Canada gets Google car displays ads, Australia next

Designs for online car ads is going to get a shakeup soon, with news that Google has approved VDA for Canada today. We predict when it will come to Australia - and what it means.

Big news out of Canada, with the announcement that Google’s Vehicle Listing Ads Program is now open to auto locations across the country. 

And it’s immediate!

Australia is likely to be next, given it is understood to have been in a beta mode. 

How quickly? Well, the USA rollout started in March this year. Based on the timeframe between the USA rollout and the Canada start, then you should plan have funds for it in next financial year’s marketing budget. Probably sooner, so you may want to ringfence some of your future digital ad spend if this option arrives before Christmas or in the New Year.

VLA allows dealers to advertise their car, motor bike etc inventory to show across the top of a search results page, in much the same way other products – from shoes to power drills – are displayed with an image, name, outlet and pricing.

Companies such as dbaPlatform, that already work with Microsoft Bing Auto Inventory Ad Program, report over a 2000% increase in views and nearly 50% increase in form fills.

That’s incredibly impressive.

Here’s how car ads look on Google when we searched from Adelaide,  Australia today.

Desktop design from Adelaide 17 September, 2022:

Here’s a mobile web design search result from Adelaide, on the same date:

Here’s how the page design it is likely to look in the future, based first on a Google design concept:

The following is a real example from the USA, as a responsive web design on mobile phone display:

Google explains VDA as: “ Vehicle ads are a performance-focused, lower funnel ad format which allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory of vehicles to interested customers shopping for vehicles on Google. This format shows customers an image of the vehicle with important information such as make, model, price, mileage, and advertiser name.”

The search engine leader goes on to say: “Clicking on a vehicle ad will take the customer to the vehicle description page (VDP) on your website. From there, they can perform additional actions such as contacting the dealer, filling out a lead form, etc. before visiting the dealership.”