For obvious reasons, we love to promote the power and value of pay per click (PPC) advertising.
No matter your industry, the size of your business, or the goals of your advertising strategy, a PPC campaign can give you the reach and reliable lead generation you need to gain momentum.
But investing exclusively in one PPC channel is inefficient.
And so is investing exclusively in PPC as a lead generation strategy.
The solution is cross channel lead generation.
But what exactly is cross channel lead generation? And how should it apply to your PPC advertising lead generation strategy?
The term “cross channel” refers to coordinating efforts across multiple different mediums or platforms, and it can apply both within the world of PPC advertising and outside of it.
Within PPC advertising, you can use cross channel lead generation to display your ads across multiple different platforms and networks, such as Google, Bing, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can manage several different PPC ad campaigns interdependently, taking advantage of a wide range of tools and techniques to get the greatest value from each ad you place.
Outside of PPC, cross channel lead generation includes a variety of both inbound and outbound lead generation strategies. For example, in addition to your cross channel PPC ads, you can practice cold calling, cold emailing, SEO, and drip email marketing.
We’ll be exploring both sides of this equation but will primarily focus on cross channel lead generation within the PPC realm.
Why should you consider cross channel lead generation?
Now let’s dig into the details of how you can practice cross channel lead generation with PPC advertising.
Your first step is to decide on which complementary channels to include. You’ll need to do some research upfront here, studying your target demographics as well as your competitors to figure out which channels might be the most promising.
That said, try not to overthink this. None of these marketing channels require an extensive commitment, and you’ll be reshuffling your budget in the future anyway. If a channel doesn’t work, you can always cut it in the future.
Next, if you haven’t already, define your sales funnel and sales cycle.
Your sales cycle applies to individual leads in your pipeline; it’s a description of the process the average lead follows to eventually become a paying customer (or buy a new product from your business). It might go something like Prospecting > Initial Connection > Presentation > Overcoming Objections > Close.
Your sales funnel is somewhat similar, describing the average path your customers follow on their journey to become customers, but it has a higher-level, more aggregated view. A sales funnel might unfold in phases like Awareness > Research > Consideration/Comparison > Decision.
It’s important to understand both of these so you can better contextualize the behavior of your users and better allocate your budget. With proper planning, you can design and display advertisements for different types of prospects, based on where they are in the sales funnel.
We’ll take a closer look at these strategic decisions in the next section, but for now, focus on defining what the phases of your sales cycle and sales funnel are. These conceptual tools look a bit different for every business, so consider making modifications to any templates you find.
Strongly differentiate between your “high funnel” and “low funnel” promotions – and use your advertising networks accordingly.
A high funnel promotion is designed to appeal to users higher up in your sales funnel; these are people who probably aren’t aware that your brand exists and they may not even know they have a problem that needs to be solved. Messages like “Are you spending too much on HR needs?” and promotions of educational content are excellent here; the goal is to raise awareness, stimulate interest, and begin nurturing your leads.
A low funnel promotion is designed to users lower in your sales funnel; these are people who already know your brand and are getting ready to make a purchase. Special offers, discounts, and other incentives to close the deal are ideal here.
There are, of course, other stages in the middle of your sales funnel, too. But high funnel and low funnel promotions are a great place to start.
Next, distinguish between platforms and advertisements meant to push your audience toward something they haven’t heard of before and those meant to pull your audience towards something they’re already familiar with.
If a customer has never heard of your brand before, they have no reason to search for it. They may also be totally unaware of whatever problem you’re trying to solve. If you want to get their attention in your cross channel marketing campaign, you’ll need to reach out to them in some generic, mass-marketed way through multiple marketing channels, including offline channels like print ads, direct mail, or event sponsorships. This is considered a push promotion.
If a customer is already acutely aware of the problem they need to solve, and they’ve done at least some research to make a purchasing decision, you’ll need to reach out to them when they’re actively searching for your brand or a solution like yours. Using tools like Google Analytics, your marketing teams can track user behavior and refine strategies to improve engagement and conversions. This is considered a pull promotion.
Now let’s combine these ideas.
For customers high in your sales funnel, push promotions are best. You’ll begin introducing your brand, you’ll reach people who may not have heard of you, and you can begin warming up these potential leads. Social media networks are typically good for this, as long as you know who you’re targeting.
For customers low in your sales funnel, pull promotions are best. You’ll capitalize on search intent, placing your advertisements for keywords and phrases that indicate purchasing intent or at least serious research on the subject.
