Facebook advertising is a fantastic way for dealers to increase brand awareness and produce leads for their sales team.
With the help of Facebook Ads, dealerships can seize the initiative and enter people’s timelines just as they are getting ready to make a purchase. How to advertise car dealership on Facebook? As you draft up to six different versions of your copy and test them on Facebook, there are some important considerations you should make.
The following actions your dealership can take will help you use Facebook ads to increase sales.
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Why Should Car Dealers Use Facebook Ads?
Facebook has the most comprehensive and up-to-date user data. Facebook records each like, share, read, look, play, and interact with an item. Marketing companies like mine, who take all these signals and build a picture using them, have access to that data thanks to Facebook. With the help of this image, we can make sure that the right audience receives the right message at the right time.
For instance, when someone updates their status to read “I got promoted – ready for the good life!” after changing their job title from “Manager” to “Vice President.” these are signals that this person is ready to update their lifestyle. Knowing where they reside allows me to post a nice ad from a local car dealer with the subject line “Ready to upgrade your car to meet your new lifestyle” into their timeline.
As a result, the right message reaches the right audience at the right moment.
The best part is as follows: not only can I currently do that for one person, but I can scale that up to include everyone in every city and town in the world who is ready to purchase a car.

How To Advertise Car Dealership On Facebook?
Below are the key steps we list for your reference.
1. Set Up Your Ad Account
Setting up a Facebook Business Manager Account and linking your page are the first steps you must take to get started. After completing this, you can create your ad account. You can begin your campaign after entering your billing information and assigning roles to your employees. Check out this guide if you need help setting up your advertising account.
2. Have A Goal In Mind
When creating your campaign through Facebook, be sure to pick the appropriate objective, whether it’s to raise VDPs (vehicle display pageviews) or brand awareness. One of the three stages of the buyer’s journey will fit these objectives: awareness, consideration, or conversion. More precise objectives like reach, video views, and store traffic are contained within these buckets.
Facebook’s algorithm will adjust how your ads are optimized based on your choice to help you achieve your objectives. Additionally, this will enable you to track the metrics that are most important to your campaign and help you measure them.
3. Utilize Different Ad Types
There are a variety of ad types within your campaign that you can select from, and each one has special advantages. For instance, you can use video advertisements to showcase your dealership and your fleet of vehicles. You can showcase a variety of the car models you have to offer customers in carousel advertisements. Photos and videos can both be used for this.
Facebook also provides dynamic ads, which let you upload your inventory and make ads that are specifically targeted at people looking for a particular vehicle. The year, make, model, mileage, and other information will be visible to them right there in the advertisement.
Direct traffic generation to your VDP is made easy with these ad formats. To drive traffic to your website or entice customers to sign up for a deal or showroom visit, you can also use straightforward photo ads if you’d prefer to keep things straightforward.
4. Be Aware Of And Adhere To Facebook’s Policies And Guidelines
You must abide by Facebook’s ad rules if you want your advertisement to appear. The 20% text rule is one of the most crucial regulations to be aware of, and it’s also the one that many companies are unaware of. According to this rule, the maximum amount of text that can be included in your images (including video thumbnails) is 20%. Plan ahead for this when creating your ads because they won’t be accepted if they contain too much text.
Along with the ad itself, Facebook will review your landing page to make sure it functions properly and complies with their policies. This test shouldn’t be too difficult for you to pass as long as you are accurately advertising the vehicles on your lot and nothing is misleading. You have the right to appeal if your ad is rejected even though you complied with all the requirements.
When it comes to ad formatting, Facebook also has a lot of specifications. For instance, images must be at least 1080×1080 pixels in size and under 30MB in size. Videos must have a minimum resolution of 120×120 pixels and a maximum file size of 4GB. It is crucial that you remember these suggestions so that you won’t need to go back and reformat your ads. Read Facebook’s complete list of specifications for more information.
5. Create Effective Ads That Drive Consumers To Act
Your advertising is only as effective as it produces. Utilize straightforward yet captivating imagery and call-to-action-driven ad copy to increase click-through rates. You can request that they take advantage of a deal, go to your showroom, schedule a test drive, and other things. Make your offer and the next action you want the customer to take clear in each advertisement.
