SEM Intake Call Script

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Apr 03, 2020
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To see the most up to date version, click here for the SEM Intake Call Script document. Otherwise, before we dive directly into the SEM Intake Call Script, there are a few things you should accomplish first, if you haven't already:


Pre-Intake Information to Gather:

  • What is their total budget?
  • A basic idea of the inventory being sold and possible co-op brands
  • Location: Are they rural or in a highly-populated city? If rural, where is the next largest city?
  • Competition: Identify 2-3 competitors in their area
  • Basic information about the dealership. Do they have any unique traits?

Information We Absolutely Need from the Intake Call:

  • Any budget allocation requests, specifically any co-op amounts
  • Specific locations they’d like to target, if any
  • If so, which ones?
  • Are they running Facebook Ads?
  • If so, what are their goals and ideas for creative?
  • If they want to run display ads, what do they want on them?

With those out of the way, let’s jump right into the SEM Intake Call Script!


SEM Intake Call Script

Greeting

1. How familiar are you with SEM/PPC/Google Ads?

Are you currently running a Google Ads account?

  • If so, they’ll have to pause it before we set the account live.
    • Google does not allow two separate accounts to direct to the same domain.
    • The dealership may be involved in a corporate program from Polaris and BRP where dealers can run PPC ads through the OEM. If the dealer is a part of this program (and wants to continue being a part of it), they’ll need to let us know as we don’t want to run ads related to those OEMs. We don’t want to compete with ads they’re already running.
  • If not, move on.

Explain the usual account setup (Branded, General, Make, Model campaigns).

  • We will write ads for each item in your inventory and will sort inventory into separate campaigns to try and catch people no matter where they are in the buying process.
    • General ads for those who know they want a [insert relevant general vehicle here: ex: motorcycle, ATV, etc.] but haven’t figured out which brand they want.
    • Make ads for shoppers who know they want a [insert relevant make+vehicle combination here: ex: Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Can-Am ATV, etc.] but haven’t decided on a specific model.
    • Model ads for buyers who know exactly which model they want [ex: a Harley Street Glide or Can-Am Outlander] and are searching for the best place to purchase.
    • Branded ads: These are ads targeting keywords related to your dealership so the ad will only show up when someone searches for your dealership.
      • Benefits: more prominent on the search page - can show up in both ads and organic listings, helps fend off competitors, lower CPC (cost-per-click), generally attracts higher-quality traffic that is more likely to convert.
      • If a dealer is adamant that they don’t want to run them, we don’t require it, but there are several benefits to them
  • Is there anything they specifically do not want us to write ads for?


2. Let’s talk about your dealership

What makes your dealership unique: anything specific they need/want us to know about their dealership? (Any pre-intake research found on their site would be good to input here. Ex: “I noticed on your site that you’re the top Sea-Doo dealer in Alaska, is there anything else like that we should know?”)

Location targeting

  • The size of our budget is going to determine the size of our geographic location targeting.
    • We shouldn’t target an entire state on a $500 budget
      • Because you’re paying per click, we want to ensure that the traffic we’re driving to the website is higher quality, more relevant and more likely to visit your dealership. This is especially true with a sub-$1,000 budget as it won’t generate as many clicks as a higher budget will.
  • Usually, we start with targeting a 60-mile radius around your dealership
    • This can vary:
      • If a dealer is in a highly-populated area, there will be more competition and we may target a smaller radius.
      • If the dealership is in a rural area, we may have to expand that area.
    • If the budget is significantly higher than $1,000, we can generally expand to target a larger area (depending on the vertical and competition in the area).
      • We may also decrease the location radius with a smaller budget or in a more highly-competitive area.
  • The size of the location radius will likely change as we adjust to account performance in the future.
  • We can target any additional cities they’d like to specifically focus on.
    • Note that the more areas they want to target, the more competition there will be, which will increase their cost-per-click.

Additional Questions

  1. Do they have any competing dealerships they’d like to target?
  2. If so, we generally recommend targeting no more than three dealerships. You’ll need to know the competing dealership name(s) and location(s).
  3. Do they want to run any parts/service/other non-inventory ads?
  4. Any ongoing promotions, annual events or slogans we should know about?
  5. What does seasonality look like for your dealership? When do you see the most visitors and when is your slow season?
  6. Anything else I should know?


3. Budget allocation and co-op

Confirm the total monthly budget

  • If their start date is in the middle of the month, ask whether they would like to spend their full budget or a prorated amount.

Check your pre-intake research to see if there are any brands eligible for co-op.

If so, ask what amount they’d like to spend each month on co-op, broken down by OEM as either a total monthly amount or a percentage of their total budget.