It’s a great strategy for using each platform/channel to its fullest potential – and it’s only going to get better once you have more data available to you.
As you begin experimenting with different channels and approaches, attempt to estimate your “baseline” costs per lead. In other words, how much would you pay for each quality lead generated by a given strategy?
If you’ve been practicing PPC advertising on a single channel for some time, you probably have a reasonable basis for this projection. How much does it cost, approximately, to generate a lead under normal circumstances?
This is going to serve as your comparative foundation when planning for lead generation across other channels. If it costs $5 to generate a typical lead on your primary platform, but it only costs $1 to generate a high funnel lead on a competing platform, you know this secondary channel/strategy is worth pursuing. If it costs $10, you know not to bother.
Your measurements don’t need to be precise at the beginning of your campaign; this cost basis is meant to loosely guide you in your early decision making. Objective analytics and precision come later, once you’ve had a chance to run more experiments and gather more data.
Across all your channels and platforms, you need to commit to measuring every significant variable. Most PPC ad platforms (and most lead generation strategies in general) make these tools free and easy to use – you just have to go through the effort of using them.
These are some of the most important KPIs to measure across your campaigns:
As you gather more data, you’ll get a better sense for the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, the power of your spending, and the behavioral patterns of your most important demographics. And with this information, you can reallocate your budget to maximize your ROI.
Are you ready to start a cross-channel PPC campaign of your own?
Are you interested in boosting the value of your existing PPC ad strategy?
We have seasoned experts who can help you from start to finish. Contact us for a free proposal today!
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Pay-per-click (PPC) remains one of the fastest paths to pipeline, but the economics vary widely by industry and are shifting as AI reshapes the SERP. CPCs are up versus prior years, conversion rates have improved in many categories, and lead quality is increasingly a function of how well advertisers feed first-party data into bidding models.
The table below summarizes 2025 search-PPC benchmarks by sector—CPC, conversion rate (CVR), and cost per lead (CPL)—so you can compare what “good” looks like in your niche and calibrate ROI assumptions.
Use these numbers as directional guardrails, then layer in your own close rates and LTV to get to the only metric that matters: profitable growth.
In short, AI is changing the way PPC campaign management is occurring, and it's happening FAST.
ROI ≈ (Close-Rate × Avg Customer LTV ÷ CPL) − 1
Example (legal): if close-rate 12% and LTV $6,000 on CPL $132 → ROI ≈ (0.12×6000 / 132) −1 ≈ 4.45x (345% net). Improve any one input (faster intake bumps close-rate; better routing lowers CPL) and ROI jumps. Benchmarks for CPL/CVR above provide solid starting points. LocaliQ
PPC will keep paying when two things are true:
(1) you can convert and qualify leads quickly, and
(2) your bidding models are trained on the outcomes that actually make you money.
As AI compresses differences in targeting, the edge shifts to first-party data, creative velocity, and value-based bidding.
Treat the benchmarks above as starting points, then rebuild your ROI math from the ground up: ROI ≈ (Close Rate × LTV ÷ CPL).
Contact us today for your customized PPC audit to see how we can improve your search engine marketing ad spend.
When you’re running pay-per-click (PPC) ads, it’s easy to assume clicks mean genuine interest, but most car shoppers are just kicking tires online. Seeing your inventory once doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy anytime soon or even at all. If you want to reach the portion of clicks that come from serious buyers, you need to use retargeting.
The reality is that even prospects who intend to buy a car will bounce before contacting you or visiting your lot in person. And if you don’t have a way to keep them aware of your business, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll buy from a competitor. Running retargeted ads will keep your dealership in their awareness even after they bounce.
According to a 2022 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study, the average person spends more than 14 hours searching for a new car, which includes visiting around 5 websites before making a purchase decision. The sites they visit include automakers, dealers, third-party sites, and pre-owned car lots with online inventory. Your prospects aren’t going to buy right away, so to get the sale you need to reel them back in. If you’re not using retargeting – also called remarketing – in your PPC campaign, you’re missing out on hot leads.
Buying a car isn’t a small decision. People compare makes, models, and deals and look for dealerships with great reputations. Getting a single click from a potential car buyer isn’t enough to make the sale. And when they bounce, there’s no guarantee they’ll remember you exist. You’re paying for all those initial clicks, and if potential leads never come back you’ve wasted your ad spend. When you use retargeting, you’ll have another chance to turn their curiosity into a conversation, and that’s why remarketing is an essential component in every PPC ad campaign.
