The day began with a statement heard way too often by media publishers’ sales reps: “I’m not getting enough return on my investment.”
From real estate and automotive to general retail, publishers are feeling the drop in digital advertising revenue. Keeping up with social media and new technology platforms has proven difficult for media companies. Local advertising agencies have had the upper hand in digital advertising for several years. As a result, advertisers are spending less and less each month with media publishers.
CHALLENGE: The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a WEHCO newspaper, recently had a loyal automotive dealer reach out, saying they wanted to stop spending their monthly budget with the paper. A couple of advertising agencies were pitching the dealer a new lead-gen platform from Facebook, Automotive Inventory Ads, and they wanted to give it a try.
AIA was developed to reach and retarget in-market car buyers using advanced algorithms and custom VDP pages inside Facebook. AIA utilizes a dynamic inventory catalog, Meta Pixel and online user engagement to show the most compelling inventory and features to the right audience.
The dealer was currently purchasing a monthly social media campaign from the newspaper that included sponsored posts, Marketplace posts and some other standard social posting. However, the dealer’s results had turned flat over the last couple of months, and they were looking for something different.
SOLUTION: Julie Rose, multimedia account executive from NW Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was currently talking to Wehaa about Virtual Sales Events. One of the components of a virtual event is Wehaa’s dynamic Facebook campaign. Ms. Rose reached out to Kevin Collins, Wehaa VP of sales, and asked if they were capable of running Facebook AIA ads. Wehaa’s traditional dynamic Facebook campaigns are very powerful and utilize Wehaa’s proprietary feed-less integration technology to build Facebook inventory catalogs. These same inventory catalogs are used to build AIA ads. After a little research, Wehaa was able to confirm that an AIA campaign would be simple to create.
CONCLUSION: Thanks to some quick thinking, Ms. Rose was able to keep her dealer and sold them on running an A/B split test using half of their budget on the new AIA ads and the other half on the traditional dynamic Facebook campaign. The split test will run for 90 days and then all three parties will review the results before moving forward. Wehaa developed both A/B campaigns in less than one week, and the test launched Wednesday, June 1.
“Wehaa was able to help me save a very loyal and long-time customer,” says Rose. “Their quick response and delivery of goods was very impressive.”
FACEBOOK AIA Carousel Ad:
FACEBOOK AIA ad Vehicle Landing Page:
Leading the space in innovation and fast turn-around is nothing new to Wehaa. “We are excited to offer this new Facebook solution not only to save a loyal customer but also as another revenue opportunity for all media companies,” says Kevin Collins. “Staying ahead of the technology curve is our job. We let our partners do what they do best, and that is to sell.”
Wehaa and the NW Arkansas Democrat-Gazette will be comparing the results of the new Facebook AIA vs direct-click dynamic carousel ads during the A/B split test. Both campaigns will utilize geo & behavioral targeting to auto-intenders. The big difference in campaigns will be the VDP pages. AIA will create its own VDP page for each vehicle and keep the consumer inside the Facebook platform. The VDP pages will be fast loading and capture lead generation data from the customer. Lead gen options include form fill, email or in-bound phone call. The dealer in this test opted to receive leads via the AIA form fill.
Meanwhile, the traditional Facebook campaign utilizes Wehaa’s Direct Click-Through technology. When a user clicks a car they like from the Facebook carousel ad, they are taken directly to the dealer’s website and anchored on the dealer’s VDP page. This has always been a winning formula for Wehaa and their partners. The dealers get a real-time exclusive lead that can shop the dealer’s full inventory without having competitors’ inventory involved.
“The only caveat to our Direct Click-Through technology is that some dealers have slow loading websites,” explains Mr. Collins. “If the dealer installs a Wehaa pixel, we can determine the bounce rate. Some dealers are seeing a bounce rate exceeding 30% on mobile,” he continued. As a result, dealers are losing valuable leads/sales when mobile pages are slow to load. Armed with this knowledge, Wehaa’s media publisher partners have been able to help several dealers who were not aware their VPD pages were not optimized for mobile.
THE BOTTOM LINE: While the verdict is still out on which social ad technology will provide better results for advertisers (stay tuned), the real winners will always be the companies who use innovation to do best by their partners. If you’re looking for a competitive edge to help win over your local dealer, this may be a great opportunity. Wehaa can set up Facebook inventory catalogs to power cutting-edge campaigns for automobile, RV, powersports, motorcycles and marine advertisers.
For more information and an update on the split test results please reach out and schedule a demo. CLICK HERE { https://wehaa.com/flex-374-Contact-Us.html }
For details on Facebooks AIA ads CLICK HERE { https://www.facebook.com/business/news/introducing-an-on-facebook-destination-for-automotive-inventory-ads-aia }
Kevin Collins
Kevin@Wehaa.com
