Utilizing Paid Social for After Sales Marketing

After Sales is a large profit center for any automotive dealership and should not be forgotten about when it comes to digital marketing. Paid Social is a great place to have a presence for After Sales to stay top of mind of current customers and reach more potential customers.

Green Line's approach for promoting After Sales on Paid Social is to drive awareness and engagement of the Online Service Scheduler tool or form fills and service promotions to corresponding owners. Below are some key ad types for different objectives, ad formats and audiences.

Doing Social Differently

• In-platform management for a hands-on management backed by budget automation.
• A/B testing, utilizing top available ad format offerings, and optimizing based on targets rather than vanity metrics.
• Install Relevant Meta Pixels including: Remarketing, Service Scheduler and Call Tracking
• Take advantage of all data available and tailor it down to the last stitch.

Objective: Awareness

Optimization: Impressions
Ad Format: Single image or video ads
Audience options: Owners of dealership make or customer lists

Running awareness ads is a great entry point to After Sales digital marketing on Paid Social. Because you are optimizing for Impressions, the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is usually very low, which allows your budget to go further. With this ad type, we would recommend a message that reinforces convenience or savings.

Objective: Website Traffic

Optimization: Link Clicks
Ad Format: Single image or carousel ads
Audience options: Broad, predictive targeting

Drive potential customers to your website service scheduler or service specials with web traffic campaigns. You can also exclude recently serviced customers from this campaign to conserve budget and ensure relevant targeting.

Increase customer engagement by using creative that highlights:

• Low-cost oil changes
• Seasonally relevant tune-ups
• Same-day / same-week service availability
• Guaranteed service loaner vehicles

Objective: Leads

Optimization: Cost Per Lead
Ad Format: Ads that click to Message
Audience options: Broad, predictive targeting

If your store has dedicated team member(s) to answer Facebook leads, this ad type might be a great way to increase your Schedule Service appointments. Using the chat tool can help remove friction that a customer might experience when trying to schedule a service appointment online. We recommend testing into this ad type if you receive ~50 schedule service leads a week from Paid Social.

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Navigating Automotive Tariffs: Our Focus on Efficiency & Competitive Strategy

As an advertising agency specializing in the automotive industry, we understand that upcoming tariffs on vehicles and parts are beyond the control of both dealers and agencies alike. While these changes may impact pricing and margins, our commitment to our clients remains the same: driving efficiency, maximizing ROI, and staying ahead of the competition. Now more than ever, dealers need an agency that prioritizes performance over percentage-based fees, ensuring that every marketing dollar is working as hard as possible. Our approach has always been rooted in paid search and paid social best practices, focusing on high-intent buyers and strategic optimizations to maintain an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

In addition to strong digital advertising strategies, having compelling specials and clear calls to action on your dealership’s website will be more critical than ever. Ensuring these offers are updated quickly and efficiently can make all the difference in driving conversions. That’s why Green Line’s DRIVE software, included in our SEO packages, makes it simple to update specials and CTAs seamlessly, keeping your dealership agile in a shifting market.

While external factors like tariffs may create industry challenges, our mission is to ensure that your dealership remains competitive, visible, and profitable—regardless of market conditions. By leveraging data-driven strategies, advanced targeting, and continuous campaign optimizations, we help dealers navigate uncertainty without sacrificing performance.

The automotive landscape is shifting, but our focus remains steadfast: efficiency, transparency, and results.
Let’s continue to drive success together.

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Green Line Automotive Extends Partnership With Volkswagen After Sales

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Schaumburg, IL- (February 12th, 2025) - Green Line Automotive has been selected to continue as the Agency of Record for After Sales for Volkswagen of America Tier One National Media. Green Line looks forward to continuing the great work they have been doing with Volkswagen of America (VWoA) After Sales and helping achieve their goals.

Green Line Automotive started its partnership with VWoA Afer Sales in 2022. Green Line works closely with the VWoA team on digital strategy and a full-funnel approach to after-sales marketing, including Paid Search, Programmatic and Paid Social efforts.

“Having the opportunity to work with the Volkswagen team has allowed us to rethink how we manage and approach after-sales marketing, and we are appreciative of the VWoA team for allowing us to test new ideas and get creative,” said Brent Rogers, Vice President and Managing Partner of Green Line Automotive.

Green Line Automotive offers industry-leading insight on digital marketing efforts, specifically crafted to each client’s needs. From strategies such as SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Video & First Party Data Integrations, there are multiple avenues for every dealership to engage with their target audience.

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 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.

For more information on GREEN LINE AUTOMOTIVE:

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

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/green-line-digital-auto/

Understanding Google's November 2024 Core Update

Google's November 2024 Core Update has made some more changes to how they evaluate and rank search results. Google regularly updates its algorithm to ensure users receive the highest quality content for the best search experience.