PPC ad retargeting for car dealerships shows your ads to people who have already clicked on an ad or visited your website. When implemented strategically, it keeps your dealership visible across multiple platforms and follows those people across the web. For example, when you run retargeted ads on the Google Display Network, your display ads will show up on the blogs, news sites, and apps your prospects frequent.
You can also run retargeting campaigns on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As long as your prospects scroll through their daily feed, your ads will show up for them if they’ve already interacted with you. YouTube also offers retargeting options with video ads that play right before the content. In fact, don’t underestimate the power of YouTube video advertising. According to data from Wyzowl, video ads convince 84% of people to buy a product or service.
Not everyone searching for a new car will respond to the same bland, boilerplate message. For example, someone browsing luxury SUVs isn’t going to click on an ad that says, “Low APR on all models!” That’s where remarketing shines. It lets you tailor your message to what each user actually wants, which increases response rates.
With retargeting, you can segment your audience based on their interests and behavior. For example, someone comparing financing terms won’t be swayed by flashy sports car imagery. With retargeting, you can show truck shoppers truck ads and sports car shoppers sports car ads. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most powerful marketing methods of all time. People are far more responsive to messages that feel personal. You may have caught their attention with a general ad at first, but once they start browsing those SUVs on your website, you can retarget them with SUV ads.
When you use retargeting, you can provide different calls to action (CTAs) to users based on how they’ve engaged with your web pages. A visitor who spent a lot of time on your truck inventory pages can be served ads for your latest truck deals. Someone who checked out your lease specials can be hit with ads that talk about financing offers. It’s deceptively simple and brutally effective. Relevance is everything. When your ads reflect what the prospect was already thinking about, it feels personal and resonates.
A next-level tactic is using engagement depth to determine how strong your call to action should be. For instance:
· Multi-page viewers and long dwell times. These are warm leads and can be retargeted with stronger CTAs like “Book a test drive” and “Get a quote today.” They’re close to converting and just need a little push.
· Single-page bouncers. These are people who just peeked at your site. They can be re-engaged with lighter touchpoints like a general promotion or model comparison guide to reel them back in.
· Abandoned lead forms. If someone started filling out a form but didn’t finish, retarget them with a reminder and a stronger offer to sweeten the deal (e.g., “Complete your form for $500 off!”).
This level of nuance turns retargeting into a conversion machine and allows you to show the customer exactly what they want to see.
People don’t buy cars from whatever dealer they find first. That’s too risky. They buy from dealerships they trust and that feel familiar. You can build that sense of familiarity and trust through retargeting. For example:
· Consistent branding across ads. Using consistent branding, design, and messaging throughout your ads reinforces your dealership’s identity.
· Frequency builds familiarity. People need to see a brand between 5-7 times before they’ll remember it. Retargeting puts your dealership in front of people over and over again. Even if they don’t click right away, it’s helping to establish your credibility.
· Social proof works. When you use social proof like customer testimonials or awards in your ads it builds trust with your prospects.
Trust is earned over time, and retargeting will help you get it.
If you’re not using retargeting, your competitors definitely are. Car dealerships operate in one of the most brutally competitive markets out there, with national chains and franchise giants dominating search results and flooding ad channels with endless budgets. If you’re not showing up again and again, your competitors will, and they’ll scoop up all your leads.
The good news is you don’t need a massive marketing budget to get results. Retargeting allows smaller, local dealerships to play smart rather than trying to play big. When you focus on local PPC with hyper-targeted remarketing, you can reach a smaller, more qualified audience – people who are actually in your area, browsing your inventory, and likely to buy soon.
And unlike those cookie-cutter campaigns from national dealers, you can make your messaging feel personal and specific to your local community. That’s an edge big budgets don’t have.
Every visitor who leaves your website without converting is a potential sale but not necessarily lost. With smart retargeting, you can bring them back into your funnel and stay top-of-mind while your competitors waste money shouting into the void. Persistence wins the sale and retargeting is how you stay on the map.
To be blunt, search ads can get expensive fast, especially when clicks can cost a couple dollars per click. Pouring money into cold traffic is gambling on people who may not be ready to engage. Retargeting changes everything.
Display retargeting clicks typically cost a fraction of what you’d pay for search ads using competitive keywords. You’re no longer paying top dollar to get someone’s attention from scratch – you’re nudging people who already know who you are, and those people are more likely to respond. This makes retargeting one of the most cost-effective ways to use your advertising budget.
· Lower CPC, higher intent. Retargeting costs less per click, but you’re targeting people who already visited your site and showed interest.
· Better conversion rates. Familiarity breeds trust. Retargeted visitors are statistically more likely to convert than new users who just clicked an ad out of curiosity.
