The Texas automotive dealer wanted to drive sales by generating better online leads, so it ran lead ads to reach the local market, attaining a 12.5X return on ad spend and selling 8 vehicles at a higher profit.

43% increase in website visits
63% increase in collected email leads
63% brand new customers made a visit to dealership
12.5X return on ad spend

Their Story

Trucks for South Texas

Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC is an automotive dealership with locations in Devine, Eagle Pass, Laredo and Del Rio, Texas. The company sells new and used vehicles and offers its customers a variety of financing options, vehicle servicing and parts.

Their Goal

Generating leads for less

The automotive dealer wanted to reach more people to increase website traffic and generate better leads without increasing its marketing budget. It turned to Facebook to target people whom it might not reach via traditional media.

Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC piloted Facebook advertising and was met with tremendous success in terms of return on ad spend. We grossed $31,244—roughly $3,905 per contract! I’m excited to see where we go from here, now that we have Facebook advertising launched across all 6 of our dealerships. Our next step is retargeting.

Michael Lopez, Group Marketing Director, Brown Automotive Group

Their Solution

Offering locals a deal

Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC used a targeted Facebook campaign to maximize its reach. The dealership worked closely with its social media and reputation management partner, Digital Air Strike. Digital Air Strike began by looking at existing data from the dealership’s traditional media campaigns to see what could work for Facebook. It decided to try lead ads, which automatically fill lead generation forms with the user’s information.

The ads were targeted to people aged 18–65+ who are interested in owning the Chevrolet Silverado or other GMC cars and pickup trucks. To better encourage people to visit one of Brown’s 6 dealerships—located in Devine, Eagle Pass, Laredo or Del Rio—Digital Air Strike used location targeting to reach its audience in these places.

Ad creative combined product images and lifestyle shots, and was accompanied with the clear incentive of a $500 trade-in credit. A simple call-to-action button prompted people to “Sign Up.” The ads linked to a lead generation form, which was filled out automatically based on the information in a person’s Facebook profile, making it quick and easy to complete.

Facebook’s Ads Manager allowed Digital Air Strike to track the results of multiple objectives, including website traffic, costs per click and costs per lead metrics.

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Products used

Goals

Increase In-store Sales

Their Success

Accelerating sales

Brown Chevrolet Buick GMC’s lead ad campaigns were extremely effective, and Digital Air Strike’s expert targeting generated higher quality leads and more conversions at a lower cost than other media. Over 2 days in April 2016, the campaigns resulted in

43% increase in website visits
63% increase in collected email leads
63% brand new customers made a visit to dealership
12.5X return on ad spend
8 vehicles sold

We know shoppers are often 60-90 days out. So as we get these leads and eventually close them, we see that the Facebook visitor is more engaged with our site, hinting at the quality of this low funnel auto-intender who is hopefully in a “discovery” mindset, that Digital Air Strike and Facebook are helping us reach.

Michael Lopez, Group Marketing Director, Brown Automotive Group