a big draw, as 45 percent
• of car buyers said they would "check-in" at a car dealership on Facebook to take advantage of various promotions. Check-ins are valuable as they broadcast to a consumer's social network as an implied endorsement.
• 96 percent of car buyers feel a dealership needs to have at least a four-star rating or higher on review sites to have a "good rating."

Tactics

Digital Air Strike determined that in order to get the most efficient and cost effective Facebook targeting campaign to achieve success, it would employ lead generation ads, highly specific demographic/location targeting, ad creative with customer incentives and digital reputation management tools to increase dealership Facebook ratings.

The initial lead generation "net" would be cast wide, but leveraging Facebook's relationship with Polk and Datalogix would enable the type of precise targeting that was the lynchpin of success for this campaign. By using the Automotive category in Facebook's behavioural targeting, Digital Air Strike would be able to specifically target Facebook users shopping for Chevrolet, Buick and GMC automobiles.

The creative strategy for the campaign would include imagery that was relatable and friendly to car buyers, it would also include posts that provided incentives of a $500 trade-in credit to consumers. The incentives post would be coupled with a call to action that would lend itself to lead generation efforts.

Digital Air Strike would also utilize Facebook's automatic lead generation tool which automatically fills out the lead form with the user's Facebook credentials. This would mitigate the threat of users opting not to fill out the form through convenience.

Results

Each goal was checked off for Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC, but the client was most impressed with the fact that Digital Air Strike was able to provide them with a tremendous return on investment with a minimal budget.

The following data demonstrates the outstanding success of the campaign in terms of goals met:

• 43% increase in website visits (goal was 30 percent)
• 63% increase in collected email leads (goal was 50 percent)
• 63% increase in new customer visits to dealerships (goal was 40 percent)
• 27 leads generated (goal was 18)
• 12.5% return on ad spend (goal was eight percent)
• 1,250% return on investment

The following data demonstrates the outstanding success of the campaign in terms of ultimate benefits of the campaign:

• 40,061 consumers in the market to buy a vehicle were reached
• Thirty-one appointments were set with prospective car buyers
• Eight vehicles were sold at a higher profit – five were sold to customers new to the dealership
• $31,244 gross profit

The return on investment (ROI) of the campaign was stellar. Digital Air Strike demonstrated that a social media campaign needn't be expensive to yield great results and that companies of all sizes can benefit from the powerful and precise targeting of Facebook ads. For a mere $2,500 Facebook lead generation spend, Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC had more than $31,000 in gross profit which translated into a 1,250% ROI.

Media