With all the different ways out there to spend marketing dollars, you’ve probably wondered if it’s worth it to invest in pay-per-click ads, or PPC for your dealership or outdoor business. While there are plenty of ways to improve your online presence as a recreational vehicle dealer or outdoor outfitter, we’d argue that your marketing budget absolutely needs to include PPC advertising campaigns. These hyper-targeted ads connect you with potential clients who are searching for exactly what your business provides and can give you some of the best ROI when it comes to marketing. We’ll help you understand exactly what PPC does and why your dealership or outdoor business needs it.

 

What is PPC Advertising?

Before we go any further, let’s lay out exactly what pay-per-click ads are. It’s really all in the name. A search engine displays the link to your website when a user searches a keyword term you’ve designated, and you pay for each click that ad generates. Google Ads is by far the most popular PPC managing platform, but you can also run PPC ads on other sites such as Bing and YouTube. You’ve undoubtedly seen (and likely clicked on) these ads at the top of Google searches. They can also come in the form of shopping ads where Google displays a product grid to purchase a searched product or Gmail ads that look like emails in your inbox but are actually paid content. You get to choose how much you want to pay for each click and what keywords you want to use for your campaign.

PPC vs. SEO

You’re probably aware that search engine optimization, or SEO, is particularly important when building your dealership or outdoor industry online brand. However, you shouldn’t be choosing between PPC and SEO. Both are essential for different reasons. PPC gives quick results and is easy to customize based on the return you’re seeing. SEO helps you rank organically (unpaid) and the results build over time.

Camper PPC is vital for your business success

Why Dealerships and Outdoor Industries Need PPC Advertising

Now that you understand what exactly PPC advertising is, let’s dive into the benefits of PPC for dealerships and outdoor industries. Read on to find out more about these perks and how NetSource Media can help you maximize each one of them to grow your business with steady increase and consistency.

Quick Exposure While Targeting Competition

Few marketing strategies can reach such a large, relevant audience as quickly as PPC advertising. When your PPC campaign goes live, you’ll begin appearing in search results based on your chosen keywords and demographics. Now, when an ideal customer searches online for your inventory or products, your ads will be shown. Keep in mind that there is an “auction” to determine whose PPC campaign appears first in those results. The auction considers things like your max bid on keywords and how relevant and useful your ad is to people. Search engines like Google want to award ads that provide the best user experience. Despite its rules, the auction system can be used to your advantage. If your ads are outperformed by a competitor’s on a keyword, use elements from it to improve your own. Because PPC ads are openly visible, you can target your competition in this way to rank higher.

Achieve Your Goals with Higher Conversions

PPC advertising not only targets your ideal audience specifically, but it also accomplishes different marketing goals simultaneously. As a PPC campaign runs, it will generate impressions (ad views), clicks, and conversions. With pay-per-click, you are only charged once per click, which means you could get hundreds of views between the clicks without being charged. Additionally, these free views could turn into quality clicks or leads through multiple exposure. This his happens if a person sees your brand through a “paid ad” and then again through “organic” search results. Another way for your ad to get multi-exposure is through remarketing. This is when Google (or your PPC ad platform) attempts to re-engage a person who clicked through your ad but didn’t convert. When searching again online, your ad will appear to this person repeatedly to encourage a return visit to your website. Re-exposure of your ads builds trust with your audience which increases conversions and saves on overall budget cost.

Easily Trackable Results

Unlike traditional methods, PPC advertising campaigns provide you with many metrics to gauge success. Ad views, clicks, costs, and converting actions track as they happen along with what keywords are connected to those actions. If you buy space on a billboard or in a local magazine, there’s no way to really know how many people are checking out your ad. Along with quick reporting comes responsive scalability. Once your ads reach a desired performance, you can boost your position and exposure with increasing budget and delivery times. Conversely, you can also lower budget or turn off any underperforming ads without delay. With PPC advertising, you are in complete control of both your budget and ads. Additionally, you can take insights gained from your PPC campaign keywords and add them to your SEO strategy to capitalize on new trends.

Pinpoint Your Target Customer

Unlike PPC advertising, billboards and print ads can’t target customers who are actively looking for what you provide. You can set your PPC campaign to target search users by location like city or state, or by demographics like age, gender, and more. Additionally, you can choose what keyword to include or exclude in triggering your ads. For an RV dealer running an ad for a fifth wheel camper, they may choose “fifth wheel camper” or “fifth wheel toy hauler” as keywords. For this same ad, an RV dealer may want to exclude the term “motorhome” as it is not relevant. Narrowing down your audience like this means your advertising money will only be spent on clicks with the highest potential.

How to Succeed with PPC Advertising for Dealerships or Outdoor Industries

With all of that information on why PPC advertising for your recreation dealership or outdoor business is important, the next step is to create a plan for a successful PPC campaign. While making your campaign plan, keep in mind the needs and wants of your ideal customer is your target. We’ve come up with a few tips to help you out in the process. 

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Have a Target Audience

Is your ideal customer looking to buy a new, custom ordered RV in your area? Or do you specialize in outdoor outfitter items such as camping gear or supplies? Maybe your company has a dealership or outfitter stores in different places around the country. Narrow down the profile of your target audience so you know how to reach them. Try to be specific: instead of saying your target audience is just “people looking to buy an rv” – identify what kind of recreational vehicles people would need to be interested in to choose you as their RV dealership, and what geographical area you serve. Try to also rule out which kinds of search users won’t be interested in your services as well. The narrower you are, the more success you’ll have with PPC advertising. 

Don’t Use Keywords That Aren’t Relevant

Next, put yourself in the shores of your target audience. What search terms would they use to find a business who does what you do? Let’s say you’re a powersports dealer that is trying to gain traffic to a particular of line of Utility Terrain Vehicles (UTVs). You may not want to specifically exclude the possibility of your ads being shown to those searching for phrases that include “ATVs” or “4x4s.” Although there may be some overlap on naming and features, they may be too broad. Additionally, users searching for “4x4s” could be actually looking for pickup trucks with four-wheel drive instead of UTVs. Using terms like “side-by-sides” or “ROVs” and including the brand would be more effective at matching user intent with your ads and offerings. This may take some trial and error, but that’s where the customizability of PPC advertising comes in. You can test and verify results with reporting, then boost the keywords that seem to effectively connect with your audience.

 

PPC Advertising Content That Attracts the Right Visitors

Getting the user to click is one thing. Making them stay is entirely different. After all, you don’t want to be spending that marketing money on lost leads! They key here is to create landing pages that make your ideal customer stick around. Show them clearly and concisely what you bring to the table and why they should choose you to purchase a new RV, boat, trailer, or utilize your company for their outdoor needs. PPC marketing for outdoor industries works when you draw the customer in for more after getting that initial click. This is where it really benefits you to work with website experts at NetSource Media on your dealership or outdoor industry website. We create valuable content for you that will attract high quality PPC clicks!

We're the Experts in PPC for Dealerships and Outdoor Industries

Creating a custom PPC campaign for your business that will maximize your return might feel overwhelming, but we can help! With over 25 years of marketing experience, NetSource Media will create an effective PPC campaign for your company that will bring clients to your dealership or outdoor business. Our industry experts in online marketing completely customize your PPC Advertising to fit your business, budget and goals.

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