Advertise out-of-stock inventory

Overview

Acquire offers you the flexibility to advertise inventory that is not in stock (vehicles that don't yet have a dedicated VDP on your website) along with the vehicles you currently have in stock (vehicles for which a VDP exists on your website). Typically, new inventory related ads link to VDPs however, if your Dealership does not have a model in stock, or are waiting for it to arrive, you should still have the opportunity to capture that lead!

Advertising out-of-stock inventory allows Acquire to direct ad-clicks to preset pages on your website so your Dealership can still engage shoppers with targeted advertising and capture leads, even if the models or vehicles of interest are not on the lot right when the shopper clicks on the ad .

How can I activate this feature?

To turn on this feature and advertise not-in-stock inventory, click on the Settings cog in the lower left hand corner of your Dashboard > Acquire > General Settings > Inventory tab

What happens when I turn on the feature?

When the feature is activated, the AutoLeadStar system will scan your Dealership website to see which models from your Manufacturer have VDPs listed. Those models for which you have no inventory (VDPs on your website) will automatically be added to a list from which ads should be created. Ads will then be created and instead of routing traffic to a VDP, they will lead shoppers to the homepage of your website by default, or back-up links specified by the Dealer. For example, if you are a Ford Dealership and the Ford lineup includes 12 model types, and your Dealership only has 7 models of the 12 in your inventory, AutoLeadStar will automatically create ads for the remaining 5 model types.

If you do not want to advertise all available new inventory from your Manufacturer and wish to only focus on a few specific models which you do not currently have in stock, you may activate the feature and then utilize Inventory Management to EXCLUDE relevant models. To exclude certain vehicles from Acquire, click on the Settings cog in the lower left hand corner of your Dashboard > Acquire > Inventory > Rules

The Social ads created will pull model images from the AutoLeadStar repository and will be inserted dynamically into the relevant New Inventory objective and into the relevant ad bundles for Acquire Social only.

How can I set up a back-up link?

Once you turn on the feature by flipping the activation switch to the right (blue indicates it is ON), you will then see the option to add backup links for model specific ads. 

First select the model for which you would like to set up a back-up link, then paste in the entire link into the URL input field. This is the page that you would like ad clicks for this model to route traffic to. If no VDP exists on the Dealer website for the model, the default is to send all traffic from clicks on not-in-stock ads to the Dealership homepage unless otherwise specified with a model specific back-up link.

It is important to note that this feature only supports back-up links which are hosted on the dealership's domain, meaning if you were to try to link out to an external site that is not part of your Dealership's website, Google may flag the account and you may experience restricted impressions or account suspension.