Bot traffic in Google Analytics are often miscategorized as Direct traffic, making it hard to filter out unwanted data from sources like web crawlers, scrapers, and spam. While eliminating bot traffic isn't feasible, focusing on users who spend more than a few seconds on your site helps you evaluate meaningful interactions and reduce the impact of bots.

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Where does bot traffic come from?
Bot traffic comes from a variety of sources… too many to list, but below are some of the most common sources:

• WEBSITE WIDGETS that crawl your site looking for data, i.e. pricing data for dealers. This is often crawled off websites and pushed to you in a software.
• WEB SPIDERS AND CRAWLERS who are checking your site for issues/broken links and errors.
• INVENTORY URL SCRAPERS from websites such as 3rd party providers will grab your VDP URLs so that your inventory on their website links to the right page on your site.
• SPAMMERS that are trying to collect phone numbers and email address to sell and distribute.

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How do I eliminate bot traffic from GA4?
Unfortunately, you can't eliminate bot traffic from GA4. GA4 automatically filters out known bots and spiders from your property, and updates traffic numbers as their database updates. These traffic sources are identified by Google research as well as by Google referencing the International Spiders and Bots list, maintained by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Sometimes internal or 3rd party tools will masquerade as a bot or spider, even though they will not be flagged by Google’s systems. For systems like this, it is recommended that you reach out to these partners and see if it is possible to get their IP address(es) so you can set up an IP exclusion within your property. IP exclusions will allow you to label this traffic as “internal” so that it can be more easily filtered in reports.

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If I can't eliminate Bot Traffic, how do I best evaluate my direct traffic?

• Focus on users and not sessions.
• Identify people who spend time on your site, i.e., users who have spent more than 15 seconds on your website. Most bots come, get their required information and leave in a few seconds, so focusing on time on site will help evaluate quality traffic.

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How to Reduce Bot Traffic
Although it’s a continuous effort, refining your filters this way offers the most practical solution for reducing the impact of bot traffic on your GA data. As mentioned above, if it is possible to label this traffic as “internal” (using IP exclusion) then that can go a long way in ensuring your reports remain clean of this data.

Google Chrome has rolled out its August update, and the effects impact how consumers search. This includes 3 new AI features including Google Lens for desktop Chrome, Tab Compare for products, and search with Gemini.

Over the past few months we’ve talked about how the Search Generative Experience will impact the SERP and new Google Ads AI features or how to leverage AI in paid search, but now with this latest update Google is bringing AI features right to users’ desktops. Here’s what’s going on, what we think the impact will be and how to prepare.

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Google Lens on desktop Chrome

What it is: Google Lens lets you search visually. Previously this was only available on mobile devices, but bringing it to desktop means you’ll be able to select and search for anything that you see on the web, and even refine the search to get you the best results without ever leaving the tab they are on.

Why we care/what to do: As users read articles, search or browse the web, they can snip and discover more information on vehicles or products, compare pricing more easily, and even be led to where to shop. Depending on the question, you might also receive an AI overview response which impacts both paid and organic search:

Paid search: Without keyword based searches, you’ll need to be ready to capture queries through broad match and audience based campaigns with a visual component like Performance Max, Performance Max with Vehicle Listings and Demand Gen.

Have an optimized vehicle or product feed to make sure your vehicles and products are discovered and can be correlated to image searches.

We expect that conversion rates would improve for the searches your products/vehicles are shown for, especially when someone refines a search with Gemini to look for a new color or where to buy.

Be aware of product and vehicle pricing compared to competitors

We may see a decline in impressions and clicks depending on how often the AI overview is presented, and if they are getting the information they need from those results. However, we anticipate that engagement on site from a landed visitor will be greater.

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Search with Gemini

What it is: Chrome’s latest feature is to be able to chat with Gemini right from your browser. By typing @gemini you can ask any question and you’ll be presented with an AI response.

Why we care/What to do:

Paid search: This has the potential to impact spend, clicks and impressions as users adopt this and skip the search results page altogether.

