For the automotive industry, internet advertising changed the game. Looking back 20 years, the thought of impression shares, SEO, and SEM were unheard of. In today’s world, dealerships are consistently searching for the best digital marketing companies and tracking online metrics with the goal of being number 1. It’s easy to get caught up in the lingo of today with data points, graphs, charts and be impressed. This drives many Dealer Principles and General Managers to create aggressive online advertising budgets. In order to be effective in your advertising, the first thing to know is the game you’re playing, as well as the jargon. So let’s start there.
What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Great, well what does that mean? SEO is everything you see in a Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.., that shows up in the results that aren’t paid for, otherwise known as ‘organic search.’ These are the majority of search results you see on the page. Generally, the results you see at the top are advertisements paid for by a dealership, known as SEM.
So what is SEM? SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. The goal of SEM is to have your website show up at the top of the search results. With SEM this is primarily done through paid advertising. When you search for something you may see at the top of the results a hyperlink with the word “Ad” next to it. This is telling you the dealership paid to be at the top of the list.
Well, how do you pay to show up at the top? This is known as PPC (Pay-Per-Click). What happens is a dealership will set a budget. Then they select certain keywords chosen in either AdWords or a digital marketing company using AdWords and will create a cap of how much they are willing to pay for those words. When someone searches the keywords you paid for, Google will then rank your advertisement based on your PPC bid, as well as the quality of your page. It’s important to note that just because you have the highest bid doesn’t mean your ad will show, quality content is important.
Once you’ve set up your SEM, or if another company is doing it for you, you will start to hear the term “impression share.” Essentially, this metric is telling you how well your digital marketing is working. The calculation goes like this: “Impression share = impressions / total eligible impressions.” An impression is when someone views your advertisement online and the total eligible impressions are how many times your ad could have been viewed.
These terms are just the beginning. The next step after setting up some sort of digital marketing strategy is lead providers. These will usually consist of Auto Trader, Cars.com, CarGurus, TrueCar, KBB, and others. The question becomes, “well who do I choose?”