Additionally, it is crucial for dealerships to use a variety of ad formats, such as carousel ads and dynamic ads based on inventory, which is frequently more interesting than standard image ads. Instead of viewing a generic advertisement for your dealership, a customer will be much more likely to visit your website or showroom if they learn that you have the car they’re looking for in stock.
Read More:
- How To Run Facebook Ads For Daraz Seller?
- How To Run A Facebook Birthday Discount Ad?
- How to Advertise a Garage Sale on Facebook?
- How to Run Facebook Ads for Clients?
- Facebook Ads for Restaurants
Facebook Marketing Tips
Here are some additional tips and strategies you can try to help ensure you reach high-quality leads before you dive in and start creating your Facebook ads.
1. Follow The Funnel
The major issue is placed first.
The sales funnel model isn’t just for making sales. In fact, every campaign 9 Clouds has ever launched is specifically positioned at the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel.
It’s difficult to overstate how crucial this alignment is—not just for your Facebook ads but for every aspect of your inbound marketing strategy.
Choose which part of your sales funnel it is meant to reach before you even start creating a Facebook ad. How will this campaign help you demonstrate ROI while guiding the buyer’s journey?
You can use the answers to these questions to decide which campaign objectives, target audiences, formats, placements, and content to use.
2. Throw Hyper-targeting Into The Mix
While you’re targeting people with custom and Special Ads Audiences (see previous tip), you might want to think about going a step further and hyper-targeting some of your ads to people in more precise circumstances.
What if you, as an example, wrote a blog post about the best cars for new parents and then linked that blog post to a Facebook advertisement that was only visible to new parents? What if dog owners were treated the same way?
These are great ways to reach a higher relevance score on your ads, which would, in turn, lower your CPC — and get more clicks while spending less.
It goes without saying that your dealership marketing team probably doesn’t have time to create specialized blog posts for each and every market segment, but it doesn’t hurt to start with one or two of your well-known high-value groups.
3. Match Your Inventory To Known Demographics
Why not spend some time learning about the consumers of your product since you already know everything there is to know about it?
You can reach the right demographic at the right time using Facebook’s extensive targeting features.
You’ll notice a positive increase in relevance metrics, click-through rate (CTR), and cost per click (CPC) when you show the right vehicles to the right people at the right time. In our free Performance Benchmarks Report, you can read more about these and other Facebook advertising benchmarks.
4. Utilize Your CRM Data
Facebook advertising isn’t just for getting more people into your store.
Recent leads and previous customers in your CRM are more likely to relate to your dealership’s message than a total stranger because they’ve already shown an interest in you!
For instance, you might think about including a custom audience of previous Ford truck buyers in your targeting if you’re trying to sell the newest Ford truck on your lot.
From this point, you can increase the reach of your Facebook ads by creating a Special Ads Audience based on these previous buyers.
There are a ton more ways to incorporate your CRM data into Facebook marketing. Watch our webinar to learn more!
5. Prevent Unnecessary Clicks
That customer who just bought a car from your dealership last week is probably not going to buy another one for a while. so why would they want to see your advertisement? (Answer: they don’t!)
Put your most recent sales lists into Facebook offline events to block this customer (and others like them). This is where you can choose to remove this audience from your Facebook advertising.
This will prevent paying for unnecessary clicks and allow you to focus your money where it really counts.
Facebook offers some excellent advice for adjusting your audience by excluding particular factors. This not only lowers your CPC but also lowers the money wasted on useless clicks and increases the number of people you can reach who are more likely to take advantage of your advertisement.
6. Fix Your Reach With Special Ad Audiences
However, it can be challenging to rely solely on interests or demographic data. Automotive Facebook ad targeting should always be deliberate. Using the same targeting every month risks “wearing out” your core audience.
To help your dealership reach more customers who are likely to interact with your ads, Facebook Ads Manager offers Special Ads Audiences (SAAs).
SAAs are very similar to Lookalike Audiences, which are prohibited from use under the Special Ad Category for Credit (which all auto dealers are now required to use).
Similar to Lookalike Audiences, SAAs can be based on the traffic to your website or lists that you upload into Ads Manager.
