The Company

Germain Ford of Beavercreek is the source for new & used Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, parts, service, and more in the Beavercreek area, serving across Dayton, Ohio, and beyond, as part of the Germain Motor Company. Founded in 1947, Germain stores are family-owned and mission-driven to deliver the right car, at the right price, the right way. Given recent inventory shortages, that mission led Germain to Outsell and the Social and Inventory Mover solutions within our AI-driven Virtual Customer Engagement platform.

The Problem

Even with the auto industry facing challenges with low inventory, as of April 2021, auto sales were up more than 100% year over year. The microchip shortage that forced many brands to slow down production combined with record sales left many dealers with extremely low inventory and Germain Ford of Beavercreek was no exception.

For a store that usually has between 200-300 new vehicles, Germain found themselves down to a fraction of that average, pushing a larger focus onto used inventory heading into May of 2021 and for the foreseeable future until new inventory numbers return to a semblance of normal.

The Solution

“Knowing they had to get more eyes on used inventory than ever before, Germain turned to long-term partner Outsell for help.”

Outsell attracts new buyers to a dealership and keeps active in-market shoppers engaged with relevant, eye-catching ads on Facebook, Instagram, and through Display Ads across the web. We can also post used vehicles to Facebook Marketplace, getting more eyes on aging inventory.

Outsell automatically scrubs out current owners to ensure net-new impressions when conquesting, targeting lookalikes from a dealer’s DMS and recent website visitors who are in-market for specific vehicles. Our Inventory Mover predictive model then drills down to the VIN level, including vehicles from a dealer’s lot that each consumer is most likely to be interested in, retargeting with the exact vehicles they previously browsed, automatically serving up rotating images, and linking directly to VDP pages.

While averages for Germain had been consistently impressive year to date (YTD), the push for more used Inventory Mover campaigns in May saw a huge increase in unique clicks, while lowering cost per click (CPC), and without reducing click-thru rate (CTR).

The Results

In only a five-month period, from January 2021 to May 2021, Germain Ford of Beavercreek saw:

• 423 average unique clicks per month
• 4.22% average CTR
• $0.31 average CPC

On its own, May 2021 saw 606 unique clicks, a 4.9% CTR, and only a $0.25 CPC.

When you consider that May’s numbers and the YTD averages are all well below Facebook averages reported as of March 2021 – 0.9% CTR and $1.72 CPC respectively – the impact becomes even more staggering.

Germain Ford of Beavercreek is just one example of Outsell customers making the most of lacking new inventory by utilizing the vast array of tools within Outsell’s AI-driven Virtual Customer Engagement platform.