Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is digital advertising?
2. Why should I use the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers?
3. Can I use digital advertising to replace other types of advertising?
4. When getting started with digital advertising, what would be the recommended percent of our advertising budget we should start with?
5. How should dealers factor in the use of the Internet by car buyers in their marketing strategy to achieve Top of Mind Awareness within their market?
6. I do not want to pay for advertisements shown outside my local market; can we set it up so that our online advertising only appears to buyers in our area?
7. What happens if we do not use all our budget in a given month?
8. Why do so many digital marketing suppliers place such an emphasis on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and search engine advertising or sponsored links that show up at the top and right side of the page when people use a search engine?
9. What about the free listings that appear when people use a search engine, can I use what some vendors call Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get the same results instead of paying the search engines?
10. Why would a dealer use anything other than Search Engine Marketing?
11. How do I determine the right budget mix for search advertising versus what I should allocate for online display advertising?
12. I currently use a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) supplier and they are able to use up any amount I am willing to give them to buy more clicks on search engines. They are always suggesting that I give them more SEM budget. Why is their advice so different from what the Ford Digital Advertising program recommends?
13. Does Ford and my FDAF already advertise on the Internet?
14. If both Ford and my FDAF advertise on the Internet, why should I?
15. Why use the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Programs network of web sites?
16. Why not buy digital advertising directly from local sites?
17. Give me the bottom line - Why should I do this?

1. What is digital advertising?

   Digital advertising uses a combination of text based sponsored links, image based display ads, animated multimedia enriched and click-to-play video ads that appear in front of consumers when they are on the Internet. The sponsored links appear alongside relevant search results and also show up as advertisements inside web sites. The image, multimedia and video ads are placed throughout well established websites when local customers visit them.

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2. Why should I use the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers?

   Results from advertising in conventional offline media have declined as people increasingly use the Internet to research their buying decisions and engage in social interaction. By redirecting a portion of your traditional advertising spend to search engine advertising listings and displaying ads on popular websites you can receive a higher return on your marketing and promotional investments. The Ford Digital Advertising team has selected ADP Dealer Services to administer the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers and has designed the program to provide dealers with the following advantages:

   • Pre-negotiated rates. Access for dealers to Ford corporate volume based pricing you couldn’t access alone.
   • No pre-set pricing. You control the monthly spend up to your contracted maximum.
   • Complete transparency. You see your media costs and all services on itemized billing.
   • No advance payments. You are billed after actual media buys are made your ads have been shown.
   • No long-term commitment. Cancel at any time with a 30 day advance notice by email.
   • Complimentary analysis and consultation
   • Measurable. Dealers receive detailed monthly performance reports showing actual results.
   • Service. Access to experienced online automotive advertising professionals who are dedicated to your program and are only a phone call away.
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3. Can I use digital advertising to replace other types of advertising?

   Both sponsored search engine listings and display advertising have been proven to increase the shopping activities dealers receive from car buyers in a local market area. While traditional media should still play a role in your marketing budget, it continues to diminish in importance. More than 80% of car buyers are online; you should be as well. In today's highly competitive automotive retail environment, Digital Advertising is a key component of any cost effective dealership marketing strategy.

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4. When getting started with digital advertising, what would be the recommended percent of our advertising budget we should start with?

   The Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program recommends that dealers start off with an overall digital advertising budget of between 15% and 20% of the dealerships total advertising budget. This should be allocated from your current budget levels and should not represent an increase in total advertising expense. We have seen dealers shift budget dollars from a variety of non-digital advertising in order to allocate funds to digital advertising. Each dealer should carefully consider what media channels in their current advertising mix are the least effective. The Digital Advertising Consultants will advise what recent research is showing, industry recommendations, and what other dealerships are doing. The most common sources of budget shifted from conventional to digital media are the following:

   • Newspaper
   • Conventional Radio
   • TV
   • Direct Mail (USPS)
   • Outdoor
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5. How should dealers factor in the use of the Internet by car buyers in their marketing strategy to achieve Top of Mind Awareness within their market?

   Today's most successful dealers invest a portion of their monthly marketing and advertising budget into a balanced blend of digital advertising using several types of online campaigns. This includes paid search engine advertising targeted to the right audience using keywords that are proven to indicate when a consumer is in the market to buy a vehicle. Another type of online advertising that dealers are using successfully is Site Targeted display advertising that appears on web sites that have been proven to be popular with and frequently visited by people who are in the market for a new or used vehicle.