This update is just another step in Google's ongoing mission to make sure that genuinely helpful and relevant content gets the spotlight, while low-quality, keyword-stuffed pages fade into the background. This has led to ranking volatility over the last couple of weeks.

Key Changes and Focus Areas

• Enhanced Content Quality Metrics: Google has emphasized the importance of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness). Websites with in-depth topic knowledge that are trustworthy, made by people who know what they're talking about, are likely to maintain or improve rankings.
• Alignment with Search Intent: Google matches content to search results that best aligns with user intent. This includes favoring websites that provide actionable, clear, and query-specific information over generic or overly optimized pages.
• Demotion of Thin Content: Pages that offer limited value for users or are over-optimized for SEO purposes, including excessive keyword stuffing, may observe a decline in their search engine rankings. Google's algorithm prioritizes content that is both comprehensive and user-friendly.

Initial Impact on Websites

Websites relying on content created solely for ranking purposes are likely to see a decline in search visibility. However, sites offering well-researched, user-centric content are likely to see improvements. This update reinforces consistency in topical representation and prevents larger publishers from using existing ranking authority to outrank smaller publishers in new categories. These outcomes underscore Google's commitment to user satisfaction over algorithm manipulation.

Recommendations for Recovery and Core Update Response

Search results are constantly changing as user expectations, search behaviors, and web content evolve. Google emphasizes that websites affected by the update may take several months to recover their rankings as its systems learn and validate improvements. Furthermore, making reactive changes does not guarantee a ranking recovery.

• Conduct a Content Audit: Identify underperforming or thin pages and work to improve their quality. Content should be original and engaging, and it should give users what they're searching for.
• Optimize User Experience: Address technical SEO issues like page speed, mobile-first design, and accessibility. These factors are key to maintaining rankings and encouraging visitors to interact with your content.
• Update Old Content: Complete content refreshes where necessary to remove outdated information on high-performing pages. This is essential to maintain relevance and align with current user needs.
• Build Niche Authority: Establish expertise in specific topics to enhance overall domain credibility. Google has also recently communicated that if a website publishes content that strays too far from its main topic, that content might experience downgraded rankings.

Most importantly, wait until the update is completed before analyzing the ranking impact.

Long-Term Strategy

Core updates often bring temporary volatility. Don't rush into making changes. Instead, use tools like Google Search Console to track your performance and identify areas for improvement.

Organic Keywords Trend

Here’s an example of a website that focuses on providing a great user experience and valuable content, supported by a holistic, long-term SEO plan, has seen immediate benefits from the update.

POV: Utilizing Conversion Value Bidding For Automotive Paid Search

Google's ad algorithm is now best at optimizing performance when ad campaigns are structured with either a max conversion value bid strategy or target ROAS, even when the target KPI is a lead submission or phone call. The max conversion value bid strategy allows advertisers to set values for each conversion action, which tells the bidding algorithm to prioritize higher-value actions. Using a value-focused bidding strategy can both increase lead volume, decrease CPA & help prioritize conversions that are more meaningful for your business.

Testing Max Conversion Value To Increase Key Conversions’ Volume

Assigning a value to non-purchase conversions is quickly becoming a best practice in paid search advertising. In our latest test, we assigned values to phone calls & form fills for 3 different car dealerships based on which conversion was most valuable to them. Other conversions that are tracked, but not a priority were left with a $1 conversion value to deprioritize them in the algorithm.

Two dealerships prioritized phone calls & one dealership prioritized form fills.

Results Achieved

After one month, we saw a 25% increase in phone calls & a 45% increase in form fills. We also saw a 45% increase in overall conversions. While each client had a goal to improve a specific conversion, we saw an overall increase in conversions as well.

While a maximize conversion bidding strategy is meant to increase conversion volume and control your Cost Per Lead, we saw that a maximize conversion value strategy not only increased the number of key conversions but also improved the CPL.

Across the same 3 auto accounts, we saw a 20% improvement in our cost per lead.

Conclusion

GLD recommends assigning a value to KPIs in Google Ads and testing into a maximize conversion value or target ROAS bidding strategy. Utilizing this bidding strategy helped improve automotive clients' conversion volume & cost per lead in comparison to maximize conversion bidding. Value-based bidding also drove more key conversions for clients based on their business objectives.

This strategy takes advantage of the algorithm’s most optimized bidding strategy & applies it to conversions that do not directly lead to revenue (such as a purchase) to mimic the success that is seen in other industries with this bidding strategy.

Witches, ghosts and the scariest of all…
BOT TRAFFIC!

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