How to Target Car Buyers Online

A great customer experience is everything.

Creating brand loyalty in today's computerized world requires excellence and speed at every step of the automotive customer lifecycle, from first contact to repurchasing. If your dealership can't keep pace, we can guide you through a digital transformation to streamline your operations.

We provide a comprehensive and tailored solutions suite that converts manual tasks and face-to-face interactions to the digital applications you need to create a fantastic customer journey.

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Predicting and adapting to consumer desires is the core goal of any marketing team. With internet use increasing in all aspects of consumers’ lives, the car buying experience is no different. 

According to Google stats, 82% of auto-consumers are in the market for three months and use eight online sources. With the internet only expanding, having a positive presence throughout these months and on these channels is challenging.  

In addition, limited resources serve as an additional roadblock to targeting car buyers online. However, analyzing consumer trends can allow dealerships to maximize their resources and effectively turn online consumers into loyal customers.  

How to Target Car Buyers Online: Top 3 Strategies 


Three top sources consumers use for information throughout their car buying experience are dealership sites, OEM sites, and search engines. 

High customer usage of your dealership site and search engines can potentially drive more consumers to your store. 
 

Personalize the Experience 

76% of your customers expect a personal experience. Meeting this expectation is more challenging when the individual is conducting research autonomously, and their interests are unclear.  

Dealers might proactively consider this typical stage of the car buying experience by revamping their website with this in mind. 

Some ideas are: 

  • Featuring testimonials that the dealer provides a personal experience for all its customers 

  • Including employee profiles or short videos about the staff with whom potential customers would interact 

These ideas are an opportunity to highlight your fantastic team and bring a sense of intimacy between them and the consumer.  

Provide Video Walk-throughs 

YouTube videos can influence consumers by 70%, as views of test drive and walk-through videos have nearly doubled in recent years.  

Instead of customers turning to YouTube, create and embed these highly influential videos on your dealership site.  

These videos give you and your dealership the ability to: 

  • Influence consumer desires. Control the narrative of the products and features found in your store.  

  • Retain website visitors. Decrease the chance that consumers will leave your site for another—you worked hard to get them to your site, so do not give them a reason to go. 

  • Familiarize your store and employees. Consumers investing their time and energy in you will further establish your store as personal and, most importantly, trustworthy.  

Through these videos, your dealership further persuades consumers of its ability to provide an all-encompassing car buying experience.  

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

Consumers have countless car purchasing options in a digital market where proximity is not necessarily essential, meaning you need compelling online content to attract business. However, even the most persuasive websites can be ineffective if would-be customers cannot find you online. To combat this challenge, you should employ a search engine optimization strategy to increase volume and quality traffic to your site.  

Search Engine Optimization refers to improving your site’s visibility when individuals use search engines to find products or services related to a business. In simple terms, the more you use SEO strategies, the more likely your site will bring in customers.  

Dealers might consider the following actions to accomplish this: 

  • Prioritize quality keywords throughout your site that consumers might use in search engines.
     
  • Regularly publish creative content to bring people to your site while providing search engines with more information to recognize and catalog. 

  • Stay active on Google My Business by posting updates or photos and responding to reviews. 

The top priority of an SEO strategy is to have one. Search engines are here to stay and an integral part of the car buying experience. Once you have a plan, you can begin tracking and evaluating any SEO progress.  

Find the Tools that Drive Customers to Your Store 


With more information and options at the consumer’s disposal than ever before, knowing how to target car buyers online can be a daunting challenge, and dealerships should consider the abovementioned strategies to augment their process. The right plan and tools are essential in the constantly changing online market.  

Contact us today and learn how Affinitiv’s Digital solution can extend your reach and build revenue through its integrated strategy that leverages multiple channels to identify your target audience and drive them to act.  

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