· Higher ROI. Since retargeting reaches warm leads, the cost of acquiring a lead is usually lower, which means your overall cost per lead is lower and you get better ROI.
If you’re skipping remarketing because you think it’s just something “extra” that doesn’t make a difference, you’re not saving money – you’re losing easy wins. Instead of perpetually chasing new, cold traffic, invest in converting the traffic you’re already getting. That’s exactly what remarketing does.
Generic ads are fine for first impressions, but once someone has browsed your inventory it’s time to get specific with dynamic retargeting. Here’s how it works:
When a prospect views a specific vehicle on your site, you can use retargeting ads to show them the exact vehicles they viewed and others like it down to the year, color, trim, and mileage. For example, if they looked at a black 2005 BMW 535i, that’s exactly what they’ll see in the ad – the same photos, same specs, all across sites like YouTube, Facebook, news platforms, and more. This reminds your prospects of exactly what they want.
Dynamic retargeting works by integrating your live inventory feed with your ad platform, like Google Ads or Meta. This means the vehicles displayed in your ads will always be up to date and won’t feature cars you sold last week.
Beyond personalization, dynamic ads are an incredible tool for creating a sense of urgency:
· Leverage scarcity. With these ads, you can leverage the power of scarcity by stating that your inventory won’t last. Using messages like “Only 1 left” or “Recently reduced” signals that the opportunity won’t last.
· Show what’s popular. If a particular model is getting a lot of views, let your prosects know. People don’t want to miss out on a good deal.
· Trigger action with FOMO. Fear of missing out is real, and when people see the car they want again – with a reminder that it might sell soon – they’re more likely to come in for a test drive.
By using retargeted ads, you can increase conversion rates by up to 200% compared to standard display ads. These ads feel more like a helpful reminder than an outright advertisement.
If you’ve never run paid ads before, it’s easy to assume your only options are basic keyword targeting and generic follow-up ads. But today’s ad platforms give you a buffet of hyper-specific targeting capabilities to fine-tune exactly who sees your ads, where, when, and how.
One of the most effective PPC retargeting tactics for car dealerships is location-based targeting. With radius targeting, you can serve ads to people within a specified distance from your dealership, like within 10-15 miles. These will be prospects who are not only likely to visit your site but could realistically walk into your showroom today. Don’t waste ad spend on clicks from people three states away.
Then there are device-specific campaigns. If your analytics show that 75% or your traffic comes from mobile (this is common), you can launch a mobile-only retargeting campaign with click-to-call buttons, mobile-optimized landing pages, and a map and directions built right into your ads. This will improve the user experience and increase conversion rates.
Timing also matters. When you schedule your ads you can control when they appear. Run them during lunch breaks, in the evenings, or on weekends when people have more time to browse car listings and are more likely to make big purchase decisions.
Other strategic targeting elements include:
· Demographic targeting. You can tailor your messages based on age, income level, and household status. A 25-year-old college grad and a 45-year-old parent are not shopping for the same reasons even though they might buy the same car.
· Behavioral triggers. You can create audiences for your retargeted ads based on repeat visits, clicks, video views, or interaction with a specific feature like a trade-in calculator.
· Lookalike audiences. Build new audiences that resemble your best customers. Platforms like Meta and Google are really good at identifying similar users based on their behavior online.
The bottom line is that retargeting doesn’t have to be broad. With the right strategy, it becomes a smart, cost-effective system for reaching the right prospects at the right time.
Have a sale, lease offer, or year-end clearance? Retargeting can amplify the urgency to act now. By offering short-term discounts and financing deals, you can tap into the urgency people feel when presented with time-sensitive offers. Emphasize the end date using a countdown timer or final deadline to create FOMO (fear of missing out).
With this type of retargeting, you can align your ads with your email messaging to increase conversions even more. For example, if you sent out a promotion to your email list, they’re likely to see your retargeted ads and be reminded of the deal you’re offering.
Retargeting is the PPC secret weapon most car dealerships don’t take advantage of. Using this strategy can make the difference between a one-time curious visitor and a buyer ready to schedule a test drive. If you’re spending money on clicks without retargeting your visitors, you’re wasting your ad spend.
At PPC.co, we specialize in high-performance white label PPC campaigns that include smart retargeting from day one. Whether you’re launching your first campaign or looking to tighten up your existing ad strategy, we can help you capture more leads, drive more traffic, and move cars off your lot. Let’s turn those clicks into closed deals – contact us now to get started.
