Dealerships Got It ALL Wrong: Why Your PPC Campaigns Are Wasting Money

Dealerships Got It ALL Wrong: Why Your PPC Campaigns Are Wasting Money

Let's imagine you and I decide to open a car dealership together. You tell me, "This is a numbers game. If we spend $10,000 a month on ads, we’ll make $20,000 back." But I say, "Hold on a second... let’s look at the dealership first."

We take a ride to our dealership. The road leading in is dirt, littered with junk cars. There’s no clear parking, and two greasy mechanics are drinking beer, making catcalls, and laughing as a dog chases us into the showroom. The receptionist blows smoke in our faces while the same dog gnaws on our leg.

Wouldn’t you agree we should stop all advertising and clean up first?

The Problem With Dealership PPC Campaigns

This is exactly what’s happening with 99.9% of dealership Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. Almost every dealership website online takes more than two seconds to load, meaning they’re losing visitors before they even have a chance to sell. Google penalizes slow websites, hurting both organic rankings and ad performance.

Now, consider this: about 20,000 dealership websites have been built by DealerInspire, a company owned by Cars.com. But Cars.com directly competes with dealerships for both organic and PPC rankings. It would actually be illegal for DealerInspire’s board to prioritize dealerships over their investors.

Would that be unethical? Maybe. But you know what’s also unethical? Selling dealerships websites that take nearly a minute to load.

The Hidden Cost of Slow Websites

Load time is one of the most overlooked factors in dealership marketing. Here’s what the data says:

• Amazon: Every 100ms improvement in load time increased sales by 1%.
• Mobify: For every 100ms improvement, conversions increased by 1.11%.
• Walmart: A 2% increase in conversions per second of improvement.
• Cook: A 7% increase in conversions for every 850ms improvement.

If a website takes 10 seconds to load (which is generous, as DealerInspire sites often take much longer), simply improving load time could result in 20 more sales per month—without spending another dime on ads.

The Bigger Picture: More Than Just Speed

Speed is just the tip of the iceberg. Most dealerships are sending all their traffic to their homepage and hoping for the best. But 79% of online shoppers leave and never return if they get frustrated. Here’s why:

1. Most dealership websites aren’t entertaining.
2. They don’t provide useful information.
3. They don’t allow customers to make a purchase.

Every keyword should direct traffic to a dedicated landing page designed specifically for that audience. That page should tell a story, answer questions, and guide visitors through the buying process. Instead, most dealership websites rely on vague lead forms, generic calls to action, and distractions like sliders and social media links.

The Right Way to Do It

Imagine a dealership spends $1,000 per month on PPC ads, bringing in 1,000 visitors and making just one sale. They could:

• Double their ad spend to $2,000 to get two sales.
• Improve conversions by just 1% and get that extra sale without spending more.

Most dealerships throw money into the advertising machine without optimizing what happens after a visitor lands on their site. What if, instead of hoping for the best, you controlled every move they made? What if every visitor landed on a perfectly tailored page based on what they were searching for?

What Your Dealership Website SHOULD Be

1. Lightning-Fast – Google saw a 20% drop in traffic when they increased load times from 0.3 to 0.5 seconds.
2. ADA & W3C Compliant – To avoid legal issues and ensure accessibility.
3. Mobile-Friendly – Since most users browse on their phones.
4. SEO-Optimized – Designed to rank and convert for both paid and organic traffic.
5. Focused on the Sale – No distractions, no social media links, no unnecessary sliders.

The Bottom Line

People want to know the exact cost of a vehicle before they ever step into a dealership. Your website should be able to provide real-time pricing, financing options, and trade-in values seamlessly. Online chat, financing calculators, and frictionless experiences should replace outdated tactics like forcing customers to visit the dealership just to see a price.

The Solution? Stop Guessing and Start Testing

The key is to measure everything:

• Traffic sources: direct, paid, organic.
• Conversion rates by page and channel.
• Bounce rates and time on site.
• Sales per 1,000 visitors.

Then, use that data to make small, targeted improvements. Build separate landing pages for high-intent keywords, optimize for speed, and remove anything that distracts from the sale.

Conclusion: Dealerships don’t need to spend more on ads. They need to fix their websites first. Clean up the "dealership" before throwing more money into PPC campaigns that are doomed from the start.