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6. I do not want to pay for advertisements shown outside my local market; can we set it up so that our online advertising only appears to buyers in our area?

   Dealers can define the geography of the targeted local market area for their search engine advertisement and other Internet advertising campaigns within an accuracy range of about 10 miles. For most digital advertising campaigns, we have the ability to target specific metro areas and regions in a similar manner to the pre-packaged geographic market areas offered by newspapers, radio, cable TV, direct mail and other conventional media traditionally used by dealers.

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7. What happens if we do not use all our budget in a given month?

   Your dealership will only be invoiced for the actual advertisements and media placements made. Unlike some digital marketing vendors, the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program does not charge dealers in advance of the actual advertising being seen by car buyers. With our program, the only amounts invoiced to dealers are for actual services and advertisements delivered.

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8. Why do so many digital marketing suppliers place such an emphasis on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and search engine advertising or sponsored links that show up at the top and right side of the page when people use a search engine?

   Market research shows over 80% of car buyers use the internet to determine what vehicle to buy and what dealership to do buy from. Regardless of where in-market car shoppers are in their purchase decision process, they are overwhelmingly using Internet search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and others) as their primary source of finding the web sites that provide the information they seek about vehicles, car companies and dealers. For example, when car shoppers are ready to find the closest dealership to where they live or work, they use a search engine. For information on make and models, they use a search engine to find relevant information. To find out what inventory is available in their area, they use search engines to find a web site with up to date inventory listings for local dealerships. Running ad campaigns that are targeted to only appear when a consumer is physically located in the area the dealer specifies and searches for car buying terms lets your dealership place your sponsored links containing the exact verbiage and message you want to convey to consumers directly into search engine listings. These search advertising listings are displayed when the words used by a consumer indicates they are in the market for a vehicle that the dealer sells.

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9. What about the free listings that appear when people use a search engine, can I use what some vendors call Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get the same results instead of paying the search engines?

   No. Digital Advertising campaigns put your ads in front of customers when they search for keywords that Search Engine Optimization cannot achieve. Search engine advertising, unlike Search Engine Optimization, provides far more control and greater ability to reach highly targeted consumers with the exact verbiage they are searching for. Digital advertising puts you in control of what the customer sees, not relying on the search engine. Plus, with advertising, you can control and vary the ad message and link to the specific webpage, form, inventory listing or information page that provides exactly what that customer is most likely looking for based on the words they used in their search query. Today's car shoppers use search engines at every stage of their buying cycle. Plus, your Ford DealerConnection web sites already include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at no additional charge. Our research shows that these DealerConnection sites perform well with organic (free) search rankings when consumers search for a Ford or Lincoln Mercury dealership.

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10. Why would a dealer use anything other than Search Engine Marketing?

    Most successful Digital Advertising strategies make use of at least two primary components, search engine advertising listings and display advertising, that appear on web sites. Although there are many ways to diversify your digital marketing strategy, the two places dealers should start with are search engine advertising listings and display advertising on popular auto shopper web sites. Geotargeting allows Dealers to display advertisements on popular national web sites only when a visitor is located in the dealer's market area. The Ford digital advertising program uses it's relationship with advertising networks, across the internet, to provide your dealership extensive coverage.

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11. How do I determine the right budget mix for search advertising versus what I should allocate for online display advertising?

    Based on over 7 years of experience looking at results from millions of advertising impressions for all brands, we know that each market has a unique maximum of how many people are using the internet in the car buying process. ADP's team has designed the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program to consult each dealer on their unique market and competition when establishing and developing a Digital Advertising program. We prioritize the buying of all available search advertising listings for the search terms (keywords) used by people who are ready to buy a car in your targeted geographic area. Then, if the budget you choose shows available funds remaining, at your direction we will allocate an appropriate amount to online display advertising. These display ads can promote your dealership's current campaigns to online car buyers using various size and shape ad graphics, click to play videos and animated graphics on web sites popular with car buyers. We recommend using your budget to buy search listings for in-market buyers first, and then use remaining budget to attract additional car buyers by placing your ads on the right web sites. This program strategy can be explained in detail during your discussion with a Digital Advertising Consultant.

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12. I currently use a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) supplier and they are able to use up any amount I am willing to give them to buy more clicks on search engines. They are always suggesting that I give them more SEM budget. Why is their advice so different from what the Ford Digital Advertising program recommends?

