Online advertising for your car wash – what you have to consider

Today, hardly anyone can avoid online advertising. Many people are online every day, both at work and in their spare time, so they can see your ad at any time. No wonder that by 2018 one third of the world's advertising budget was already being spent on online advertising. But in order to reach the right people and not spend a lot of money on advertising that doesn't generate sales, you need to keep a few things in mind.

These types of online advertising may be considered

There are different ways in which you can reach people online with your advertising. These include
 

• Text ads in search engines such as Google
• Video advertising on video platforms such as YouTube
• Advertising posts on social media such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook
• Banner advertising on thematically similar websites
• e-mail marketing

Before deciding what type of distribution you want, consider how you define your target audience and who you're targeting with your advertising. Many novice drivers, for example, are hard to find on Facebook these days, whereas the older generations have long since discovered this social medium for themselves.

The right advertisement on the Internet for search engines

Google is still the undisputed top dog in search engines. Google Ads allows you to create your own text ads and show them to a selected audience. You yourself set who can see the advert. By defining the keywords, you limit the search queries to which the ad is to be displayed and those to which it is explicitly not displayed. Here you can track how well the ad is performing and make modifications at any time. Above all, the option of publishing the advertisement on a regional basis is interesting for car wash operators. After all, it won't do you any good if someone at the other end of the country clicks on your ad. However, there is no guarantee that your ad will be displayed. If this is not the case, you do not have to pay any fees – these only apply when the interested party clicks.

Online advertising with videos

Do you have short, crisp and interesting advertising videos from your car wash? Then you can run them on YouTube as advertisements before or after the actual videos. Alternatively, your video could also be displayed as a suggestion next to the one currently being viewed. The former is a rather wasteful option for a smaller regional company – most users probably never come to your area. The second variation could be interesting if you have an exciting video of something that makes your car wash special. For example, you can find videos of the Disco-Wash on this platform. Naturally, you can also include the video on your website and link to it in the video so that interested YouTube users can find you directly.

Advertising on the Internet with social media

Which social media do you use for your car wash? You can advertise on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. How this works is explained to you well on the linked pages – but here too you must always keep your target group in mind. Who do you want to address and what is interesting for the special clientele?

A banner – an advertisement on the Internet on other websites

You should consider carefully whether you actually place a banner advertisement on the Internet. More and more people are using Adblocker, so they may never see your banner ads. Also, the eye and brain get used to storing advertising at the edges of the screen much too quickly and not appreciating it. But if you do want to display a banner, you should target popular companies in your area – maybe a car dealership or a workshop? Under certain circumstances you can also exchange banners: Your banner will appear on the company's website and theirs on yours.

e-mail marketing is ideal for encouraging customer loyalty

e-mail advertising is one of the oldest forms of Internet advertising, but still has its value. We have already written about it in detail elsewhere. However, since you cannot operate a Germany-wide acquisition for a regional offering such as your car wash, you have to generate all the addresses yourself – be it at the checkout, on your website or on Facebook. Accordingly, you do not generate any new interest with the e-mails, but keep your existing customers up to date.

Even a search engine optimised website is online advertising

If your website is the first to be found when users enter "car wash" and the name of your location, it will help a lot. There are not many prospective customers who would look at the second page of the search engine results when looking for a car wash. Accordingly, optimising your website for search engines can certainly ensure new customers. You can learn here how this optimisation, SEO for short, works.

Summary: Online advertising is worthwhile, but must be tailored to your needs

You can use the Internet to advertise in many ways – and spend a lot of money on it. So that this is well invested, you should make sure that groups of people who are actually interested get to see the advertisement. It should also contain the correct words or tags so that search queries will lead to you. In order to advertise in the right tone, you should define your target group precisely and address them in the right way. 

If you need support with traditional "offline" advertising for your car wash, our experienced marketing team will be happy to advise you!