Alan Day Group has committed to a long-term deal with Marketing Delivery, providing the company with social media marketing platform SocialStock.

The company trialed the pilot of the new platform, with data by Marketing Delivery showing the growing role that social media can play in generating sales leads for UK car dealers as more buyers start their car purchase journey online.

SocialStock simplifies social media management, and more effective. Its trial started in 2018 and was used to drive traffic to the dealer group’s website and generate conquest sales leads.

Paul Tanner, managing director at Alan Day Volkswagen, said: “Social media advertising for a dealer group can be challenging and time-consuming, particularly when it comes to successfully identifying and targeting different groups of people for different vehicle brands and dealer locations.

“The SocialStock system helps make this process easier and more efficient, enabling us to better target social media users who might be interested in buying a new car or seeing what stock we have available.

“The additional traffic it has driven to our website has proved instrumental in generating leads.”

During the pilot, Facebook was proven one of the dealer group’s main drivers of traffic to its websites, working alongside the pay-per-click advertising, direct web traffic and Google searches.

Last year, Jeremy Evans, Marketing Delivery’s managing director, said: “By subscribing prospects to the company’s automated stock alerts relevant to their enquiry, dealers can also recapture leads that may otherwise go elsewhere.

“As a result, dealer groups with about 10 locations can expect incremental business of about 25 to 30 sales per month and a cost-per-sale figure significantly lower than that of other digital services.

 “Integrating new stock alerts with targeted Facebook advertising can deliver even greater returns,” he said.