    The Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers has been designed to make the dealers actual volume of sales opportunities generated per dollar spent as its primary priority. Although there are a few SEM service providers who do a great job for dealers, our research shows that many paid search advertising products offered by automotive SEM suppliers are designed to maximize the suppliers profits over the dealers results by spending every dollar the dealer is willing to spend, regardless of results from the traffic (clicks) generated. One of the reasons that the Ford Digital Marketing team has created this unique program is that far too many Ford dealers have had negative results from SEM suppliers that add search terms not used by in-market car buyers, make dealers pay in advance and then roll remaining funds over to the next month, or expand the dealers geotargeted campaign area beyond the range car buyers are willing to travel, as well as many other tactics that only serve to use up all the dealers SEM budget without generating additional sales opportunities. Dealers reporting the best results from digital advertising only buy search results listings for their best prospects and invest remaining budget in campaigns that use display ads appearing on web sites popular with car buyers in their market. The Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers has selected the best web sites for Ford dealers to display their ads on and uses Geotargeting technology that allows dealers to restrict the display of their web site advertisements to consumers in their dealership market area.

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13. Does Ford and my FDAF already advertise on the Internet?

    Yes, Ford has developed a strategy (Ford Digital Growth Initiatives) that encourages all FDAFs to allocate a portion of their media mix to digital. This reflects the marketing reality that most car buyers use the Internet to get information throughout the purchase and ownership cycle. Digital Advertising has emerged as a cost effective means of delivering campaign messages, including messages directed at the points in time of the vehicle ownership cycle targeted by Ford Tier 1, FDAF Tier 2 and now the Ford dealer network Tier 3 advertising.

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14. If both Ford and my FDAF advertise on the Internet, why should I?

    Although Ford buys digital advertising on a national level, and your FDAF may be buying digital advertising on a regional level, just like with other advertising media, your dealership can leverage digital advertising on a local level to drive traffic to your dealership. Similar rules apply to online advertising that have worked for dealers with conventional offline media. The beauty of digital is that unlike traditional media, dealers can selectively target customers in geographic areas that they define with very specific offers, get time sensitive campaign messages delivered faster, change campaigns instantly in response to the marketplace, incentives, inventory mix, etc. and the results are far more measurable, and can be tracked and reported daily.

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15. Why use the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Programs network of web sites?

    The Ford, Lincoln, Mercury Digital Advertising Network reaches the most popular local and national websites your customers visit. Such as Informational Portals, Automotive Enthusiast sites and Search Engine Sponsored Links when local car buyers are doing their online research. We provide your dealership access to the internet's largest, most comprehensive networks and combine that access with a team of experts dedicated to managing your program daily, and do so for dealership's nationwide uniquely enabling them to provide you with results.

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16. Why not buy digital advertising directly from local sites?

    With the Ford, Lincoln, Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers, negotiated national discounts are passed on to you. And, it is usually in your best interest to allow an impartial automotive certified digital advertising expert, who is focused on your success, build and manage your campaigns. Our team will ensure that your ads appear on the sites most respected by car buyers. The Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program Manager assigned to your dealership will work with you to identify the most effective strategies and websites that yield the greatest return on your investment.

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17. Give me the bottom line - Why should I do this?

    With a well balanced blend of search engine advertising listings and display advertising that appears on selected web sites, many dealers are discovering that they can improve the overall return on their monthly marketing and advertising investments. We have measured substantial and tangible improvements to the performance results from each dealers monthly investment in advertising. The Ford, Lincoln, Mercury Digital Advertising Program will work with you to raise your online presence while putting your dealership name and message in front of car buyers in your local area that we know are in the market to buy a vehicle based on words used in their search queries and the web sites they choose to visit while online.

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J. D. Power and Associates does continuous research into how car buyers select the vehicles they buy and the dealerships they buy those vehicles from. Recently, their lead researcher into these automotive buying behaviors made the following statement:

The Internet is especially effective in helping advertisers find in-market consumers, those who are actively shopping for a new car or truck, so marketers often overlook the fact that online advertising is also a particularly effective branding tool.

Everyone at the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers is committed to working with you to help grow your dealership sales and profits using the power of the Internet and the efficiency of Digital Advertising Campaigns.

While not appropriate for every dealership, if your dealership is ready to leverage the Internet as a marketing and advertising venue, the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury Digital Advertising Program for Dealers will work diligently at providing you with a reliable and low cost resource.

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