IN THIS third edition of Dealer Talks, our new podcast series brought to you by Gumtree Cars, in partnership with GoAutoMedia, we explored digital marketing for dealers on the Road to Recovery . We aimed to learn from the headwinds created by the pandemic as we continue the bounce back to normal trading.

We talked to Sean McDonell, the automotive industry head and Melbourne site lead at Google Australia and Gavin Cox, who is a managing director of AdTorque Edge, an automotive digital marketing agency.

Sean McDonell informed us about some recent Google Australia research and data which indicates very strong interest in buying cars across pretty much every segment in Australia.

Gavin Cox gave us insights that show the effectiveness of dealership advertising campaigns during the shutdown and we discuss the sales results that various dealers generated from marketing activity.

Sean McDonell

The team confirmed what we are hearing, that active buyers are out there.

Google searching tells us that online searches for cars, trucks and commercials are well above this time last year. There are also positive trends in online searches for luxury cars, SUV’s, utes and used cars.

AdTorque Edge showed that active buyers are responding to dealers who take the trouble to get in front of them with online marketing.

Gavin Cox

The dealers who held their nerve and kept their advertising at normal levels experienced double the sales volumes of dealers who cut back.

Because fewer dealers were bidding for ad spots those dealers who were holding firm on their level of ad spend were able to get high exposure at half the ad cost.

Finally, dealers should not pull back in July. Maintaining exposure in July is likely to pay off in higher sales.

By John Mellor