If you want to dominate your dealership market yet you’re still relying on local TV commercials to reach buyers, it may be time to reconsider your strategy. With streaming ads, you’ll be able to grab attention, pull in more traffic and drive more sales. In this article, we’ll cover how streaming ads can work for you.
What Are Streaming Ads?
Streaming ads are video ads that play on platforms like Hulu, Roku, YouTube TV, Peacock and dozens of others. Unlike local TV commercials, these ads are part of the content people choose to watch on demand, and they can be targeted to reach specific audiences. This means that instead of casting a wide net and hoping someone in your zip code is watching, you can deliver your ads directly to people in your area who are most likely to take action.
What Makes Streaming Advertising So Effective for Dealerships?
There are many reasons you may want to add streaming ads to your dealership marketing plan. Here, we cover some of the biggest benefits.
Audience Targeting
One of the most powerful benefits of streaming ads is their ability to target specific audiences. Instead of wasting money showing your car commercial to everyone, you can zero in on more specific groups of people. For example, you might target people with income levels that match your target buyers, people who have been recently researching cars online, or families in your area that might be looking for deals.
Better ROI
ROI is a great way to measure if your marketing efforts are working. For car dealerships, this could mean tracking how many leads come from a specific ad campaign or how many leads turn to sales. Streaming advertising typically delivers a higher return on investment than traditional TV because you’re reaching a smaller but more relevant audience. Additionally, streaming platforms come with dashboards that give you data on views, ad completion rates, clicks, and in some cases, the foot traffic an ad drove to your dealership. Using your dashboard, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not, turning off underperforming car commercials quickly before you waste money, and optimize ads that perform well. This will lead to a higher ROI over time.
Creative Flexibility
It used to be that car dealerships would run a single car commercial over and over again for months. This led to viewer burnout, and eventually people just stopped paying attention. With streaming ads, you can run multiple versions of your ads at the same time, switching them out as often as you need. This means you can test different car models, offers, calls to action and audiences to figure out the automotive video advertising creatives that work best for your dealership.
How to Get Started with Automotive Video Advertising
Getting started with automotive video advertising is easier than you might think. Here, we cover a few of the initial steps.
Define Your Goals
Before you begin creating, it can be helpful to define your goals. Are you trying to sell a specific car model? Do you want to build local brand awareness or clear out last year’s inventory? Does success mean driving more appointments, or does it only count if an appointment leads to a sale? Clear goals will help you create your ads and allow you to better understand the types of people you plan to target.
Know Your Audience
If you have sales records, CRM lists or website traffic, you can use that data to understand who’s most likely to engage in your ads. You can also work with a streaming ad provider that specializes in automotive or local business advertising to help refine your audience.
Create Car Dealership Videos
You don’t need a high budget to create great car dealership videos. These days, short, authentic videos often perform better than higher budget local TV commercials. Viewers want to feel like you’re speaking directly to them, so consider creating quick content like a 15 second walkaround of a new model or a video highlighting your local roots.
Choose Platforms
There are dozens of streaming services, each with its own pros and cons. To find the best platform for your business, you can start by trying out a few and then zeroing in on the ones that work best. Popular options include Hulu, YouTube TV, Peacock, Tubi, Amazon Freevee, Roku Channel and Sling TV.
Need help getting started? Consider working with a digital ad partner who specializes in dealership marketing and can handle the placement for you.
Test Your Ads
Once your ad campaigns are live, keep an eye on how they’re performing based on the goal you set in step one. You might track whether people are watching your videos to the end, if they’re following your calls to action, or if the ads are leading to increased traffic to your website. The benefit of streaming advertising is that it’s fast to adjust, which means you can trade out underperforming ads or run A/B tests to see which creatives get the best response.
How To Stand Out in Your Market
Once you’ve got the basics of dealership marketing, you’ll want to find ways to grow your reach and dominate your local market. Here, we cover a few of our top tips.
Use Geo Fencing
Set your campaign to run only within a specific radius of your dealership to make sure you’re targeting your most local market.
Send Seasonal Messages
Tie your message to what’s happening locally and seasonally, like back-to-school deals in July and snow tires deals in winter.
Be Consistent
Streaming ads work best when they’re allowed to run continuously. Rotate new offers, but keep your brand and message steady so people remember you when they’re ready to buy.
Try Service Specials
Sales are great, but service deals can also drive repeat business and build loyalty among your customer base. Use video ads to promote things like oil change coupons or tire replacement programs.
Learn More About Dealership Marketing with Dealer Stream
Ready to get started with streaming ads? Here at Dealer Stream, we offer streaming-first ad campaigns built specifically for car dealers. We combine curated CTV/OTT ads, audio and car dealership videos, anti-fraud systems and performance tracking, all optimized to drive sales. If you’re interested in learning more about our car dealership marketing services, contact us today.