1. Google Success Story I AdWords Reseller
Wheels in motion
Working with Google AdWords Authorized Reseller ADP Dealer
Services, Rich Ford leads its region in auto sales.
For more than 48 years, the Rich Ford dealership has
been a familiar part of the landscape in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. “For almost all those years, we’ve been
Advertiser on the same corner of town,” says Darin Wade, vice
• Rich Ford president. With Rich Ford for 18 years, Darin now
• www.rich-ford.com oversees the dealership’s growth and marketing
• Albuquerque, NM
• Ford new car and truck dealer
efforts. And he’s got a lot to brag about: “We’re in a
metro market of less than a million people in little ol’
Albuquerque. Yet last year we moved up to twenty-
eighth in the nation in new car and new truck volume
for Ford Motor Company. And we were number one in
our region for the entire year.”
AdWords Reseller
• BZ Results, an ADP company Acceleration
• www.adpdealerservices.com
• Coventry, RI A big reason for that success is the addition of online advertising to the dealership’s
• Auto dealer digital marketing specialists media mix. Historically, Rich Ford has had a heavy schedule of radio and television
advertising, with a small amount of direct mail to support a satellite showroom. “Being
Goals in this market for so long, we have some very prime radio and TV positions. We don’t
• Expand online presence want to give that up.”
• Measure ad responses to enhance
effectiveness But like any advertiser, Darin needed to make sure Rich Ford was spending its
• Increase lead generation advertising budgets in the most effective ways. “There’s only so much you can do
• Achieve greater day-to-day control
over messaging
with target rating points,” he says. Darin sought to diversify into online advertising in
• Control sales erosion in the face of a part because he knew it was accountable. “The advantage of online is that you have a
slow economy better tracking scenario than you do with any other media,” Darin explains.
However, Darin felt Rich Ford could benefit from expert help, and began to look for
Approach
a group to manage its online campaigns. In January 2008, he turned to BZ Results,
• Worked with BZ Results, AdWords
Authorized Reseller, on creative a division of ADP Dealer Services, a Google AdWords Authorized Reseller™. Ralph
development Paglia, the director of digital marketing for ADP Dealer Services, came from a car
• Used AdWords reporting to monitor sales background, which made the difference for Darin. “The advantage that they
performance
have is that they were car people before they were marketers,” Darin says. “So they
• Managed and updated messaging on a
regular basis understand what the dealer’s philosophy is.”
• Tracked online results by impressions, BZ Results set up an account for Rich Ford with
clicks, and clickthrough rate
Google AdWords™, Google’s online advertising
platform. Ralph worked closely with Darin to develop
Results
the right messages and associated keywords that
• Did roughly three times better than
typical Ford dealer in controlling erosion would connect with Rich Ford’s target audiences,
• Outperformed dealers in much larger then deployed the campaigns.
metro markets
• Held onto #1 position in their 9-state Traffic to the Rich Ford website immediately spiked,
region as did leads. “When we included AdWords and left
• Significantly increased lead generation our other media the same, we saw a huge increase
Moved up to 28th among all Ford
in website traffic,” Darin recalls. “Within the last six
•
dealers nationwide
months, our website is getting more and more leads.
And I attribute most of that to the AdWords program.”

2. Navigating challenging times
About Google AdWords
Although Darin is optimistic about the results he’s seen, he’s had to adapt his
Google AdWords™ is a performance-
based advertising program that enables
approach to an economic downturn. When the economy is sluggish, a dealer’s
businesses large and small to advertise on success is often measured not in terms of sales increases, but in losses prevented.
Google and its network of partner websites.
“A lot of dealers are definitely struggling for survival,” Darin explains. “In our own
Hundreds of thousands of businesses
worldwide use AdWords for text, image, backyard, our top two Ford competitors were down 17 and 19 percent in volume. And
and video ads priced on a cost-click (CPC) the national numbers for that period were down 13 percent. But we were down only
and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. Built five percent—in other words, we were still selling about three times more cars than
on an auction-based system, AdWords is a
anybody else.”
highly quantifiable and cost-effective way to
reach potential customers. Darin explains their strategy: “The only thing that we did differently was to add this
For more information, visit online spending piece to our traditional buy. Our lease volumes went up, our requests
http://google.com/adwords for information went up, and so did our overall sales appointments. Yes, I think you
have to say AdWords made a difference.”
About the Google AdWords
Authorized Reseller Program
The Google AdWords Authorized Reseller™ “I see our online advertising increasing—that’s just a given. The reason is
program enables strategic relationships that I know it gets results.”
between Google and companies that can
deliver the power of Google AdWords Darin Wade, vice president, Rich Ford
to their local merchants. We value the
relationships and knowledge resellers
possess in their communities, and share Fueling success
a mutual commitment to deliver targeted,
measurable advertising solutions to local For BZ Results and parent company ADP Dealer Services, being a Google AdWords
marketers. Small and medium-sized Authorized Reseller has a number of benefits. First, they can respond quickly to their
businesses working with an authorized clients’ needs thanks to the flexibility of the AdWords platform. And as their client,
reseller receive professional, full-service
Darin saves precious time and energy by relying on BZ Results to manage Rich Ford’s
AdWords account management, from
account setup and activation to ongoing campaigns and update its ads regularly. “Either every week or every other week, we
campaign monitoring and optimization. change our AdWords message,” Darin explains, “We’ll have a meeting on Monday to
For more information, visit tell BZ Results what we want our ads to say, and by Wednesday we’re already running
http://www.google.com/adwords/reseller/us with a new campaign.”
Armed with training from Google, BZ Results has also incorporated sophisticated
strategies for targeting car buyers. Using AdWords tools such as demographic
targeting, they can pinpoint their audience and advertise the right model car or truck
to the consumer segment most likely to buy.
BZ Results has also seen clients’ openness and trust increase since joining the
program. Ralph elaborates: “By becoming part of the Google Reseller program, and
making sure our Digital Advertising Analysts are Google AdWords Certified, we’ve
been able to achieve improved credibility and relevance in a segment where our client
base has not traditionally turned to us.”
Darin agrees: “Dealers nowadays should know they need to be on the digital side. But
they also need to have someone they have confidence in show them the results. I feel
I’m pretty Internet savvy, but it took an expert like BZ Results to say ‘I know this is your
message, I’m gonna help you do it.’”
The road ahead
Offering advice to others in the automobile industry, Darin says “This is not the time
for car dealers to stick their heads in the sand. As a matter of fact, this is the time
when we should put more of our message out there.”
And when looking to the future for Rich Ford, Darin concedes that long-term
planning is difficult for new car dealers these days. “But I see our online advertising
increasing—that’s just a given. I can also say, in a time when we’re decreasing
television and we’re decreasing radio—just because we have to—we are not
decreasing our digital spend at all. The reason is that I know it gets results.”
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