Green Mazda Uses Dynamic Facebook Ads to Get More Qualified Clicks at a Lower Cost

The Challenge

Like many auto dealerships across the nation, Green Mazda is serious about tracking down new car-shopping leads. But it’s also ahead of the curve in taking seriously the challenge of ushering shoppers through the online sales funnel, from first contact to final purchase.

To increase the efficacy of its online advertising efforts, this Mazda dealership in Springfield, Illinois, enlisted 9 Clouds.

Using our robust Facebook ad strategy, including cutting-edge dynamic retargeting ads, we sought to keep Green Mazda’s inventory in front of more leads to get those leads back on the website and help them find their next vehicle.

The Solution

In this Facebook dynamic ad case study, we’ll delve into how 9 Clouds increased repeat website traffic and kept leads engaged to give Green Mazda more opportunities to sell.

Starting in August, we began running two monthly dynamic Facebook ads: one carousel ad for Green Mazda’s new inventory (displaying new Mazdas to people who recently viewed them on the website) and one carousel ad for its used inventory (displaying vehicles from the used lot to people who recently viewed them on the website).

You know when you look at a product on Amazon and then see it advertised in the margins of another site? That’s the idea.

Here’s an example of one of our dynamic Facebook ads for Green Mazda:

When someone sees the exact vehicle they previously viewed again in their news feed, this repetition helps keep the vehicle top of mind— and increases the chances that the person picks up the phone, requests a test drive, or contacts your financing team.

These dynamic ads are easy to make once 9 Clouds imports and connects your inventory feed into Facebook. All you need to do to keep them going is refresh the campaign’s budget when necessary.

Rounding out our fifth month using dynamic ads with this Springfield dealer, we’re thrilled with the returns we’ve seen.

The Results

In August 2017 (our first month testing dynamic Facebook ads in the Springfield area), we reached 166 users and got 116 link clicks.

Some of those could be repeat conversions — but still, that is an incredible number of shoppers returning to the site. The link click-through rate (CTR) was 1.68. And again, that was just our first month of running the dynamic ads!

Fantastic Engagement

Over five months, we averaged 232.2 link clicks, reaching an average of 311.6 shoppers a month.

During these five months, new car shoppers clicking a dynamic Facebook ad spent an average of one minute and 41 seconds on the site, viewing an average 3.8 pages per session.

Among used shoppers, the average session duration was one minute and 54 seconds, with an average of 4.89 pages viewed per session.

A Captive Audience

Because Facebook dynamic auto ads narrow your targeted audience to only those who have viewed a specific inventory, the frequency at which you can show a particular shopper an ad increases exponentially.

Normally, we tell dealers to aim for a lower frequency count (somewhere above three to five) for each Facebook ad. That can be difficult, given competitor dealerships vying for the in-market customers, plus other businesses and industries competing for these customers’ money.

With dynamic ads, we’ve seen frequencies as high as 41.3 in Springfield! That’s coming on pretty strong, of course, so you’ll want to tailor the date range of your ad set to find what works best for your store.

We’ve toggled from shoppers on site 45 days ago to shoppers on site 14 days ago. We’ve now gotten the frequency down to a number that means Green Mazda gets a lot of play in a shopper’s news feed — without being obnoxious.

Here are two different ad set audiences for dynamic Facebook ads, one set at 30 days and one at 14 days:

That tailored retargeting audience also helps you get a better price for your ads. Across five months, we have averaged a $1.75 cost per link click (CPC) and have now trimmed that to $1.35 CPC for the last two months.

Dynamic Facebook ads are the perfect way to get back in front of leads hanging out at the bottom of your sales funnel — and finally get them in for a test drive.

Want to Learn More?

Instead of just telling you what we can do, we like to start by showing you where your online efforts should be heading!

Sign up for a free digital audit from our marketing experts to assess where your store can improve.

You can find more about dynamic Facebook ads for auto dealers here, learn more about 9 Clouds in our manifesto, or see the latest need-to-know information on our digital marketing blog.