Advertising Platforms

[umesh 336]

Advertising Platforms

This topic has been discussed so many time but curios to see who uses what and any feedback on good bad indifferent.

AA Cars

Autotrader

Carsnip

Carcliq

EBay

Facebook Marketplace

Find and fund my car

Piston heads

Motors

RAC Cars

Shpock

 

Have I missed any?

 

Thanks

[Kes 7]

Gumtree?

[umesh 336]

1 minute ago, Kes said:

Gumtree?

Excellent ! Thanks That too  

[NOACROSS 414]

Exchange & Mart

Car Gurus

[Mark101 536]

AT - Great

Shpock - Never Again (tied in for another 6 months)

[RJEauto 18]

Ebay / Gumtree - Combined package - OK. Not as many sales as AT but it's a fraction of the price so can't complain. More timewasters/weak leads than other platforms

AT - Great for units sold but it should be with the price it commands.

Facebook - Good. Few deals done from Facebook page / Facebook marketplace. We typically spend £40 p/month on page / post advertisement so very good return on investment.

[justlooking 48]

36 minutes ago, RJEauto said:

Ebay / Gumtree - Combined package - OK. Not as many sales as AT but it's a fraction of the price so can't complain. More timewasters/weak leads than other platforms

AT - Great for units sold but it should be with the price it commands.

Facebook - Good. Few deals done from Facebook page / Facebook marketplace. We typically spend £40 p/month on page / post advertisement so very good return on investment.

Tried Facebook sporadically over the years to little joy. 

Only had success in boosting iconic, rare cars, mainly due to being able to target the ads to users that like that brand, such as ‘MINI’ or ‘AMG’. No direct sales though.

Other option is for us to target 17-21 for first time kinda cars but again, gets the odd like but no hard leads.

am I missing a trick?

[RJEauto 18]

3 hours ago, justlooking said:

Tried Facebook sporadically over the years to little joy. 

Only had success in boosting iconic, rare cars, mainly due to being able to target the ads to users that like that brand, such as ‘MINI’ or ‘AMG’. No direct sales though.

Other option is for us to target 17-21 for first time kinda cars but again, gets the odd like but no hard leads.

am I missing a trick?

Could come down to area?

On Facebook we advertise all of the cars on our page and on marketplace. 

Then each week we have a "Car of the week" which we boost the post. Typically, I target 21-60 yr olds within 20 miles. If it's a specific age range car like a new driver car I'd reduce the age specification further.

Other than that, sometimes I'll make slideshows of our stock. Trying to show a car for each "target market" and boost this.

[David Horgan 564]

Got a guy who sells our px rubbish on face book and that is working for him , nothing to do with me though , the stuff they buy on there is AMAZING , Filthy , not working rubbish sells on facebook and the dopes think they have a bargain . Heard him on the phone and he's just point blank rude to the buyer , get down ere now an u can ave it mate , but dunt mess mi abowt or u cn piss off , they actually go to see him after that torade of abuse as well  and buy the scrapper 

Spock is useless zero sales Very amateur approach they have , Playing at trying to hopeless and achieving it  . 

AA useless , zero sales , just hopeless 

Gumtree useless , zero sales , needs to be CHEAP on there 

Car gurus had me upgrade free over Dec /Jan   " useless " zero sales but I HATE their approach to telling all to everyone . 

 

Dec /Jan Autotrader sold 48 cars + 3 today . 

Cant see any point in paying to advertise TWICE on different sites . So Now its Web site sales via Google search and AT only + any local lookers who walk in and previous buyers . 

AT is expensive , you have to know your mkt to use them effectively I think , But it works for us . 

If it didn't I would look at something else  . 

[umesh 336]

10 minutes ago, David Horgan said:

Got a guy who sells our px rubbish on face book and that is working for him , nothing to do with me though , the stuff they buy on there is AMAZING , Filthy , not working rubbish sells on facebook and the dopes think they have a bargain . Heard him on the phone and he's just point blank rude to the buyer , get down ere now an u can ave it mate , but dunt mess mi abowt or u cn piss off , they actually go to see him after that torade of abuse as well  and buy the scrapper 

Spock is useless zero sales Very amateur approach they have , Playing at trying to hopeless and achieving it  . 

AA useless , zero sales , just hopeless 

Gumtree useless , zero sales , needs to be CHEAP on there 

Car gurus had me upgrade free over Dec /Jan   " useless " zero sales but I HATE their approach to telling all to everyone . 

 

Dec /Jan Autotrader sold 48 cars + 3 today . 

Cant see any point in paying to advertise TWICE on different sites . So Now its Web site sales via Google search and AT only + any local lookers who walk in and previous buyers . 

AT is expensive , you have to know your mkt to use them effectively I think , But it works for us . 

If it didn't I would look at something else  . 

Very concise feedback Mr H. Appreciated. Thanks everyone keep em coming, good to see feedback and the pattern that most of appear to have with the platforms.As I've always said if it works keep paying, when it stops working bin it and move on regardless of little it cost. 

[Arfur Dealy 823]

Umesh, AT works for me, it's the first point of call for quality buyers.  I'm with David.

[Nick M.K. 574]

2 minutes ago, Arfur Dealy said:

Umesh, AT works for me, it's the first point of call for quality buyers.  I'm with David.

Two key words here: quality and buyers. 

I'm with these two and I also have eBay Motors Pro, Motors.co.uk and the free Car Gurus package. The odd lead comes from those. 

[L-P 15]

Hi Umesh

I sell most of my cars from AT. I would say 2nd place is CarGurus. We more than cover its cost every month. We pick up the odd 1 or 2 from Find and Fund but that's free so fair enough.

