The owner of a longtime mid-size RV Dealership Social Media Marketing Client of mine follows other RV Dealerships to see what they’re doing with their marketing. He sent me the Facebook Carousel Ad that we’re going to analyze.

He asked me if Carousel Ads are effective at increasing sales. The short answer is Yes, if done correctly. We utilize these types of ads for our clients, generally geared towards people near the top of the sales funnel of the RV Buying Process. If these types of FB Ads are done incorrectly, it’s going to cost you and send money into the black pit of RV/Marine Dealership advertising costs…

Carousel Ads are great at increasing engagement and storytelling. You’re able to showcase multiple images of different units, types of units or a specific unit. In this case they’re showing multiple images of the same unit. Each headline and description should be different to tell a story about the various features/benefits of that unit. The interactive nature of these ads can lead to higher click through and conversion rates compared to traditional static ads.

Here’s a quick breakdown of a Facebook Carousel Ad for an RV Dealership and a few reasons why it’s costing them ad dollars by not optimizing their ads (that’s a fancy way of saying they didn’t write a good ad for this RV Dealership).

Let’s start by pointing out that a Facebook Ad has the RV Dealership’s name automatically at the top. So putting the dealership’s name in the first line of the ad is a marketing fail. It doesn’t need to be there twice and you’re missing an opportunity to use that critical ad real estate on the first line.

The first line of a social media ad is critical. It NEEDS to grab the attention of someone and stop them from scrolling. We already know by the business name at the top of the ad that it’s an RV Dealership and we would assume RV Dealerships sell RVs.

Telling us that you have RVs for sale when it’s already known or assumed is a mistake. If you’re thinking “they wanted to point out that they had “Grand Design RVs”, it’s a mistake. If someone isn’t an RVer they most likely won’t have the knowledge that Grand Design are quality built RVs.

This is an ad for a travel trailer so the majority of potential buyers will be first time RV buyers and by assuming they know anything about the brand is a miss. If you wanted to showcase the brand for experienced RVers you could put that later in the ad as a feature of your dealership.

Also putting their location is a mistake. The average RV Buyer will drive quite a bit to get the right RV from the right dealership at the right price. Adding your location right away can discount you from a % of people because they aren’t excited about the RV/Dealership/Price yet. Get them drooling over something first, then tell them they have to travel a little bit to get it because it’s worth it to them at this point…

Earlier we talked about how people might not identify the brand so it doesn’t make sense to highlight that in the ad. The bottom or headline of the ad is like a billboard that stands out and is a great opportunity to showcase something bold and add some urgency/excitement to your RV Dealership Facebook Ad.

To put the unit name (Imagine Travel Trailer) will only be recognized by a tiny percentage of people who view the ad. It’s a waste of a billboard and going to significantly lower the effectiveness of the ad.

Underneath that is the description and they duplicate the fail they made in the headline by writing that it’s an “Imagine Travel Trailer”. That space should be utilized for something that’s going to get someone to take action.

This is just one example where marketers for RV Dealerships are wasting ad dollars and not getting optimal results. In my very biased opinion, you should work with someone like me where you’ll get better results at a lower cost.

So if you’re looking to get more traffic, leads and sales at a lower investment cost, let Shorelooksnice do your social media marketing so your RV/Marine Dealership grow your bottom line and take over the competition in your target market. Reach out with any questions that you may have and I’m just a quick call/email away from discussing how we can get you better marketing results RIGHT AWAY!