As consumers change their shopping habits, automotive advertising strategies are also transforming. EMarketer reported that automakers and dealers in the U.S. will have spent about $6.15 billion on digital advertising in 2014, an increase of 18.8 percent from 2013. But are they spending their budgets the right way? While marketers have made great advances, new trends suggest that automotive marketing techniques must reflect the way consumers leverage mobile, video advertising and other touchpoints to enhance their shopping experience and get the best deal.

Retargeting Cross-Shoppers

Think With Google reported that 72 percent of all auto purchase searches in 2013 involved some form of cross-shopping by the consumer. The good news for auto marketers is that you can leverage cross-shopping behaviors to ensure that your inventory is part of the consumer's evaluation process. Retargeting and remarketing are great ways to drive increased returns to your website by cross-shoppers. New research from the National Automobile Dealers Association shows that 83 percent of consumers say they're most influenced by dealer websites when they begin their auto search. This is a huge opportunity to use paid search to drive consumers to your website and leverage retargeting best practices to entice them to return once they've checked out other dealerships.

Display ad networks offer incredible value in reaching consumers not just once, but over and over again. Brand visibility and awareness among consumers depends on ads that keep showing up across the Internet. This visibility is particularly key for businesses trying to retarget past website visitors and consumers.

What is retargeting? Essentially, it is the practice of displaying ads to past website visitors. Most online consumers have been the subject of retargeting campaigns at one point or another. Advertisers understand that a consumer's decision not to make a purchase doesn't necessarily mean that they're uninterested in that particular product.

In the past, a lost conversion was abandoned forever. With retargeting, you have an effective method of rekindling that consumer's interest and potentially triggering a sale. Recent research from marketing firm HitSearch found that in 20 percent of cases, retargeting can trigger a sale within an hour of the ad being displayed. Those are powerful results that speak to the value of retargeting as a revenue driver.

To make retargeting work for your business, though, it's important to stick to the established best practices. Many companies fail in their retargeting efforts because they make all-too-common mistakes in targeting their consumers. Here are three common pitfalls to avoid in a retargeting campaign.

When we talk about digital marketing, we're not simply talking about a singular strategy to help you gain clicks. Digital marketing is an umbrella term for dozens of different strategic campaigns that are designed to increase visibility and traffic to your business. A single campaign on its own will yield some results, but they will pale in comparison to the opportunities created by a multifaceted digital strategy.

Budget and other resource constraints are always a factor in determining what strategies a company is able to implement at a given time. However, the relative cost-effectiveness of many digital campaigns means that you should be executing a combination of campaigns for your business. Here are some of the top methods for converting digital opportunities into tangible growth.