Carsnip is the one for me that I cant seem to quantify. I think I will be switching it off after this month to be fair.

Not on any of the others so cannot comment.

 

[trade vet 697]

We tried the local paper.The rep said sales were now down to 25000,so I checked and it was nearer 16000.Anyway we were getting a quarter page for £50 ( would have been £500 in 80s ) so we gave it a go for 2 weeks.The ads looked really good.....

We never got a sniff.

[NickGCS 14]

We took up the AT deal before Xmas after 8 odd years without it. Decided we are keeping it until April to give it a chance and I’ve had mixed results, I’m amazed at how many best price messages we have had- especially via the live chat feature. I thought this was a gumtree/eBay trait but appears not

been with gumtree previously and it was a complete waste of money, motors exactly the same. F&F has not given me 1 serious lead also

cargurus has given us thee odd sale but wouldn’t dream of paying for it, for all the common reasons.

Best ROI is FB for us - we had a 2013 XDrive BMW M sport in white, 2.0 petrol that had 1700 odd views on AT, and produced absolutely nothing, best price brigade, swap for a clapped out Audi etc etc - Stuck a boosted post on FB with a £0 deposit finance example, car was gone within a week, cost us £30

I know we have had a few sales from AT we wouldn’t normally have had, but I’m not sold just yet, early days for us with them though...

 

 

 

[Arfur Dealy 823]

32 minutes ago, trade vet said:

We tried the local paper.The rep said sales were now down to 25000,so I checked and it was nearer 16000.Anyway we were getting a quarter page for £50 ( would have been £500 in 80s ) so we gave it a go for 2 weeks.The ads looked really good.....

We never got a sniff.

People don’t buy papers anymore, it’s free on their phones. When someone searches for a car they look online and the quality buyers look at AT. 

[Contracts 68]

Did a van last year that the buyer found on “News now” website who seemed to have scraped Autotrader adds as we never put it on there.

We use Facebook for our leasing but our marketing guy looked at the analytics for Facebook post boasting and found a large number seemed to be overseas users despite him entering our set demographic.  

[grant8064 219]

Bulk for us is an equal mix of recommendations/word of mouth, walk ons/roadside presence and AT.

The few remaining ones are from FB and eBay.

We also do one or two a month from CF247 and despite the reputation the process is good (the staff less so) and the customers are mostly pleasant and grateful, certainly no worse than a regular punter. 

Car gurus, Motors and Find and Fund are a bit of a running joke in the office for us.

We're probably on some websites where they lift your stock listing without permission but they result in nothing anyway so it doesn't really matter. AA, RAC etc

Had an enquiry from Autovola (spelling?) today for the first time ever but you have to pay to view the enquiry so we didn't bother. 

Gumtree/Schpock we tried, enquiries were a bit like being 17 trying to buy weed in a block of council flats.

 

 

[BHM 994]

3 minutes ago, grant8064 said:

Gumtree/Schpock we tried, enquiries were a bit like being 17 trying to buy weed in a block of council flats.

1 man band - I’ve solely existed on a bit of local trade, the occasional repeat customer but my only online presence has been eBaymotorspro for God knows how many years. eBay has served me very well but it’s recently gone off the boil to the point where I’m thinking of giving AT a whirl. I hate lashing out on advertising but if the results bear fruit............

As for sites such as Shpock, Gumtree etc. I’ve occasionally tried them in the past & honestly, as Grant says, they were an absolute total & utter waste of time for me.

[trade vet 697]

17 minutes ago, Arfur Dealy said:

People don’t buy papers anymore, it’s free on their phones. When someone searches for a car they look online and the quality buyers look at AT. 

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

[NOACROSS 414]

1 minute ago, trade vet said:

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

We do well with the weekly local rag advert. However, the clientele in the area are ‘older’. 

[EPV 631]

2 minutes ago, trade vet said:

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

My dad is 77 today. He uses Facebook and an I pad etc for his news and can use google. Up until a few years ago he was clueless about it all. And that a 77 year old man. Over fifties will be using the Internet for nearly everything. 

[Arfur Dealy 823]

9 minutes ago, BHM said:

1 man band - I’ve solely existed on a bit of local trade, the occasional repeat customer but my only online presence has been eBaymotorspro for God knows how many years. eBay has served me very well but it’s recently gone off the boil to the point where I’m thinking of giving AT a whirl. I hate lashing out on advertising but if the results bear fruit............

As for sites such as Shpock, Gumtree etc. I’ve occasionally tried them in the past & honestly, as Grant says, they were an absolute total & utter waste of time for me.

eBays died. Agreed 

[grant8064 219]

5 minutes ago, trade vet said:

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

We did twelve weeks in our local rag over winter, full page, full colour, advert changed and differently themed weekly.

Resulted in nothing. We hoped to pick up those older local punters but in reality they all just go online and know how FB messenger, email and search engines work just fine. 

[BHM 994]

2 minutes ago, trade vet said:

Yes AD,I agree,but my understanding was that there are still a lot of over fifties ( cash punters and debt free )who don’t use the internet but buy newspapers, so for £50 it was worth ago.It wasn’t just sales it was a car buying add also and I thought we would have a least bought one car from it.

Over fifties? Sorry TV but you’re 25 years out of date. I’ve sold two cars this week to Septuagenarians (older than you ) & my only advertising is eBay. I stopped advertising over a decade ago in the local rags when I realised I hadn’t sold a single car via them in 6 months. 

 

11 minutes ago, Arfur Dealy said:

eBays died. Agreed 

Thanks for the bad news . I’ve reluctantly come to this conclusion because I’ve survived for decades on minimal advertising fees so am averse to shelling out.