4 Reasons Every Dealership Should Be Using Google’s New Vehicle Listing Ads

2 min readMay 15, 2022

Google recently released a new ad format for the automotive industry called Vehicle Listing Ads, or VLAs. This new ad format takes automotive advertising and mashes it up with what Google has been allowing for ecommerce advertisers for some time now.

Benefits of Google’s Vehicle Listing Ads:

There are many benefits that come with Google’s VLA’s but like all new advertising formats — the benefits haven’t been fully realized. That being said, there are some clear merits to consider when looking at the new ad style.

1. Absolute Top Of Page:

Move over standard ad format — VLA’s, just like Product Listing Ads for ecommerce, have the absolute top of page when it comes to paid search.

Google Vehicle Listing Ads Professionals Corkboard Concepts Set Up Automotive Ad Accounts For Success

2. Robust Ad Experience

Again, unlike the standard text ads, the Vehicle Listing Ads bring a lot more detail and visual engagement to the SERPs. This is an area again that these are preferable over the standard text ads.

3. Low Funnel, VDP Specific

Promote user experience and conversion rates by getting potential customers to the page you need them on right away — the VDP. Forget about dropping them on general pages, home pages or SRP’s, get them to the VDP they need to be on right away and get them to convert.

4. Conversion Optimized

Along with VLA’s being a low funnel, conversion-centric ad format, Google also automatically targets placements based on purchase intent and optimizes the campaign for conversions.

This is perhaps one of the most beneficial items to come from PLA’s for ecommerce — the automated bid strategies and ROAS, which is likely to serve the automotive community dividends on their marketing strategy!

Getting Started With VLA’s

Getting setup with Google’s Vehicle Ads is not as simple as just signing up for Google Ads or quickly enabling it in an ad account. The process currently includes being accepted to the VLA’s program and then connecting your inventory feed to a Google Merchant Account and to Google Ads. You’ll have to go through several steps, likely have to make some tweaks to your inventory feed and then wait for a manual approval for the account to go live.

If you need help, feel free to follow this quick guide or reach out to us at Corkboard Concepts for more help!