  • Example: Total budget: $1,000
    • Honda co-op: $200
    • Yamaha co-op: $200
    • “The rest”: $600
      • Whatever is not allocated towards co-op brands will be shared between other non-co-op campaigns.

We recommend not using your whole budget on co-op campaigns.

While it is nice to be reimbursed for your ad spend, you’ll miss a lot of high-intent traffic if you only focus on co-op.

  • Every dealership is different, but we recommend no more than 60% of the total budget going to co-op campaigns.


4. Display Ads and Dynamic Remarketing

[NOTE: While we can’t explicitly keep a dealership from running display ads on a small budget, if they have a small budget ($1,000 or less) and don’t mention display ads, we recommend skipping this section altogether. Like Facebook ads, display ads are great to get your message to several people and are great for sales, promotions or general dealership branding. They will not generate leads often (usually no more than 3 or 4 per year, if that) and the CTR will be extremely low (less than half of a percent) but they will generate a lot of impressions. Search ads will be the most effective route for pretty much all of our dealerships.]

If they want to run display ads, we will need to know the following:

  • How much of the total budget to allocate toward display ads
    • Our recommendation is 10% of the total budget to display ads.
  • How many ad sets do they want?
    • In the same vein as the above note, we suggest running about 1 set of display ads (at most) for every $1,000 spent.
  • What they are wanting to advertise and what do they want the ad to look like?
    • Are they advertising a sale, promotion, specific model, event or something else?
    • What are the specific details they want on the ad?
    • Any other creative requests?
      • Color, theme, slogans, etc.
  • Dynamic remarketing ads are another type of display ad we have available that the dealership may have been sold on. If they don’t bring it up, it’s probably best to avoid this, as well. While dynamic remarketing is a nice tool, it works better with smaller-priced items and won’t see many conversions with the higher-priced vehicles we tend to market.
    • Dynamic remarketing ads are display ads that will show items (vehicles) that a user has viewed in the past.
    • We will need about a month to create these as we need to create a remarketing list before they can be activated.

Explain that they’ll receive an email once the display ads have been created.

(There is at least a 4-day turnaround due to our creative team’s other requests) and they’ll be able to make any suggestions at that point. If they don’t respond within 2 days, the ads will be set live regardless of feedback .

If they have recurring requests and will require multiple ads created every few weeks/months, it’s better to get those requests in as soon as possible.

Because of the constant volume of graphic design requests from other dealerships, it could be up to a week or more before their ads are created.


5. Facebook Ads - Have they signed a contract for them?

  • If not, skip to section 6 and wrap it up.
  • If so, send the PDF of how to grant access to the ARI/DS Facebook account so we can run ads for them.

Note, Facebook is generally not a great tool for lead generation.

It is, however, great for brand awareness, event publicity and general inventory promotion.

The type of Facebook campaigns we run will be based on the dealership’s goals.

  • An incomplete rundown of some ideas for things we can do on Facebook:
    • Branding: Run a single-image (or video if the dealership provides it) ad promoting the dealership.
    • Promoting a specific model/line of models: Create a single-image ad promoting a single model or line of models that the dealer is hoping to move.
    • Campaigns to promote more Facebook page likes.
    • Event promotion.
    • Dynamic remarketing carousel ads.
      • We can’t run these in the first month, as we need time to build out a remarketing list.
    • Carousel ads featuring specific pieces of inventory.

One thing to note about Facebook ad images:

They shouldn’t have much – if any – text in the image as Facebook will limit the number of people who can see the ad. This is because Facebook wants its ads to appear as ‘normal’ as possible when someone is scrolling through their Facebook feed. (When your Facebook friends are posting pictures of themselves/pets/kids, they aren’t putting any text on it. So when an ad has a lot of text on it, users are more likely to scroll past it. Any relevant details about the ad can be put into the headline or description by the rep rather than placed on the image.)


6. Wrap it up

  • Confirm the start date.
  • Explain that you will send a go-live email confirmation once their ads start running.
  • Let them know that they (or whoever has access to the Google My Business listing) will be getting an email request to link their Google My Business page to their Google Ads account.
    • This is so we can use location extensions (which show the dealership’s location and opens the Maps app with their location when tapped on a mobile phone) with their search ads.
    • An example of a great way to phrase this to your dealer, “Do you have access to your “Google My Business” account? We will be requesting manager-level access so we can update and manage your credentials on there. The instructions on how to add us will be included on the summary email you receive after our phone call today.”
  • Explain the reporting process (they will receive an automated email with a report on the fifth of each month)
  • Give your contact info.



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