Auto Media Blog

In a word No-

Contrary to popular belief it is NOT a good idea to buy your own name or a competitors dealerships name IF YOU ARE A AUTO DEALER.  And only if you are a Auto Dealer.  If you are in the consumer retail electronic  business (As an example) or a Automotive Manufacturer it is a MUST, but as a dealer it is a costly no, no...

Here is Why-

We recently did a brief study testing Google Ads and landing pages using two different variables.

In the 1st variable we bought our clients name and trademark as a "keyword" and as part of a series of keyword variations and used these keywords in their own Google Adwords campaign. 

In the 2nd variable we set up a separate Google Adwords Campaign and series of landing pages geared towards cyphoning from competitor dealerships web presence.  

What we found surprised us.....We assigned each campaign a specific call tracking # so that we could get a sampling of the phone calls to our client's dealerships from these campaigns & landing pages.  We worked with our client to sort through the calls and Categorized them (Sales, Service Parts & Etc...).

A WHOPPING 57% of calls to our clients (when we bought their own "Name" or "Trademark") was to Make Service Appointments,  17% was to get the dealerships hours of operation, 15% to speak to a salesperson (who knows if they had already come in and just misplaced the phone #) 7% to solicit the dealerships,  4% to get directions*.

*These statistics were adjusted for hang-ups, call backs and referrals.

We found that of the people who called from the landing pages we created (which were tied to this specific Google Adwords campaign)  MOST were people who simply "Googled" the dealerships name to get a phone #.  And because our ads rose to the top of the "Paid" section, they clicked on our ad as an easy way to get the phone # for the dealership, rather than scrolling down to the organic results.  The real travesty was that our client came up #1 in the Organic listings just under the top paid results for their own name (As they should..if you don't call us right away so we can help up ;) What's more troubling is that the very same person looking to get a "service appointment" would have clicked on the 1st result that reflected the "dealerships" name in the organic listing had the paid result not been there..... at NO COST!

Another interesting tidbit was that our clients name as a "keyword" was quite popular and was heavily bid on by competitors making it very costly. 

The results we got by bidding on our own client's name or trademark for themselves were stunningly similar across the "sampling" of 6  of our clients in the same study!  The majority of the phone calls across these clients were to get service appointments, know the hours of operation, or to solicit the dealership...go figure.

Next, We Bid On Competitor Dealership Names

And the results were different, but FAR from impressive....

Here is what we found;

We found that our "impressions" went way up, while our click through rate also known as (CTR) dropped.  This makes sense because, if people are primarily using Google when searching for a specific dealerships information to get their car serviced or the hours of operation, these very same people who "Googled" the name of the dealership they wanted the info for a service appointment wouldn't be as interested in our ad advertising a great lease on the new Mercedes C-Class.

Our Overall Adwords Campaign For Our Clients in the Sampling Suffered...

With rising impressions, a lower click through rate all our ad groups in this "test" suffered.

It adversely affected

• Our Cost Per Click
• Our Ad Position
• Our Conversion Rate
• And the overall effectiveness of our campaigns.

So guess what we did?  Yup, we eliminated bidding on our own clients names and trademarks and those of their competitors ACROSS ALL CLIENTS.  This resulted in dramatic changes across the board but even more so for ne of our larger more well known clients in particular, where the average Click thru rate rose to 5.39% across all of their campaigns up from 2.62% while bidding on our own client's name, trademarks, and their competitors names.

IMPORTANT NOTE

We are Not saying NOT to bid on the "Manufacturer Name" like "Mercedes" (although very broad terms convert poorly unless limited to a specific geographic region), we are simply saying, bidding on your competitors name is a lose.. lose proposition based on our research.

Feel free to email us at AdwordsResults@AutoMediaCorp.Com or comment below!