7. Mind Your Placements
On Facebook, targeting includes not only the characteristics of the person you are trying to reach but also the particular platform they will be viewing your ad on.
The networks and platforms where your ads are displayed are called Facebook ad placements. When advertising on Facebook, your ad placement has a big impact on cost.
By default, Facebook will display your advertisement on its Audience Network, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and both desktop and mobile Facebook news feed. Despite Facebook’s advice to spread your ads throughout its ecosystem, you should exercise caution because CPCs can vary by as much as 550%.
We advise customizing each ad to the particular platform where it will be seen because each of these platforms has particular advantages.
8. Test Weird Things
Insights play a significant role in digital marketing. Our staff continuously split-tests Facebook campaigns to determine which one performs best.
For instance, our team found that leaving out the call-to-action (CTA) button on a carousel ad will result in more clicks than including a CTA button (such as “Shop Now” or “Learn More”).
Additionally, we’ve found that dealership-supplied photos will receive a lot more interaction than manufacturer-supplied stock photos.
But testing extends beyond the advertisement itself. Facebook can see what people do after they click your ad. Actually, the performance of your ads is also influenced by your destination pages, so experiment with them to find out which ones are most effective.
These small experiments have a significant impact on how you optimize your dealership’s campaigns over time.
Additionally, A/B testing helps you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. You still have a horse in the race even if one of your ads fails miserably (or is rejected by Facebook).
Related Reading: How To Optimize Facebook Ads?
What Action Should Car Dealerships Take Today?
The pace of technology is increasing. The auto dealership will only fall further and further behind the rest of the world if it does not get on board right away. Furthermore, this puts you further behind your rivals who are vying for the SAME car buyer.
Outdoor billboards used to be effective, but if you look at passengers in cars today, they are not looking out the window. They are concentrating on their phones and iPads with their heads bowed. Nowadays, when infotainment systems enable direct streaming of iTunes and Podcasts from the internet or via Bluetooth from a mobile phone, very few people still listen to the radio. The money spent on radio or billboard advertisements is therefore immediately wasted. In addition, the likelihood that the right person will see the advertisement while driving down a particular road is improbable.
Recognizing that almost everyone lives on their phone is the first step in changing corporate marketing spending or persuading the big boss that it’s time to invest in Facebook Ads. That implies that the potential car buyer is also on their phone, most likely checking their Facebook timeline. Your advertisement should appear there if that is where the viewers’ eyes are fixed and their attention is directed.
If there is opposition, just request that the boss forward all calls to his office and lock the phone in the drawer for the duration of the week. See how long he or she lasts!
Conclusion: How To Advertise Car Dealership On Facebook?
These are just a few of our insider advice for focusing your Facebook automotive ads. We’ve covered how Facebook ads can be used to generate leads for a car dealership in this post as well.
When using Facebook ads as a lead generation tool, there are a few important considerations that you need to keep in mind. We sincerely hope you found them helpful! If you want to learn more about Facebook ads, read our posts below:
- How To Cancel Facebook Ads?
- What Is A Good CTR For Facebook Ads?
- What Metrics Should I Look At For Facebook Click Ads?
- What Is A Link Click On Facebook Ads?
- Facebook Ads Not Delivering
- How to Advertise on Spotify?
- How to Advertise Cleaning Business?
FAQs
How to Target Car Buyers on Facebook?
Facebook Ads can be used to target car buyers in a variety of ways. You can do video ads, custom audiences, carousel ads, lookalike audiences, conversion lift, TRP buying (extend and augment your TV campaigns on Facebook), regular Facebook Newsfeed ads, right rail ads, and more.
How to Create a Dealership Page on Facebook?
To create your business page for your dealership, scroll down to the bottom of your page and click on the small print at the bottom that reads Create a Page. Choose the page type you want to create by clicking. Select “Local Business or Place”. For your category, we recommend selecting “Automotive”.
Are Dealerships Allowed to Post on Facebook Marketplace?
Keep in mind that dealers can only list certified pre-owned inventory; new vehicles cannot be listed by dealers. Dealership listings appear only on Marketplace, not on a Facebook Page (unless deliberately shared to a Page).