How To Increase Car Dealer Conversion Rates With Google Vehicle Ads

Alongside search, video, and display ads, there is one newer web-based ad type that every car dealer needs to take advantage of: Google Vehicle Ads.

What are Google Vehicle Ads or Vehicle Listing Ads?

Also known as shopping or VLA ads, Google Vehicle Ads are low-funnel Google ads built specifically for new and used car dealers. They place your live inventory at the top of Google’s search page when an interested buyer is looking for cars online. These ads will display a photo of the vehicle as well as year, make, model, location, mileage, seller, and more. When a shopper clicks this ad format, they are taken directly to the Vehicle Description Page (VDP) where they can read more information, contact you, or visit your dealership.

Some of the top benefits of using Google Vehicle ads are:

1. Live Vehicle inventory integration 

   These ads use your live inventory, so you aren’t wasting ad spend on cars that have already sold.

2. More ad exposure to car buyers

   Run these ads alongside text ads for multiple exposure points on a Google Search page.

3. Highly targetable To In-Market Car Shoppers

   Your related listings are shown when shoppers input a relevant search term in Google Search.

4. Streamlined customer experience

   Shoppers are taken directly from Google to the your website to learn more or take action.

5. Better leads

   Traffic to your website will be more likely to convert since shoppers are clicking on vehicles they know you have in stock.

How to Set up Google Vehicle Ads directly through Google

For Google to match your cars with user searches, you’ll have to have information readily available for each vehicle, including year, make, model, mileage, location, price, color, and more. Then, you’ll need to upload a feed of this data to Google Merchant Center. Once your inventory feed is uploaded, you must create a Smart Shopping Campaign within Google Ads. This will allow you to start using Google Vehicle Ads. You’ll also need to make sure that your Google Ads account is linked to a Merchant Center account as well as a Google Business Profile. Don’t want the hassle of setting up Vehicle Ads? ZeroSum can do this for you.

How to Optimize your Google Vehicle Ads for the Highest Conversion Rates

To best match your inventory with the right buyers, you’ll need to provide as much information about each vehicle as possible. Make sure your inventory feed is always healthy and up to date with all required data. If you’ve added new vehicles to your lot but Google doesn’t know about them, they won’t be able to appear in Google Vehicle Ads. Also make sure that any price changes are reflected in your feed, so shoppers are always seeing the most recent and accurate information.  

Vehicle Ads are a great complement to other ad campaigns like Search. In fact, according to one Google study, when paired with search campaigns, Vehicle Ads resulted in a 25% average increase in conversions. For the best results, be sure to optimize both ad types. Also keep in mind that these ads lead consumers directly to your VDPs, so make sure your website is constantly updated and easy to navigate.

Does setting up and running Google Vehicle ads sound like a lot of work? That’s because it is! ZeroSum has already been running Vehicle Ads alongside Search Ads and more for our existing clients, so we know exactly how to set you up for success. If you’re interested in running Google Vehicle Ads but aren’t sure where to start, contact us today and let us do the work for you. Our MarketAI platform automatically optimizes your inventory feed for Google, so we can get you up and running in under 24 hours.