Social media campaigns for auto dealers should be designed to deliver performance and ROI for dealerships and dealer groups. Not all campaigns should be evaluated the same, nor should the same metrics be used. In order to track the success of a campaign, dealers should set objectives upfront to help identify key performance indicators.

First, dealers should determine what their campaign sets out to accomplish. Here are three
objectives to get you started:

1. Increase reach - exposing new car prospects to your brand
2. Drive a specific call to action – sign-up for email list, opt-in to mobile text program, Facebook “like,” filling out a form, scheduling an appointment
3. Incentivized sharing – reward customers based on their behavior

Over a period of time, track individual campaigns using historical benchmarks. Then assign
weighting values accordingly. For example, a campaign designed to build an auto dealer’s
database will be weighted heavily on data capture versus a campaign to drive awareness, which
could be rated on such tactics as influence sharing through a viral invitation. There are many
different combinations for weighting values as usually multiple objectives come into play in most
social media campaigns.