The Importance of Website Compliance for Effective Advertising

By Kendra Brown, Strategy Director of The Dream Team Media Company

We often think of compliance in terms of local, state, and federal laws. It’s a risk assessment issue. We don’t frequently hear about the importance of compliance in digital marketing, not just for government laws but policy on specific platforms. After working with dealers of all sizes and types nationwide to manage their full-funnel marketing strategies, the number one area where the automotive industry lags (and wastes money) is the website and advertising compliance. Compliance, in this case, is not only about avoiding legal consequences. It’s about optimizing your website and the advertising platforms for performance.

Website Compliance = Improved Performance

The rule of the internet is that it is built by and for people looking to consume content that they enjoy, engage with other people, and find answers to questions. Often, these questions lead to a purchasing decision. Enter advertisers vying for eyeballs and clicks in a world of exponentially growing content and websites. It’s competitive out there, but never forget that the job of the internet is to give people what they want. Search Engines, like Google and Microsoft Bing, are typically the last touch before a purchase. Google leads the industry in prioritizing the user experience (UX) and crafting an algorithm that answers questions by crawling billions of potential answers and serving up the perfect answer. If it doesn’t answer the question? Google wouldn’t dominate with over 80% of the global search market share. Then, Google wouldn’t earn revenue on your ad dollars. So, remember that the internet ecosystem is not about giving advertisers what they want. It’s about giving people what they want.

Your website’s performance is vital to how well it competes in a search. If you have a low-performing website, you will lose rank in a search or pay more to Google for it to show up in a search. Several factors comprise your website’s performance score: speed to load, user experience, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. Dealerships continually fail in speed, user experience, and accessibility. While there is no law saying you can’t have a slow website with a poor user experience, consider this a clearly stated standard of measure you should follow.

Legal Requirements on Websites

One area of your website with legal ramifications is compliance with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), which is a factor in Google’s evaluation of your website. This law requires businesses to make their websites accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Failure to comply with these laws can result in lawsuits, damage your brand’s reputation, and lose rank in your website search results.

Additionally, privacy is a growing concern for consumer protection that could imply federal compliance standards in the future. California adopted its CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) in 2018, just after the European Union adopted its consumer privacy law (GDPR).

In 2021, the entire Apple Operating System eliminated Personally Identifiable Information (PII) being available to advertisers by default. While the move towards privacy protection on other platforms has been slow, the trend continues that consumers want to protect their privacy, especially regarding ads. Dealer, take note.

Enhancing User Experience (UX)

Accessibility features to comply with ADA, such as alternative text for images, captions for videos, and keyboard navigation, not only assist users with disabilities but also enhance the website’s overall usability. The user experience is not defined by visual design or banners that might tell users about your dealership’s offerings. UX is how they experience based on behavior data. The top indicator of a positive UX (read: conditions that will keep a user on your website) is page loading speed on a mobile device.

It is important to lean into data on UX as this is an aspect heavily weighted by search engines regarding what pages they serve up to answer queries. Tools available will tell you exactly what to fix on your website to improve its speed and UX. Here are some pro tips for evaluating your website with the naked eye for improved UX:

• On every page, put what the user wants to see above the scroll on a mobile device. They want to see your cars.
• Eliminate images not authentic to your dealership or the types of cars you sell.
• Simplify the VDP and SRP to what is most important to your client base. And show it above the scroll.
• Check all of your links and CTAs to make sure they work.

Your website provider should prioritize your website design for UX on a mobile device. Use www.pagespeed.web.dev to analyze your website for UX performance and work with your website provider to make changes.

What Could Be Worse Than A Lawsuit?

If the thought of a lawsuit doesn’t tempt you to reconsider your website and marketing tactics, getting banned from key advertising platforms might make you consider things differently. While Google’s advertising policy won’t land you a hefty fine, you may find yourself limited and wasting money on advertising platforms if you or your advertiser ignore their policies. Some platforms make their policies crystal clear, and their tech support teams will help you navigate them. Some platforms won’t.

If your operation provides auto loans, in-house or outside, you have specific compliance guidelines on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, Craiglist, etc. The compliance guidelines extend to your website, not just to the content of your ads. For example, Google’s finance policy requires a website not to have any redirect URLs.  This is an important consideration if you have a payment portal or finance application not embedded on your website. This does not mean you can’t advertise on Google, but you have specific guidelines you will need to follow. There are ways to improve your website to adhere to these guidelines.

The Bottom Line

Website compliance is far more than a legal obligation. Website compliance is a strategic advantage for your dealership. The benefit of having a website built and designed for legal and platform compliance will save you money in the long run. You may find cost savings on your website package. However, you may find yourself making up for that in advertising costs in the long run.