Most dealers are well acquainted with Autotrader, allocating a large portion of their budget to that visibility on the site.
In recent years, a new way to get visibility has entered the car advertising landscape: Google Vehicle Ads (GVA).
At WeAdvertiseAnyCar, we're GVA specialists and have helped dealers generate more leads through our tailored packages.
If you’re a dealer who’s looking for an Autotrader alternative or something to run alongside Autotrader, we’ll explain what GVA does differently.
GVA vs Autotrader: You’re Not Comparing Like for Like
Before you start looking for an Autotrader alternative, you need to understand Autotrader’s purpose. Autotrader is a marketplace; your stock sits alongside other dealers’ stock. Buyers can then browse the type of car they want, and your stock will appear if it matches the user’s query.
GVA puts your vehicle directly into Google search results in a carousel with a photo, price, and your dealership name, leading users straight to your website. When a user searches for “cheap family cars in Essex”, your relevant stock will appear on top of the search results.
Autotrader and GVA are not direct competitors, as they serve different parts of the funnel. Autotrader gives you immense visibility, whereas GVA connects you more directly with the user and their purchase intent.
Where Autotrader Wins
Autotrader is the UK's leading vehicle marketplace; there are things you get on Autotrader that you likely won’t get anywhere else. Advertise your stock on their platform, and you’ll get scale, brand trust, and years of buyer habits behind Autotrader’s algorithm. Most buyers will visit Autotrader at some point in their buying journey, even if it’s just to browse and compare stock, with the added benefit that if they find the car they want, they can simply buy it.
One dealer group that tracked every single lead source over a full financial year found that Autotrader accounted for just over half of their total sales. The platform still does a lot of the heavy lifting for many dealers.
The bottom line is that pulling Autotrader entirely and replacing it with GVA won’t get you the same number of sales. However, as we previously mentioned, both platforms serve different purposes, and the dealer that nails both will be able to save on budget and focus on what platform works best for specific vehicles.
What Does GVA Do Differently
Although Autotrader gives you scale, GVA can be controlled much more, targeting specific buyers.
When someone clicks your vehicle ad, they land on your Vehicle Detail Page (VDP), the page on your website for that specific vehicle. This essentially brings the user straight to your dealership, where they’ll be able to see that specific vehicle and the rest of your stock.
This little detail holds an importance that most dealers overlook. The data you collect from that single click will show you what behaviour the user displayed once on your website. You can find out what they did next, remarket the vehicle to them later, and tie the whole journey back into your CRM. With this data, you can optimise your ads and your pages to ensure they match what users are looking for. When done well, this will help you generate more leads.
It’s no secret that Autotrader is expensive; however, agencies running GVA campaigns have reported that clicks are cheaper than standard search ads. For small dealers with smaller budgets, this is a real win as they’ll be able to target users more specifically whilst only spending their budget when users click on their ads.
Overall, GVA allows you to get leads that you can properly track and follow up on.
What GVA Won’t Do
GVA won’t replace your Autotrader volume overnight.
GVA works best when you’ve got a decent number of vehicles live at once, although this doesn’t necessarily mean the campaign will flop; dealers with fewer cars often see leaner results as there’s less stock for Google to push out and match against user searches.
GVA’s success depends on your website's content quality, as performance depends entirely on your vehicle feed and the details it includes. If your feed is messy and missing key details, you won’t get the same results as someone with a clean, thorough, and detailed feed.
However, GVA, when run alongside Autotrader, will get you leads and sales for higher-value stock that might otherwise get lost on the crowded marketplace page.
Which One Should You Be Running?
A complete alternative to Autotrader fully depends on the results you get on the platform. Some dealers would never stop using Autotrader but are happy to run paid ads alongside it, and others feel like they are not getting the leads they need on the marketplace platform.
Regardless of what category you fall in, one way to look at both Autotrader and GVA is that the former gets you in front of people who are already comparing, and the latter gets you in front of people the moment they search, before they’ve even opened a marketplace tab.
Ready to Try Out GVA?
If you want to try out GVA but you’re unsure how to go about it, we can at WeAdvertiseAnyCar run a feed health check, set up your GVA, and run your ads to target your ideal buyer. If you’re unsure whether to run a GVA campaign, you can get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to walk you through your options and our packages.