The discussion has been going on now for years in the digital advertising space. Which third party sources are effective, worth the money and actually deliver traffic? While having lunch with our company’s most senior associates yesterday one of them asked me, “What is the biggest change you have seen with dealers in the last decade?” My answer was very simple:
“Control and knowledge of what they were spending their advertising money on.”
Every day we get asked to analyze or look at the results from a third party source. There are too many to count, but the common denominator is usually that the cost doesn’t justify the traffic for the dealer. Let me be clear. This is not every case but more often than not it seems the reason we are being asked to look into these is because the dealers are not seeing traffic. They are paying mountains of money annually for another source that is popular in the digital age.
Having knowledge over every source of your budget when it comes to digital is what will separate you from the competition in the coming years. Being prudent while diligent in what and where you are spending will allow you to maximize the things that are working and stop the ones that are not working. Then comes the element of control. Having control over your resources allows you to maximize your traffic and keep as much gross as possible.
What I always like to tell someone who is questioning a third party source is to multiply the monthly cost x 12 and think about what you are paying that service for a year’s worth of traffic and business. Then tell me if you think it is worth it.
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John Paul Strong
John Paul Strong combines his two decades of automotive marketing experience with a team of more than 150 professionals as owner and CEO of Strong Automotive.
