Skip to content
After GM’s Big Pull out of Facebook the entire automobile industry has been in an uproar regarding social media marketing especially when it comes to Facebook. General Motors only spent $10 million dollars in 2011 on Facebook ads. $10 million dollars of their total 2011 US ad spend of $1.8 billion is a mere drop in the bucket, according to Kantar Media. $10 million is also a small share of Facebook’s total 2011 revenue of $3.7 billion. However many individual car dealerships are questioning their own much smaller budgets.
Facebook has recently replied with a NEW advertisement targeting feature. Their new feature is called “Auto Intender (US)”. If Facebook’s data is accurate and the people they say are “Auto Intenders” actually end up buying cars then this could be a huge game changer. Due to the fact that this is such a new feature we have not seen any reports on it’s effectiveness. However here are some stats to think about.
Targeting the entire US age 18 and up there are 142 million users. Now when you target “Auto Intenders” alone that number drops to 940,880 (as of July 2012) Is it possible that 1 in every 151 Facebook users over the age of 18 are looking to buy a car? We don’t know for sure, but we surely believe in testing it! We believe that without a doubt this could produce results for a local dealer who is targeting only a small subsect of that data. For example the total number of Auto Intenders located within 50 mile radius of Orlando, Florida totals to 9,260 users. The average bid to reach out to these users is about $0.97–$2.24 a click. Now let’s say Facebook is right only 50% of the time. Would a dealer be willing to spend $1.94 – $4.48 on two clicks to put their products in front of one user who is looking to buy a car and one user who isn’t looking, but has now received a brand impression? This is an incredible opportunity for individual dealers! We recommend testing these new targeting options and tracking the results to find out if it’s worth the investment. This very well could be the turning point for Facebook within the Automobile Industry.
