Because most trips to buy a car are made online these days, a huge percentage of car buyers (71%) use social media to aid in their purchase. Meta’s Facebook undoubtedly has the largest audience compared to other social media sites, with more than three billion active users in a month.
Furthermore, up to 80% of potential car buyers visited the site during the study period.
These statistics are very encouraging for automotive brands and dealerships because they can now reach a broader audience—prospective car buyers, hand-raisers, in-market buyers, and even current vehicle owners—all use Facebook.
What are Facebook Automotive Ads?
You may know Facebook Automotive Ads by other names like Automotive Inventory Ads (AIAs) or Dynamic Ads for Automotive Inventory.
They are a type of Facebook dynamic ad, the only difference being that Facebook Automotive Ads are exclusively directed towards the auto market. Using a pixel or SDK, Facebook can deliver ads to potential buyers who access your website or app with the purpose of buying a car. This allows you to advertise both new and used cars.
You are capable of not only concentrating on almost all buyers likely to purchase a vehicle but also those with very particular objectives. Customers are able to find a car matching your advertisement by typing the make, model, and trim into the search box. Facebook Automotive adverts allow for additional geo-targeting, which means advertisers can focus on users within their vicinity.
Facebook automotive ads display the same features as Facebook dynamic ads, making them dynamic ads. This allows Facebook to show ads to users who have previously been targeted car shoppers, which can increase the effectiveness of car dealerships marketing campaigns. Specific campaigns can be created for users who have already interacted with your website and target them with ads for vehicles they have previously viewed as well as other similar vehicles.
Here are ten Facebook Ads for automotive Examples
1. Automotive Facebook Lead Ads
Fulfilling the form of getting leads is simplified through Facebook Lead Ads, which helps capture leads effortlessly while enhancing the user experience; this is especially useful for mobile users. In the ad by MG Motors below, the user just has to click, and the lead form will pop up prefilled with their contact details from Facebook.
Driftrock and similar tools let you automate the importation of leads into your CRM with a single click. Facebook Lead Ads also has a certain set of features unique to the automotive industry.
For example, if prospective customers are completing your form, you can make the “locate a dealer” button clickable, enabling the prospective customers get further help in the buying process. On the other hand, leads can provide their information and subsequently choose to call or text a preferred dealer.
This is said to work wonders for the majority of my clients. Facebook Lead ads have proven to be more effective than landing pages, with a 50% reduction in cost per lead and over 200% increase in the leads volume.
2. Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads
OEMs and dealerships can advertise new and used cars during Automotive Inventory Ads on Facebook, which are meant specifically for automobiles. This is probably the most effective also and especially because it targets people already looking for a car to buy.
Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads are shown to the right audience because of the following:
- Your catalogue information (like brand, model, year and price)
- The Meta pixel tracker placed on your website
- Any audience that has engaged and interected
Also, done for previously interested leads and look alike audiences for retargeting purposes.
3. Facebook Video Ads for Automotive Industry
Currently, videos are the single most consumed type of content because they portray the story of your automobile business in a nutshell. That’s why it should not come as a shock that people tend to spend almost 50% of their time on Facebook and Instagram scrolling through the videos.
As a brand in the automotive industry, you have a wide variety of options where you can express yourself creatively, such as during vehicle launches, features, educational and behind-the-scenes videos, testimonials, etc.
For instance, Volkswagen grabs your attention with short, vertically oriented mobile phone video. And they are not the only ones, countless brands utilize “in-stream” or “feed” advertisements for both long and short videos.
Volkswagen is not the only one using subject themed topical video ads. This is one of the Christmas adverts, fun to watch due to its stop-motion animation. On the contrary, you have Toyota USA, which uses long-form branded humorous videos.
The combination of a well-crafted concept and human engagement makes even a minute-long advertisement exciting as well as fulfilling till the very end.
4. Automotive Facebook Instant Experience Ads
Facebook has an exclusive ad format for mobile users; they are known as Instant Experience advertisements, formerly referred to as Canvas advertisement. It promotes products in captivating fullscreen format to capture as much engagement as possible.
Advertised models might be used individually, the whole stock could be presented, or a virtual dealership tour could be advertised. Within the instant experience, users can dynamically engage with the elements to a certain level that guarantees a higher engagement level.
Capture leads with suitable CTAs by plugging in offers or websites. They use instant experience ads for creating awareness and capturing conversion leads for the newest electric vehicle.
The brand effectively manages to showcase the range using videos, carousels, and images to highlight the features and effective pricing. Users are able to adjust the configurations to see the final product using carousels, which then display the vehicles with the desired exteriors and interiors.
5. Facebook Messenger Ads for Automotive Marketing
Colloquial marketing is one field that has picked up many new fans, which makes it very easy for audiences to connect with businesses or brands they love.
74% of adult participants in one survey claim that directing messages to brands enhances their connectivity with them. The most surprising statistic is 66%, who reveal that they would be far more inclined to buy products offered by firms where they can remotely chat via messages.