This has not be monetized yet so we would anticipate as this gets adopted for search volume to decrease until they add ad placements

With longer, more specific searches, we’ll need to incorporate new match types to capture these queries when this does roll out

As research based questions are redirected or skipped altogether, we will need to find more visual ways to grab consumers by diversifying spend to different ad types or even social channels for discovery.

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Tab Compare

What it is: While this hasn’t launched yet, Tab Compare allows users to review products across multiple tabs all in one place. Chrome will offer to generate a comparison table by showing a suggestion next to your tabs. By bringing all the essential details — product specs, features, price, ratings — into one tab to make an informed decision.

Why we care/What to do: Pricing is going to be even more important than ever as potential customers will have an easier time comparing on the fly.

Paid search: Ensure all feed attributes are filled out correctly and completely and ensure competitive pricing!

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What Does this mean?

There are a lot of changes going on this year for Search. As your agency, we will help keep you updated and make sure you’re ahead of the curve by conducting early testing, ensuring your feeds are in good working order, and helping you diversify spend to get you the best results.

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About Green Line Automotive:

Green Line Automotive is a digital advertising agency created for automotive dealerships. Our mission is to deliver tier-one automotive advertising expertise, technology, and service to the tier-three dealers. We give you an advantage over your competition by giving every dealership the best in technology coupled with a fully customizable approach.

See our services such as Automotive Paid Search & SEO for car dealerships or contact us at info@greenline.nyc or 833-GLD-CARS.

Performance Max with Vehicle Feeds (formerly known as Vehicle Listing Ads) is getting a major update to pricing that will be beneficial to auto dealership PPC marketing. We reported back in April that Google was testing and slowly rolling out Dealership Pricing on cars for sale sponsored ads.

Launching mid-September, the Dealership Pricing feature is now available to all dealerships in the US. Right now this price is displayed in green above the MSRP which showcases the discounts, while giving the consumer all the pricing information before they click on an ad.

Since vehicle listing ads are part of Google Shopping (a comparison shopping engine), pricing will play an integral role in performance - both from an awareness standpoint and engagement - as Google is more likely to show inventory at lower price points. This could result in a dip in impressions if your pricing isn’t competitive with other local dealerships, or if your feeds are not fully optimized.

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What’s Next for Dealerships?
The first thing you will need to do is make sure you have the Dealership Pricing attribute included as a field in your shopping feeds so that the discounted pricing can be displayed. At Green Line, this is built into the feeds from day one for our automotive advertising clients.

Outside of pricing, you’ll need to ensure your vehicle data feeds are set up in a way that will improve your rankings and relevancy:

• Ensure your feeds have high-quality data by optimizing your titles & descriptions by providing as much detail as you can to help boost search relevance.
• Ensure the images you use in your feed are high-quality in not only resolution, but theme, and that the images match the rich descriptions you provided.

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At Green Line, we ensure our clients' feeds are fully optimized for rankings by providing keyword-rich, unique and meaningful titles and descriptions that will influence visibility and drive performance. We also use additional feed attributes such as color, trim, etc. to provide additional product information to drive search query relevance.

In addition to optimizing titles and descriptions we also use high-quality images that showcase our client’s vehicles without the use of watermarks or busy backgrounds. If we are not provided with high-quality images, our team works with our clients and utilizes other resources - such as the Product Studio in the Merchant Center - to showcase the vehicles in ads in the way Google prefers.

We also perform robust competitor research and will work with our clients to improve their pricing/sale pricing models to be able to better compete with local competition if needed.

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Performance Max & Green Line Automotive
Performance Max with Vehicle Listings can be a tricky campaign type to optimize for, and we do Performance Max differently for our clients to ensure high-quality leads at the lowest cost. Having great feeds and, now, highlighting dealership pricing will help performance moving forward. If you’re not sure if your ad feeds are optimized for Dealership Pricing, contact us for support.

On the latest Google Marketing Live event, Google revealed how paid ads will appear in the new search experience with AI overviews, along with introducing a few new features that heavily incorporate AI.

