Meta Hits the Brakes on Dealership Listings

Meta (formerly Facebook) recently announced effective January 30th, 2023, they will no longer support Automotive and Real Estate pages hosting inventory on their Facebook Pages or within the Facebook Marketplace. Their reasoning being the Marketplace has become too “crowded” with Business Listings, overshadowing the private party listings — the primary purpose behind Facebook Marketplace.

The “Facebook Shops” feature has allowed Dealerships to include their entire inventory catalog on their Facebook page for followers/users to explore their current inventory on Facebook, including Pre-Owned inventory in Facebook Marketplace results.

What does this mean for Dealers?

Dealerships will no longer be able to host inventory on Facebook Pages via an inventory feed, resulting in one less organic listing for inventory on a high-traffic platform. Individuals will still be able to post inventory to Facebook Marketplace from personal accounts.

For VINCUE Vehicle Buying Center clients, finding those quality vehicles to purchase off the street will now be easier thanks to a cleaner list of private party listings via Facebook, despite the decrease in the number of Facebook Marketplace Opportunities.

While the listings hosted on Dealer Facebook Pages are often convenient for clients, there are no indications that these listings are driving any substantial volume of traffic or leads to Dealers. Most VINCUE clients report only a small amount of Website Traffic Referrals attributed to their Facebook Page — both with and without the inventory listings.

What should Dealers be doing going forward?

Good news: VINCUE has you covered!

Over the last two years, the automotive industry has seen the introduction of VIN Specific advertising on Facebook via Automotive Inventory Ads and on Google via Vehicle Listing Ads.

VINCUE Boost delivers hyper-intelligent, VIN Specific advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The VINCUE Boost Engine analyzes your Inventory Data, such as vehicle performance signals, market sales history, and national trends, to identify which vehicles would benefit most from additional eyes — not a price drop.

In addition to VIN Specific social advertising, clients can benefit from Vehicle Listing Ads, the lowest funnel, dynamic, search advertising on Google — directly linked to your website/VDP.

Compared to your Facebook Page, your Google Business Page typically receives more traffic and displays your inventory more prominently. Notably, VINCUE clients see more success with hosting their inventory on their Google Business Profile via “Cars for Sale.”

VINCUE clients that leverage VIN Specific Advertising via VLA and/or Boost Advertising on social enjoy a cost per VDP view of under $1.00 and are able to sell their inventory faster than their market average of the expected time to sale for the specific Year/Make/Model/Trim at a factor of 5:1, which means, our clients are getting in front of relevant shoppers more efficiently and cost-effectively, and selling their inventory faster.

Overall, we are confident that eliminating Facebook Organic Inventory Listings will not significantly impact the Dealer’s inventory visibility.

If you are concerned about your inventory exposure and would like to discuss your options as a dealer to get your inventory listed organically or in front of the right shopper at the right time, VINCUE’s team of Automotive Advertising Experts is here to help.