Another example of conversational advertising is Facebook Messenger marketing. For example, try ‘click to message’ ads if you are looking to acquire clients. Prospective buyers will automatically be taken to your inbox when they click on the CTA button.
You have the option of either talking in real-time or sending them a pre-drafted message. The amount of information that can be shared within Messenger is staggering without needing to go to an external site or app. You definitely do not need to get off your phone for the entire weekend; even when you are on on-call mode, you can remain accessible to leads around the clock.
They produced plenty of video ads with the CTA “click to message,” and those who clicked were sent straight into Audi’s Messenger. From there, they could effortlessly book a test drive or request a quote for a used car.
The Importance of Facebook Ads in The Automobile Industry
Automobile advertising is considered wise because 91% of potential car owners conduct preliminary research on the internet. If your automotive dealership is running ads on Facebook, here is what you could gain:
1. Easy Setup and Maintenance
It is so simple to set up your automotive Facebook ads. Just send the required information regarding the vehicles that you have in stock, build a Dynamic Ad template, and that’s all there is to it! Your ad copy is created automatically using the data you fed. You run a campaign for all of the vehicles that you have and Facebook will store the information for whenever an ad for a new vehicle is required.
2. Broad Reach
The younger generation, which comprises one of the largest demographics of car buyers, such as Millennials, prefers buying cars without stepping out of their homes and visiting the dealerships. Their favorite social media network is Facebook, so this is an excellent platform for automotive ads. Billions of users log in to Facebook on a daily basis, so your ads will target a huge audience of prospective buyers.
3. Selecting the appropriate audience who would likely buy the product.
Your customers will see the true price and availability of cars you have on your website or automobile app through Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads. You don’t have to waste money advertising to people who are very unlikely to purchase a car from your website.
4. Reaching All Potential Buyers
Your automotive inventory ads can always be viewed by the potential customer regardless of whether he is searching from a mobile phone, a desktop computer, or a tablet. This guarantees that your marketing campaign covers all possible audiences.
5. Enhanced use experience on mobile devices
Forget about those embarrassingly low loading speed pages! Facebook’s automobile ads direct interested clients to a vehicle detail page that is mobile optimized, making the experience for clients ten times easier than it previously was.
Best Strategies for Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads
As a solution for dealership advertising, Facebook designed AIA. If you notice that not using them causes you to lose sales to competitors, well then, you have no choice but to improve your advertising.
Make sure to follow the tips below to enhance the possibility of clicking on your automotive inventory ads and make them stand out from the rest.
1. Improve Image Quality
Graphics should always be of the best quality possible in order to ensure maximum results from the imagery utilized.
Choosing a lighting that is comfortable for your camera and a plain background is only one step of the uploading photograph process of the dealership onto the website. Foremost, you should make sure that your advertising materials are not associated with low-quality photographs.
Think about how you name your files, as this will make it easier for your images to be found on social media and even search engines. There is a huge difference between file names: “Honda-Civic-2020.jpg” is better than “1444pj.jpg.” It’s all about reducing the friction here.
Remember to be proactive as well when it comes to scaling and cropping images. Add alt text and change the file of the image to be more useful.
2. Expand Local Visibility
As most people interested in purchasing an automobile tend to buy one that is closer to where they live, Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads tends to use the feature of a particular location. For this reason, you should work towards enhancing the local visibility of your dealership mark.
This can be done by enhancing your local SEO. For example, you can design a contact page, include a clickable mobile phone number, or even embed a map on your website.
If you have not already done so, claim your Google Business Profile. In one of my guides, I show you how to capture it, but do remember to request as many reviews as you can get.
Learning how to manage your reputation and visibility online makes it much easier to outsmart the competition.
3. Know Your Audience
Do the critical research about your audience before you waste money trying to promote your business because building automotive inventory ads is no different.
You might not have much power over which users Facebook advertises your inventory to (and they will be interested buyers), but you definitely can limit the demographics of people that view your ad by controlling the number of vehicles you put in your catalog.
For example, if you want to target inexperienced younger buyers, you definitely do not want to have your dealership’s off-road trucks or sports cars in the catalog. Those consumers are, most likely, looking for dependable and economical vehicles.
You are aware of how you interact with your customer. However, if my assumption is wrong, I would recommend performing a competitive audit with one or more of your competitors in the industry who are pursuing the same market as you.
You can apply my research tool, Ubersuggest, to see how your competitors are using internet marketing and formulate plans on how to surpass them.
Conclusion
To conclude, these five Facebook ad examples from automotive companies show how businesses can get potential customers’ attention on social media. These ads show important storytelling and imagery elements required to make great marketing campaigns. Evaluating those examples helps marketers understand how to formulate the messages to the target audience.
There’s one final thing that I want to stress—creativity mixed with data in advertising can lift your results to extraordinary heights. As you embark on your next campaign, allow these examples to help you construct powerful Facebook ads that will increase your brand visibility and reputation.
