It’s pretty safe to say that when you own multiple dealerships, they are usually located in the same area. That makes it easier for your upper management to work across several stores or collaborate on marketing efforts.

But are your Google Ads working cohesively across your several dealerships — or are you wasting money competing for the same terms in the same area?

Learn several steps you can take to spend your Google Ads budget more effectively when your dealerships are close in proximity.

First, Find Your Competition…

Have you ever wondered who you’re competing against for Google Ads visibility?

There are insights for that! Simply click on the Details drop-down menu in your Google Ads account, then click All.

The “auction insights” report you find offers a percentage of the keywords found that have direct competitors. This report can be viewed at either the account level or the campaign level for better insights on a group of terms.

…Then, Adjust Your Targeting

If you happen to find your other dealerships showing up as competitors in your auction insights, it’s time to revamp your Google Ads targeting.

Your geo-targeting strategy will differ depending on the brands you sell and the cities in which you sell them.

1. Same Brand, Different Cities

Say you own one Honda dealership in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another one approximately 40 miles away in Iowa Falls. The area between both stores is sparse, and each store regularly markets a 60-mile radius around its dealership.

Image 1: 60-mile radius based on dealership location

As you can see in Image 1, this general 60-mile radius around each dealership has a ton of audience overlap — meaning you’re essentially competing with yourself for eyeballs.  You’re also paying more for your Google Ads, as the more competition in each area, the more expensive the keywords.

By fighting for the same audience and keywords, you’re wasting your Google Ads budget.

Instead of targeting from the center of your city, you should target to the outskirts of each city, so you cover a larger area. Now, you’re reaching different audiences and optimizing your budget.

Image 2: 60-mile radius moved out, with no overlap

If you try this method and still have a little overlap in your targeting, there’s a quick fix.

We recommend excluding the neighboring areas from your targeting. Make sure you don’t exclude the same location on both accounts (or vice versa).

Depending on your radius for targeting, you can go minuscule, like neighborhood or county, or larger, like a congressional district or designated market area (DMA).

Image 3: Excluding the areas where the targeting directly touches

2. Different Brands, Different Cities

If your dealerships sell different brands in different cities, you can easily target the specific brands overlapping each city (see Image 1) without having any issues with competition. You can also include targeted city keywords, such as “car dealerships in Fort Dodge.”

However, when you add in more general keywords (such as “cars for sale”), you need to be more cognizant of your targeting. Consider a smaller radius of targeting for these general keywords. This applies to used keyword campaigns as well.

Image 4: Smaller targeting directly on the dealership locations

We recommend you exclude the neighboring locations again like we did in Image 3. 

3. Different Brands, Same City

We’ve offered free digital audits to quite a few dealership management groups that own several stores in the same city, so we know that things can get difficult when you have separate accounts for co-op purposes.

We always recommend that you don’t target the same keywords across all your accounts. This helps keep your cost per click (CPC) down, helping your budget spend smarter.

If you happen to share a used inventory across locations, have one dealership target all of your general used keywords, and have the other dealership target your general new keywords. Each separate account can target their specific brands, so in the end, you have everything covered.

Improve Your Google Ads with 9 Clouds

If you don’t have the time or aren’t ready to commit to taking on your Google Ads, 9 Clouds can help! Our dedicated Google Ads team understands all the latest changes Google makes to improve search engine marketing (SEM).

We’d love to help you find the best opportunities for your dealership. Get started by requesting a digital assessment from 9 Clouds to see how your Google Ads are doing.

In the meantime, catch yourself up with some useful reading on Google Ads from our 9 Clouds SEM team.