Oct 6, 2022 | Facebook Marketing
Used Car Messenger BOT powered by AdSparks.co
I drank the Facebook Cool-Aide in 2014 when I was consulting at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park. Facebook has a unique program called DogFooding that offers each employee $250 of monthly Ad Credit for trying Facebook Ads. And it worked.
I was hooked after realizing the power of Targeting and Reach of Facebook Ads. I fell in love with the power of using Big Data using Geo Targeting, Demographics and Interest. I was inspired to fund AdSpark.co to market Facebook Ads to Automotive & Hospitality verticals. And today, AdSparks.co launched our 1st AI Based Facebook Messenger BOT for Automotive Vertical. This BOT helps Tier 3 Franchise Dealers market their Used Cars to In-Market car buyers. Our own small sample research proved to us that 2/3 of the car buyers who responded to AdSparks.co’s Facebook Ads want to be contacted via SMS/Text when they request an appointment for a Test Drive.
The upshot is that this BOT is a virtual Sales Rep and Retail Store combined into one. The inventory of this Facebook Messenger BOT is updated every 24 hours eliminating the most critical question on the availability of the car that a buyer spots. The US can be easily customized to filter the data by Price, Make, Type and Millage. More sophisticated Search option based on Natural Language are also being planned.
The BOT is being rolled out to Silicon Valley based Dealerships. You can see a demo of BOT with a
Jan 30, 2020 | Facebook Marketing
Top 7 reasons why Facebook Marketplace shoppers are NOT responding to sellers!
Facebook Marketplace for Automotive category has already made significant inroads among US based Franchise dealers. More and more dealers are relying on Facebook Marketplace which provide much richer content and engagement options for Car Shoppers.
With that in mind, I wanted to share Top 5 mistakes to avoid with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers:
“Not every hello, leads to a date”
2. Engagement
Imagine walking into Macy’s and asking to try on a suite you saw at the window, only to be told that you should leave your Full Name, Email, Cell Phone and someone will get back to you tomorrow! That’s absurd if that’s your engagement model with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers.
But ironically, that’s how majority of the dealerships are engaging with inquires from Facebook Marketplace! The Live Agents constantly pepper the Car Shoppers for Email, Cell phone.
61% of shoppers prefer to do business with brands they can message! Insisting on terms of engagment that fit your plans vs your Marketplace Shoppers is not a wise move
1. Speed
If you are not able to respond to Shopper’s inquiries from Facebook Marketplace within few seconds, the shopper would be long gone.
These shopper are searching for a specific Model and have probably messaged a few other Sellers as well. The sooner you engage these Shopper with relevant content, the better your opportunity to engage them.
3. Pricing
Cars that are overpriced will not attract shoppers. So if your dealership is focused on Gross Margins, then you might want to consider a different strategy for Facebook Marketplace listings.
VIN decoding is an integral part of Facebook Marketplace which results in displaying the Car’s Features along with Kelly Blue Book Value. If majority of your inventory is shown over-priced, it would not appeal to In-Market Shoppers despite the fact that you might be willing to negotiate aggressively.
5. Outsourced BDC vs Internal Staff
One of the pre-defined questions from Facebook Marketplace shoppers is about the car’s availability. 95% of our shoppers choose that option to Message Sellers.
However, despite the question being simple, most outsourced BDC teams are chartered to generate leads and do not respond to such a simple question.
Also, Sales and Management Titles are far too intimidating at these early stages of engagement. Car shoppers are seeking basic information about availability and the condition of the car.
4. Live Chat
Live Chat option is on the most critical offerings to help car shoppers engage with the dealerships. The option should connect the shopper with a Sales or Finance staff who know something about the car that was subject of that inquiry.
Confusing LIVE Chat with a pure lead gen is a critical mistake. member of the Sales Team at the dealership who can provide reliable information to the Car Shopper.
Also, keep track of how quickly your team responds to Live Chat requests and develop an escalation protocol to route these request if the designated Reps are not responding within 3-5 minutes.
Want new articles before they get published?
Subscribe to our Awesome Newsletter.
