[Case Study] Facebook Campaign Increases Service ROs for Midwest Dealership
Many automotive dealerships promote their service and fixed ops department within their digital advertising strategy. Still, most are unable to accurately measure a return on ad spend (ROAS) from their efforts.
How do you know how much budget to put behind your dealership’s service campaigns? How do you know if this is worth the time and money? Is it even making a difference in the service bay?
These are questions that the team at Buerkle Honda trusted 9 Clouds to answer when launching a fixed ops ad campaign on Facebook. The Minneapolis-area dealership had been a 9 Clouds marketing partner for several years. Recently, their service director Ken Anderson raised his hand and asked for digital support.
Challenge
Ken approached the 9 Clouds team with a clear goal.
He wanted to leverage Facebook ads to increase the number of visits to the Buerkle Honda service department by advertising the department’s benefits to local drivers needing oil changes: convenient location, free battery check with every appointment and a free multi-check inspection.
Most importantly, Ken was adamant that he wanted to see the connection between the ad campaign and actual customer visits.
Solution
The 9 Clouds team knows that one of the best ways to measure results in Facebook is with Offline Events. We’d already been doing this for the sales side of the dealership, so we created a separate Offline Event set within Buerkle Honda’s Facebook Business Manager specifically for uploading service retail orders (ROs).
In addition to measuring the Facebook and Google Analytics metrics, such as cost per click and website sessions from the campaign, the Offline Event data gives us insight into how many people — conservatively* — had a service RO in the CRM after seeing the Facebook ad.
Pair that data with the value of each RO, and the 9 Clouds and Buerkle Honda teams are able to measure the cost per RO and the campaign’s overall return on ad spend.
In addition to Offline Events, we also utilized CRM data to strategically target a qualified audience, such as those who hadn’t been in for service within the past six months. After all, reaching a relevant, targeted audience plays a large role in an ad campaign’s success!
Results
After six months of running a service campaign on Facebook for Buerkle Honda, we measured at least 125 ROs in our Offline Event set.* This means of the average 14,900 users who saw the ad each month at a $5.05 cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM), 125 people saw a Facebook ad before having a service appointment at the dealership.
Taking a closer look at the results of the investment over the course of six months:
- The average cost per RO was $68, with the best-performing month rolling out a $6.25 cost per conversion.
- The Buerkle Honda service department’s average return on ad spend was 19.8. That’s nearly $20 dollars earned for every one dollar spent.
What’s even better than phenomenal results like these: measurable results that allow automotive service and sales managers to make marketing decisions with data-backed confidence.
*Offline Event numbers are a conservative measurement, as Facebook is unable to match every uploaded conversion with a user’s profile.
Find Fixed Ops Success For Your Dealership on Facebook
When armed with strategic tactics, such as using data for Offline Event reporting and ad targeting, dealerships can find incredible success on Facebook for their fixed ops and service departments.
If you want measurable results — such as a positive ROAS — but you’re not sure how to execute it or see exactly where your marketing dollars are going, check out our marketing ROI and Reporting packages.
Our team looks forward to helping you craft a unique campaign strategy for your dealership, with specific and actionable results to boot.
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