We hypothesized about this a few months ago, but here our takeaways from the keynote:

1. Google will be showcasing paid ads that aim to guide consumers through complicated buying decisions using AI assistance, tailoring advice and recommendations based on a user’s search.

What this means for advertisers:

• We anticipate higher conversion rates, but a potential decrease in site traffic.
• Ensure your product feeds are high quality including detailed titles and descriptions
• Diversify your campaign types
• Ensure the use of impactful creative

2. New immersive Shopping & Ad Experiences to engage customers

What this means for advertisers:

• Similar to the above, with the ability to get more information without ever leaving the Search Engine Results page, you may see a decrease in traffic, but you should also experience higher conversion rates.
• New features will continue to roll out like uploading photos to get recommendations.

3. New Tools to create Performance Max creative at scale with AI powered image editing

What this means for advertisers:

• This gives you the ability to turn one photo shoot into a whole new set of creative without a lot of lift.
• Take your best performing product and showcase it in new light.
• Be careful to stay on brand and review all imagery prior to publishing.

So what's next?

Google’s ads above and below the AI-generated overview sections have already rolled out, and soon Shopping ads will roll out next. Ads from existing Search and Performance Max campaigns have the opportunity to appear within the AI Overview, and your search team already has access to the new tools for making new creative.

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About Green Line Automotive:

Green Line Automotive is an automotive digital advertising agency created for automotive dealerships. Our mission is to deliver tier-one automotive advertising expertise, technology, and service to the tier-three dealers. We give you an advantage over your competition by giving every dealership the best in technology coupled with a fully customizable approach.

See our premier services such as Automotive Paid Search or contact us at info@greenline.nyc or 833-GLD-CARS.

April has been an especially challenging month for our clients across auto and ecommerce, as the economy continues to rock consumers, with interest rates still at an all time high, and as we continue to approach election season.

Coming out of Q1, are April CPCs still sharply rising and is it isolated to any specific channel, and what can we do about it?

On the Social side of things, META has been relatively flat YoY, but the last two weeks of April have started to creep up; it’s possible as we head closer towards the summer and the start of the election season we may start seeing these begin to rise, but overall, things have been stable.

The main story is TikTok. As clients and advertisers begin to diversify their media spend away from META and Google, TikTok CPMS are rising. CPMs increased 13% in 2023 vs 2022, and have seen further increases of about 50% from September 2023 through Q1 of 2024. We expect this trend to likely continue further into 2024.

Paid Search, specifically Google, is mirroring more of the TikTok trend unfortunately. Since September 2023 when Google reportedly raised prices to help meet their revenue targets, CPCs have started climbing and haven’t really stopped.

April was no different as CPCs were up 13% YoY, leading advertisers to spending just to reach the same click levels they were at last year. In fact, Q1 ad spend increased 21% YoY, meanwhile due to actual demand, competition, and rising costs, total click volume on Google actually decreased.

With clicks continuing to decline, and costs going up, the latest news coming out of the DOJ’s anti trust trial, is hammering home that Google really does have the power to control prices as they are proving that over the years they have been changing the algorithm to raise prices through algorithm tuning to increase profits and not always at the benefits of the end user.

So what are advertisers to do?
At Green Line Digital, we’re working with our clients to make sure we:

• Diversify ad spend between channels & tactics
• Make every dollar count and focus on the right KPIS per channel
• CVRT to “offset” - find ways to improve conversion rates to make up for higher CPCs
• Learn fast & pivot from one strategy to the next

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About Green Line Automotive:

Green Line Automotive is an automotive digital advertising agency created for automotive dealerships. Our mission is to deliver tier-one automotive advertising expertise, technology, and service to the tier-three dealers. We give you an advantage over your competition by giving every dealership the best in technology coupled with a fully customizable approach.

See our premier services such as Automotive Paid Search or contact us at info@greenline.nyc or 833-GLD-CARS.

Vehicle Ads are the latest search tactic for dealerships to use on Google & Bing to showcase their available inventory.

Now that they’ve been integrated into Performance Max, this campaign type is even more powerful, giving our search team the ability to use audience signals and first party data to create unique opportunities to get in front of potential customers for our clients.

