Top tips for retailing vans
Are you catering for your digital traffic?
The Auto Trader van platform attracts an impressive 4.4 million visits on average each month. To put that into perspective, that’s 11x the number of people attending Oasis’s five reunion gigs at Manchester’s Heaton Park. That’s huge traffic to your digital forecourt, minus the bucket hats and polo shirts.
With the number of vans on the road increasing by 14% since 2019 and forecasted to increase further, how will you address this growing competition?
Several factors influence how your adverts appear in search results and how buyers engage with them. To help you grab audience’s attention with your adverts and ensure you’re advertising your commercial vehicles in the most effective way, we have a host of video courses you can access 24/7 in your on-demand Insight Academy.
Here’s three top tips from our ‘Advertising Vans’ course to get you started.
1. Provide all of the accurate information about your vehicles
To maximise the visibility of your vehicles in search listings, it’s crucial to provide comprehensive and accurate information. Often, vehicles may lack necessary details to appear in the correct searches when buyers use filters to narrow their search. By ensuring all relevant information is included, not only can your response improve, but these details will also be displayed in the advert description, helping buyers find the information they need to make a purchase decision.
Ensure the following details are entered in Portal, or in your own third-party systems if using Auto Trader Connect or a datafeed:
Engine size
Engine power
Body type
Wheel base type
Cab type
Axle configuration
2. Use your entire advertising toolkit – including video
It’s shocking that almost 75% of van adverts lack a video! That’s a huge opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd, add personality to your adverts, and to demonstrate the quality and value of your vehicles.
The video icon on your adverts can entice buyers in Search. Then, once you’ve attracted them to click on your vehicle, you should maximise every minute of their search session with a quality video a way to keep them on your advert, considering your brand for longer.
With many different types of vans available and the modifications they can offer, you may have something to show in action. Video gives you this opportunity and can give a not-so-savvy van buyer the understanding of available space, helping them relate to what can fit in the van or how they might make that space work for them or their business.
3. Steer clear of acronyms and abbreviations
Our industry is rife with abbreviations and jargon. Making your adverts easy to understand and simplifying technical language is important. While you, as a van enthusiast, might be well-versed in acronyms like ‘L2H2’, the average buyer may find it sounds cryptic, downright confusing or possibly, like a Star Wars character. Explain the technical jargon to make it easy for all your buyers to understand too.
Improve profitability with our on-demand content
For more van-tastic insights and tips, be sure to check out the full course on retailing Vans in your Insight Academy. Ultimately, your adverts can act as a silent salesperson, working around the clock to sell your vehicles, even when your shop is closed.
