Nancy Rothman
11.23.20

Here are some of the most promising improvements to Google Analytics for car dealerships.

Improved Google Ads Integration

While Google Analytics had previously reached a fairly impressive level of integration with Google Ads, they’ve now taken it to the next level in ways that car dealerships are sure to love.

For example, you can now pull YouTube clicks and engagement data into analytics, alongside audience enhancements and automatic updates that help dealers see a much clearer cross-channel view of their customer lifecycle and spending habits.

Combined with AI insights and prediction capabilities, we can now better anticipate when someone is more likely to buy, where demand is increasing, and identify the highest revenue opportunities with specific Audience segments.

Finally, updates to conversion tracking now provide a much more seamless experience when you’re measuring campaign performance with website traffic.

Overall, the updated Google Analytics has made your advertising power more potent than ever, and your ability to track customer behavior more robust than at any point in the history of Google Ads.

Deeper Reporting & Data Analytics

Your ability to target the right potential customers with the right message, at the right time and in the right place, is key to the success of marketing your dealership.

The new reporting functionality just unveiled in Google Analytics will help you do all of that better than ever before. You’ll now find more granular user data insights, allowing you to identify which channels are driving the most and highest quality of new traffic.

Meanwhile, you can now identify behavior and actions taken after a form lead submission or phone call, and access more insight into online behavior with the dealership and its website. For example, you can see specifically which pages a user is looking at on your site— are they checking out the services pages, exploring inventory, reviewing a special promotion or offer, looking at aftersales content, or looking up directions to the dealership? The way you would target messaging in each of these cases is different, and now you can know exactly where your best strategy lies for each user— and track user behavior trends globally, too.

The end result is that you can better identify user experience optimizations and priorities, while also better measuring marketing efforts across all channels.

More Insights, More Ways to Take Action

Overall, this update to Google Analytics puts more power into the hands of car dealerships and marketing teams, providing dramatically more actionable insights in one unified platform. By leveraging machine learning to bring more critical customer data to the surface, you can pinpoint specific data trends and use them to transform the way you market to your customers and audience for the better.

Time will tell what other benefits this update to Google Analytics can bring to car dealerships, but rest assured we’ll be diving deep into the updates in the coming weeks to fully explore the value of all these new elements in the Google Analytics platform.

Nancy Rothman
07.24.20

Now, Google has brought an exciting new premium option to Google My Business profiles— the chance to choose a subscription to an ‘upgraded’ Google My Business Profile featuring a Google Guaranteed Badge. But what exactly does that mean, and what are the details of this new opportunity?

Meet the Upgraded Google My Business Profiles

For a cost of just $50 a month ($600 a year), you can now instill even more trust in potential customers with a Google Guaranteed badge on your profile that might also show up in Local Pack listings. You’ll also be able to access premium listing features that give you increased control over the information you share with your audience and how it’s delivered.

These upgraded profiles will be subject to the standard eligibility rules for Google Guaranteed, such as licensing and background checks for the business. While this is clearly a move by Google designed to directly monetize Google My Business, they have pleased business owners and marketers by not trying to charge for features that previously already existed.

It’s expected that competition will be the primary driver of adoption for the Upgraded GMB profiles and the Google Guaranteed badges that come with them. After all, if your competitor dealership across the road has a badge on their profile, you’ll likely be tempted to pick one up yourself.

What This Means for Auto Dealers

The auto dealers that benefit the most from these upgraded business profiles will likely be the ones with department listings for service and parts. You can now add the best, most specific information for that department within the list, including the most relevant phone number to reach that department directly, more accurate operating hours, better and more department-centric photos, and optimized business categories for search.

Meanwhile, you can now direct users to the most relevant website location for making appointments, browsing specific products and services, and the general service menu. You can also place unique product and service offerings in relevant department listings within the Product tabs. This will let your customers discover special offers and available services available at your business more quickly than ever.

Nested department listings also help highlight each profit center in a unique, more relevant way for customers than was possible when you had just one high-level listing for the entire dealership.

What’s In a Badge?

Still, one of the features drawing the most attention is the Google Guaranteed badge. While on the surface it seems like nothing more than a flashy visual artifact, Google’s name does carry a great deal of trust and weight. Plus, the badge is visually eye-catching and gives the impression of a direct endorsement from Google itself.

Overall, these upgraded profiles and the perks that accompany them are likely to become increasingly popular as more and more dealerships adopt them— especially when similar paid profile upgrades on other listing sites, like Yelp, can run upwards of $1,000 a year or more. Google’s reasonable price point of $600 per year is well within the reach of most small to medium businesses to take advantage of increased visibility, clarity, and information available on their listing for customers to see.

Want to optimize your dealership’s Google My Business profile or create custom department listings that will capture interest and turn it into revenue for your business? Contact our experts at Green Line Digital to get started today.