Ai Assistants for Automotive
Aug 18, 2019 | Facebook Marketing, Facebook Marketplace
Top 5 mistakes to avoid with Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace for Automotive category has already made significant inroads among US based Franchise dealers. More and more dealers are relying on Facebook Marketplace which provide much richer content and engagement options for Car Shoppers.
With that in mind, I wanted to share Top 5 mistakes to avoid with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers:
“Not every hello, leads to a date”
2. Engagement
Imagine walking into Macy’s and asking to try on a suite you saw at the window, only to be told that you should leave your Full Name, Email, Cell Phone and someone will get back to you tomorrow! That’s absurd if that’s your engagement model with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers.
But ironically, that’s how majority of the dealerships are engaging with inquires from Facebook Marketplace! The Live Agents constantly pepper the Car Shoppers for Email, Cell phone.
61% of shoppers prefer to do business with brands they can message! Insisting on terms of engagment that fit your plans vs your Marketplace Shoppers is not a wise move
1. Speed
If you are not able to respond to Shopper’s inquiries from Facebook Marketplace within few seconds, the shopper would be long gone.
These shopper are searching for a specific Model and have probably messaged a few other Sellers as well. The sooner you engage these Shopper with relevant content, the better your opportunity to engage them.
3. Pricing
Cars that are overpriced will not attract shoppers. So if your dealership is focused on Gross Margins, then you might want to consider a different strategy for Facebook Marketplace listings.
VIN decoding is an integral part of Facebook Marketplace which results in displaying the Car’s Features along with Kelly Blue Book Value. If majority of your inventory is shown over-priced, it would not appeal to In-Market Shoppers despite the fact that you might be willing to negotiate aggressively.
5. Outsourced BDC vs Internal Staff
One of the pre-defined questions from Facebook Marketplace shoppers is about the car’s availability. 95% of our shoppers choose that option to Message Sellers.
However, despite the question being simple, most outsourced BDC teams are chartered to generate leads and do not respond to such a simple question.
Also, Sales and Management Titles are far too intimidating at these early stages of engagement. Car shoppers are seeking basic information about availability and the condition of the car.
4. Live Chat
Live Chat option is on the most critical offerings to help car shoppers engage with the dealerships. The option should connect the shopper with a Sales or Finance staff who know something about the car that was subject of that inquiry.
Confusing LIVE Chat with a pure lead gen is a critical mistake. member of the Sales Team at the dealership who can provide reliable information to the Car Shopper.
Also, keep track of how quickly your team responds to Live Chat requests and develop an escalation protocol to route these request if the designated Reps are not responding within 3-5 minutes.
Want new articles before they get published?
Subscribe to our Awesome Newsletter.
Ai Assistants for Automotive
Sep 26, 2016 | Facebook Marketing
Facebook Lead Ads can take you to heaven, but there is work involved
Facebook Marketplace for Automotive category has already made significant inroads among US based Franchise dealers. More and more dealers are relying on Facebook Marketplace which provide much richer content and engagement options for Car Shoppers.
With that in mind, I wanted to share Top 5 mistakes to avoid with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers:
“Not every hello, leads to a date”
2. Engagement
Imagine walking into Macy’s and asking to try on a suite you saw at the window, only to be told that you should leave your Full Name, Email, Cell Phone and someone will get back to you tomorrow! That’s absurd if that’s your engagement model with Facebook Marketplace Shoppers.
But ironically, that’s how majority of the dealerships are engaging with inquires from Facebook Marketplace! The Live Agents constantly pepper the Car Shoppers for Email, Cell phone.
61% of shoppers prefer to do business with brands they can message! Insisting on terms of engagment that fit your plans vs your Marketplace Shoppers is not a wise move
1. Speed
If you are not able to respond to Shopper’s inquiries from Facebook Marketplace within few seconds, the shopper would be long gone.
These shopper are searching for a specific Model and have probably messaged a few other Sellers as well. The sooner you engage these Shopper with relevant content, the better your opportunity to engage them.
3. Pricing
Cars that are overpriced will not attract shoppers. So if your dealership is focused on Gross Margins, then you might want to consider a different strategy for Facebook Marketplace listings.
