Facebook announces changes to marketplace listings for car dealers.

_{[4 Minute Read]┃Author: Mona┃May 19, 2021}

Last week, Facebook announced that Facebook Marketplace Listing Partners will no longer be able to push inventory catalogs into Marketplace starting September 13th.

If you’ve been using a partner to post on Marketplace, this may seem like a drawback. However, it also offers a few benefits for the auto industry, specifically for dealerships and consumers.

What you should know is that Facebook is actively looking for ways to make shopping easier on their platform.

Facebook’s end goal is to help businesses sell more, but instead of sending people to websites outside of Facebook, they want to keep buyers on Facebook. 

In their last earnings call, Facebook shared that over 1 billion users visit Marketplace each month. Additionally, a recent study found that 57% of US car buyers accept the idea of buying a car completely over the internet.

It is clear that the way people buy cars is changing, and Facebook is planning to capitalize on that change. In fact, we predict a lot of new, exciting enhancements in the way people buy and sell on Facebook over the next months to come. 

The most successful dealers are the early adopters and adapters. The ones that choose to learn from change and see the opportunities presented by change. So here is our advice to you, and what our team is currently recommending to our existing customers. 

1) Let a Marketing Partner Handle it For You.

Dealerships will still be able to post their inventory to Marketplace, except they will need to do it one-at-a-time and manually. To save you time, we would recommend you work with a Marketing Partner that can continue to post your vehicles on Marketplace manually.

V12Software will continue to handle posting inventory on behalf of its customers on a recurring basis after September 13th.

2) Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket.

Online automotive advertising is constantly evolving and changes like these can happen all the time. This is why it is important to diversify your lead sources and not rely on one or two sources of sales alone.

By maintaining multiple sources of traffic, you can keep a constant flood of leads coming your way and you’ll be less affected if one of the traffic sources you have doesn’t work out.

V12 works with all of its dealers to make sure they are advertising and generating sales from multiple marketing channels such as Marketplace, Craigslist, Facebook, Instagram and Google Ads. 

If you’d like to start generating sales from multiple advertising channels and increase your sales, feel free to schedule a free strategy call with our team. You can book your free meeting here!

3) Go with the Flow – Capitalize on All Facebook Features.

Facebook has put in place many features to make buying and selling on their platform easier, and you should take advantage of them! 

Feature #1: Inventory Tab on your Facebook Business Page

Facebook’s new inventory tab allows you or your marketing partner to create listings for your inventory on your Facebook page. This tab acts as a digital showroom of your inventory on Facebook, the same way your website does online.

If you’re not sure how to get your inventory listed on your Facebook Business Page, we can help with that!

V12 syncs inventory onto over 6,000 dealerships’ Facebook pages daily. Whether you are an existing customer or a customer of any other DMS, we can maintain your Facebook catalog and Inventory tab for you.

Feature #2: Automotive Inventory Ads (AIA)

Facebook’s Automotive Inventory Ads are dynamic ads that pull inventory images, descriptions and offers from your catalog and create targeted ads for active shoppers. With AIA, active shoppers will be able to see your cars on Marketplace and on other Facebook & Instagram pages. 

If you haven’t tried out AIA, we recommend working with an experienced marketing agency like V12Software to make sure you generate leads from the get go. 

We create targeted inventory ads ensuring the right vehicles reach your target audience at the right time! Click here to learn more about AIA campaigns!

Feature #3: Receive & Answer Leads in Real-Time

It’s quick, easy, and practical for all customers. Plus, this is the direction Facebook is hoping car dealerships will go.

Sending your leads to messenger doesn’t mean you need a BDC or a Sales Agent to stay on your Facebook page and answer chats all day. There are many tools that will let you manage all your inbound messages from one place. 

V12 offers this tool to all its existing customers for free.

Our customers are able to manage all their leads and answer them in real-time directly from our messaging app, Instant Messaging.