Google’s In-Market Audiences is Pure Gold for Auto Dealers and You’re Missing it

Google Adwords has a bad rap these days. Companies are moving ad spend into social media–while missing hidden gems. Incidentally, I hear customers say all the time, “we tried Adwords and it didn’t work.” What they mean is, they tried search text ads in Adwords and that didn’t work.

But Adwords is a constellation of ad services and it’s the ancillary products that provide the greatest specialization and value. One such product is In-Market Audiences.

What is “In-Market Audiences”?

Google collects data on everyone’s search and browsing habits. Creepy? Yep. Let’s consider an industry: automobile sales. Google is able to tell a few things. One, Google knows when a web users visits Google.com and enters a query for “best SUV models 2017”, or when a web user is visiting car manufacturer websites. Google then makes a determination that, “hey, this user looks like they are in the market for an Acura car.” With In-Market Audiences, you can advertise to those active shoppers, web users literally in the buying stage. So, say you sell Lexus automobiles–you can direct your display ads at an audience actively shopping for Acura or Mercedes cars.

Google has in-market categories for every major brand of car, and some general categories as well…

What Does This Mean?

There are in-market categories for all sorts of products, like foreign language study, dating services, and baby apparel. But for car dealers, Google has gone all-out: the greatest number of in-market categories within the entire system are offered up in the Motor Vehicles section.

This product is tailored specifically for car dealers–and it’s pure gold.

How to Use “In-Market Audiences” as a Car Dealer

The strategy that follows from this program falls into place naturally. Say you are a Mazda dealer. Well, the in-market audience segment for consumers actively searching for Brand > Mazda is a no-brainer. These users might have searched the name of a Mazda model in Google search. With In-Market Audiences, you can display graphical ads targeted to those users.

Here’s another way to use this program: say you are a Toyota dealer. You have a range of models that compete with many of Mazda’s models. You can target the Brand > Mazda In-Market Audience to potentially convert those users to look at your range of models.

In a major metro area, as a car dealer, you’ll compete with other manufacturers’ products, but also against other dealers in your metro area. In-Market Audiences let you achieve both.

Why Haven’t In-Market Audiences Been More Widely Adopted?

I talk to car dealers all the time that are missing this. In-Market Audiences tend to be adopted within the national ad campaigns. GM and Jeep know the score and are leveraging In-Market Audiences. But this product is also available to any dealer. It’s a little more complicated to set up than a simple text ad campaign, so less-skilled agencies miss it.

If you’d like to get started with In-Market Audiences (if your current agency hasn’t alerted you, that is a huge red flag) then feel free to reach out to us about our PPC Management Services.