VIN decoding is an integral part of Facebook Marketplace which results in displaying the Car’s Features along with Kelly Blue Book Value. If majority of your inventory is shown over-priced, it would not appeal to In-Market Shoppers despite the fact that you might be willing to negotiate aggressively.
5. Outsourced BDC vs Internal Staff
One of the pre-defined questions from Facebook Marketplace shoppers is about the car’s availability. 95% of our shoppers choose that option to Message Sellers.
However, despite the question being simple, most outsourced BDC teams are chartered to generate leads and do not respond to such a simple question.
Also, Sales and Management Titles are far too intimidating at these early stages of engagement. Car shoppers are seeking basic information about availability and the condition of the car.
4. Live Chat
Live Chat option is on the most critical offerings to help car shoppers engage with the dealerships. The option should connect the shopper with a Sales or Finance staff who know something about the car that was subject of that inquiry.
Confusing LIVE Chat with a pure lead gen is a critical mistake. member of the Sales Team at the dealership who can provide reliable information to the Car Shopper.
Also, keep track of how quickly your team responds to Live Chat requests and develop an escalation protocol to route these request if the designated Reps are not responding within 3-5 minutes.
Want new articles before they get published?
Subscribe to our Awesome Newsletter.
Ai Assistants for Automotive
Feb 10, 2016 | Facebook Marketing
Facebook is a wonderful horse when it comes to Lead Generation. So it’s hard to imagine that any consumer company can not develop a successful Facebook marketing campaigns. Well, some horse jockeys swear their experience is very different and blame Facebook for their failures. would all be wrong to make such a rash assumption.
But upon closer examination it’s clear that these jockeys are making fatal mistakes that would not work with any product let alone Facebook. With that in mind I wanted to share the secret sauce of Facebook lead conversion here:
Clear Call-to-Action: Call to Action should be very clear and pierces. You need to determine before launching your campaign if you want your target audience to book an appointment or make a phone call.
Respond quickly: Some Facebook advertisers using Facebook Page Promotion and Ads take as much as 3-6 hours to respond to a Facebook engagement. Facebook engagement is the action that Ad viewers take such as Like, Share, Comment or a Question when they spot the ad in their News Feed This kind of slow response will chase these potential leads to your competitor who is just a click away.
Clean, Simple Landing Pages Millennial buyers would not tolerate any more than 3 fields. After all their expectation for online shopping is not defined by Amazon’s OneClick shopping. Granted that Amazon has all of your shipping and billing info, but if you shop there long enough, you keep assuming that oneclick is all it takes to shop.
Avoid requiring any legal release or documents on your landing pages. We discovered one Detroit Auto maker requiring a potential car buyer to sign a Legal Document on the Landing Page while attempting to book a test drive! This is indeed a cardinal since when it comes to online Conversion and is illegal in most States.
There is no need for your landing page to require an address. Name, Email should be the ONLY thing you should require from a Facebook lead. The rest of the demographics information including age, location, interest and shopping behavior is already available to you from Facebook.
Nurture the lead : If you do not have a CRM in place to mange your Facebook lead, don’t bother advertising on Facebook. Some of the Auto dealers are treating Facebook Leads as an oddity and use the page to respond to them and expect the person to buy right away. These leads have to be entered into a CRM and nurtured like any other leads. In fact, smaller dealers without a CRM and a culture of Led Management are performing much worse due to the volume of Facebook engagement they have to manage manually.
Need to know basis: When a lead is requesting price and other information about your products, do NOT share them publicly on the Facebook message thread. There are legal implications for price commitments they should be shared privately with these interested. In fact, some States have ad guidelines on format of the ads which needs to include the price and all relevant information.
Length of Campaign: Most of the Automotive Dealers told us that they tried Facebook ads for less than 30 days before deciding to pull the plug! This yet another mistake that advertisers make assuming that their audience will take action on the 1st time they see the ad. In fact, there are Facebook guidelines that prevent us from showing the ad more than once to your target audience.
Retargeting: Most advertisers ignore Re-targeting features available on Facebook ads which increases the ROI and serves the ads to the folks who have previously engaged with that ad.
What do you think about Facebook Lead conversion.
