By combining an SEO campaign with a properly managed paid search account, you will increase not only your brand recognition but also your web-generated leads. Follow these steps when you begin building your AdWords account and you’ll be well on your way to seeing great success with your automotive digital marketing efforts.

1. » The Digital Marketing Experts
5 PRO POINTERS
For Setting Up A Stellar
Automotive Paid Search Account
So you’ve decided to hit the digital marketing ground running with a
paid search strategy for your dealership.
By combining an SEO campaign with a properly managed paid
search account, you will increase not only your brand recognition but
also your web-generated leads— guaranteed.
Organizing and executing a well-rounded and effective AdWords
campaign is much simpler than it might seem at first, especially if
you start off on the right foot.
Simply follow these steps when you begin building your AdWords
account and you’ll be well on your way to seeing great success with
your digital efforts.

2. 1 DETERMINE WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO GET OUT OF THIS
Plain and simple, why are you starting a paid search account?
Do you want to build brand recognition? Are you going after conversions and leads?
What aspect of paid search is most important to you and your dealership?
Determining this is the first step towards building your account.
» The Digital Marketing Experts
2 GET READY TO PAY TO PLAY
Once you determine the goal of your new paid search strategy, you can begin to figure
out your budget. If you’re going after leads and sales, you’re going to want to focus on
building campaigns that focus on clicks and conversions— which are going to cost you.
If you’re looking to simply boost your digital presence and brand recognition, focusing
on impressions alone will cost a little less.
Three key factors will help determine your budget: how competitive the keywords
you’re looking to show up for are, how active your competition is in the digital game
and how many other dealerships are trying to win over the same market. Exactly how
large of a budget really depends on your goals and how aggressively you’re willing to
reach them.
3 DIVIDE & CONQUER: CAMPAIGNS & AD GROUPS
Now that you know how much money you have
to play with, you can begin to split your account
up into different campaigns and ad groups.
Think of the campaigns as individual big picture
segments and the ad groups as smaller, more
specific elements of the individual campaign.
When starting a new AdWords account, you
should really begin with three main campaigns: a branding campaign, a geotargeting
campaign, and a model-specific campaign.
Your branding campaign should include an ad group focusing on your dealership
name. Your geotargeting campaign should target your OEM brand and the cities you’re
looking to show up for. Model-specific campaigns should target your top volume
models and your geotargets.
Tip: A campaign
should be named
something general
like “New Models.”
An ad group is more
specific, such as
“Ford Explorer.”

3. 4 THINK LIKE A CONSUMER: ADS & KEYWORDS
Now that you have your campaigns and ad groups
created, it’s time to build your ads and your keyword
lists.
When writing your ads, you want to do your best to
think like a consumer. You only have a handful of
characters to promote your brand’s message and
entice a potential customer to click through to your
website, so be as specific and relevant as possible.
While we’re on the subject, the same line of
reasoning applies to creating a keyword list. The keywords you use in your ad groups
are what trigger your ads to appear when someone types them into a Google search.
Make them specific to your ad groups and ads and be sure to cover all the different
types of search queries that people could be typing in.
» The Digital Marketing Experts
5 LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Depending on how large of a budget you have to work
with, the audience you’re targeting and where your
dealership is located, playing around with AdWords’ ad
targeting feature can be a useful tool to attract relevant
traffic to your ads.
Radius targeting is particularly helpful because you can
set your ads to only show to users within a certain mile
radius of your dealership.
So if you’re in a densely populated location like New
York or Los Angeles, you might want to consider
restricting your radius, or targeting individual cities.
While there is an infinite number of ways to fine-tune and adjust your AdWords
campaigns to maximize conversions and CTR, most strategies require a solid starting
point. Follow these pointers when you’re just getting started and you’ll have what you
need to achieve stellar results.
Tip: Take advantage of
Google’s keyword modifiers
like broad match, phrase
match, exact match, and
negative keywords. These
will help refine the searches
that trigger your ads, creating
more relevant traffic.
Tip: If you’re using radius
targeting and live on the
coast, a large body of
water, mountain range or
anywhere else uninhabited,
try setting the radius a little
farther away in the opposite
direction of the dead zone to
maximize its efficiency.
NEED MORE GUIDANCE WITH YOUR PAID SEARCH EFFORTS?
Contact PCG Digital Marketing’s team of Google AdWords and Bing Ads Certifiied
specialists to help your paid search campaigns mature to success.