ACV Auctions

Automotive
Paid Search Paid Social
Receptionist at ACV Auctions front desk.

ACV Auctions is an online auction platform that provides dealerships with an effortless buy-and-sell B2B marketplace.

With the automotive supply chain continuing to struggle due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ACV Auctions was in an ideal position to help dealerships fulfill heightened inventory demands. However, they faced two significant challenges: finding highly qualified leads that were car dealers (not consumers) and stiff competition from bigger and better-known companies in the automotive remarketing industry.

300% Increase in Total Leads
66% Below Cost Per Lead Goal
Jake Renner ACV Auctions

“Socium Media is an extension of our SEM team. We’ve worked with them for almost a year, and in that time, they’ve restructured our Google Ads account to optimize for performance.

Since working with them, they have done a tremendous job reducing our CPL by 83%, all while increasing the number of qualified leads.”

Jake Renner

Senior Director | Growth Marketing
Jake Renner ACV Auctions
ACV Auctions Logo - Case Study

What Socium Identified

#1

Several campaigns needed an overall restructure

#2

Keywords weren’t mapping correctly and required immediate attention

Our Strategic Approach

Overhauled Google and Bing Campaigns

  • We reviewed the keyword list and replaced low-quality performing keywords with high-quality performers from the SQR (search term query report) and DSA (dynamic search ads) campaign.
  • Campaigns only utilized Phrase and Exact match types, so we launched new Non-Brand campaigns with ‘Broad’ match types. In addition, we also launched new Brand campaigns on Exact and Phrase match types.
  • We updated Non-Brand campaigns to utilize smart bidding/tCPA (target cost per acquisition) instead of manual/CPC to maximize efficiencies.
  • We expanded RSA (responsive search ad) and competitor campaign coverage.
  • All existing ad copy was updated to include keywords from associated ad groups.

Made structural changes to Display & Youtube campaigns

  • We increased efficiency and ease of management by consolidating campaigns where possible.
  • To clean up audience ad groups, we ensured that audience mapping was configured correctly (including negating audiences in other ad groups when necessary) and updated audience targeting.

Realigned the keyword mapping strategy

  • We reviewed the search term reports (STRs) across Brand, Non-Brand and DSA (dynamic search ads) search campaigns, looking for duplicate queries mapping to various keywords and campaigns.
  • Once we identified the duplicate queries, we added appropriate negative keywords to ensure they’d map to the correct location.

Launched landing page & ad creative tests

  • ACV Auctions shared 3 top-performing landing pages which we used to launch a landing page test across all Non-Brand ad groups in order to identify the best performing landing page within each. As data began to build up, we reviewed and paused the poorer performing ads and landing pages to improve CVR (conversion rate).
  • In addition to the landing page tests, we ran creative tests for display ads.

We saw the following results QoQ:

300% Increase in Total Leads
66% Below Cost Per Lead Goal

Future Plans

Following the success of the account restructure, we’ve been working with ACV Auctions on testing new tactics to expand their reach. In addition, we’re testing within the restructured campaigns to gain incremental efficiencies.

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