Google Vehicle Ads - UK Car Dealers

Google Vehicle Ads are like AutoTrader listings but right on the Google Search results page. These ads take your stock and place it in front of in-market car shoppers in your area and drive those customers directly to your website, rather than a 3rd party. And now that Vehicle Ads are a part of Google’s newest Performance Max ad format which uses Machine Learning to optimise your ad spend across all Google properties, we recommend allocating  a large proportion of your advertising budget to this format.

Standard Search Ads and Vehicle Ads are quite different. Vehicle Ads have some clear advantages in where they appear, how much they cost, and how often they show up. They show up right at the top of search results, cost less per click, and can display multiple vehicles at once. So, for a broader based car dealer advertising campaign, Vehicle Ads are the better choice, but we would strongly recommend a blend of both campaign types to achieve optimal results. 

Yes — because Google Vehicle Ads give you direct ownership of the lead, better visibility and priority placement. While Motors, CarGurus and Carwow can generate enquiries, those platforms own the traffic and customer data, and shoppers are shown multiple competing dealers on the same page. With Google Vehicle Ads, your stock appears directly in Google Search when buyers are actively looking, clicks go straight to your website, and you keep the customer relationship with no lead or subscription fees. Google has also confirmed that dealer-run ads are prioritised over marketplace feeds in the Shopping carousel, giving you stronger visibility and more efficient lead generation. 

Would you rather send a ready-to-buy shopper to your own website — or to a marketplace where they immediately see similar cars from competing dealers?

Vehicle Ads work for new or used vehicles such as cars and pickup trucks that you have in stock. This excludes commercial vehicles, recreational vehicles, farm vehicles, buses, 2-wheelers, trains or boats etc. All stock must contain real imagery of the vehicle. We can also segment campaigns for you if you prefer to run only new or only used car ads. You the dealer has full control here.

Case studies have proven that dealership websites convert customers into leads 4 x better than 3rd party classified sites. This varies from dealer to dealer, but 4x better ROI is industry average. We recommend a 3 month period to allow Google’s machine learning to learn the specific dynamics of your dealership and your market.

You will get traditional SEM-style reporting on campaign performance as well as a full conversion reporting each month so you know exactly what valubale emails, calls, live chats and website actions were driven by these ads.

From sign off it will be around 7-10 days. If anyone claims to be quicker than that , we want to know about it! 

The reason most agencies quote longer lead times is that they are not a Google-approved partner, so their setups need to be reviewed by Google.  Our up to date Google partner status can be found here ,  our approved Google Vehicle Ad feed approved provider can be found here  and our current certifications found here