Here’s how we do things differently at Green Line:

Avoiding Wasted Spend & protecting the brand

• The first thing we do with any account is set up our best practices including reviewing conversions and ensuring we have hard conversions in place (leads), reviewing content suitability, excluding poor placements and known spam sites, and adding negatives such as fixed ops. We also discuss with our clients if they want their brand/trademark terms to show within Pmax or not.

Using CDP/First Party Data As Audience Signals

• We always seek to find ways to be cost efficient while driving more leads. We use first party data and our own CDP to target specific segments like sales and service users, or someone who purchased their vehicle several years ago and may be due for a new oneLeveraging these audience signals only, allows the algorithm to identify potential customers who are similar to these lists who are more likely to complete the action we want.
• For one of our Porsche dealers, we spent 29% less spend than our baseline and drove 80 leads (vs 86) at a 24% lower CPL.

Model Specific Campaigns & Asset Groups:

• Allocating budget to dedicated campaigns that can be paused/enabled based on available stock and dealership priorities. These are honed into only the appropriate models, allowing us to find lower cost and incremental leads compared to traditional search.
• In a 30 day time period, running side by side with a Search campaign for a Subaru dealership, our Pmax Cost Per Lead was $46 lower than the same model campaign in search ($56 vs $10).

Unique Segmentation Tests

• We pride ourselves on testing, and you’ll often find us treating Pmax Vehicle Ads as we would an ecommerce client. Thanks to our in-house feed capabilities, we are able to segment your feed by price, model and other custom combinations, allowing us to create asset groups broken out by your dealership’s priorities. Of course, that’s not all - we have tested tangential audience segments such as developing personas outside of “in market” segments.

Zombie VINS

• Google and Bing have known biases - and will surface what they think will do best, but what about all the other VINS on your lot? We’re able to isolate the VINs that never get shown in Pmax Vehicle Ads and create their own campaign and allocate budget just for them.

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About Green Line Automotive:

Green Line Automotive is an automotive digital advertising agency created for automotive dealerships. Our mission is to deliver tier-one automotive advertising expertise, technology, and service to the tier-three dealers. We give you an advantage over your competition by giving every dealership the best in technology coupled with a fully customizable approach.

See our premier services such as Automotive Paid Search or contact us at info@greenline.nyc or 833-GLD-CARS.

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), while still in BETA, is causing quite a stir as to how it will impact both paid and organic results in the SERP. With Google’s Search Generative Experience slowly rolling out, we are working to establish how this will affect advertisers both from a paid and organic perspective and how we can combat these changes.

WHAT THE EXPERIENCE LOOKS LIKE

As of today when using the Beta version of the experience, the generative AI results fall below sponsored ads, but that is likely to change once it is rolled out completely. Based on the current layout and experience, experts believe there’s a potential to lose organic traffic to your site, as Google pushes organic results further down the page, highlighting only a handful of content, and AI results in its place.

Automotive dealers specifically may be impacted the most by SGE, as potential customers searching for general Makes and Models will generate general information rather than where to buy one.

Near Me keywords, however, will generate map listings first, pushing down organic listings of dealer websites

WHAT ARE VEHICLE ADS?

Vehicle ads (formerly known as Vehicle Listing Ads or VLAs) are similar to shopping ads. They are dynamic inventory ads placed at the top of search results that display based on your inventory feed. These ads are different in that they offer a more visual format with your inventory photos as opposed to responsive text ads which display only text information we provide. Vehicle Ads give more information about the car for sale on your lot within the search result itself to encourage more qualified website traffic. With Green Line Automotive’s custom feed integrations, we can integrate into nearly any dealership’s inventory without requesting a feed.

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WHAT’S NEW?

Previously, Google's Vehicle Ads solely featured the MSRP pricing for dealership vehicles, even if they were on sale.
Starting in April, Google will display both the MSRP and the discounted price side by side, ensuring customers see the most accurate pricing information before clicking on the vehicle.

To take advantage of this update, ensure your vehicle feeds include the new column for the sale price, allowing it to be showcased within the ad.