Howdy! Would love some help from the Google Gurus!

We've been running Vehicle Listing Ads for quite some time. However, when Google "updated" VLA's to Performance Max, it seems to have made reporting a bit more difficult.

1) Google Ads is not showing anything in "Where Ads Showed" since Performance Max uses multiple Google Networks including Search, Gmail, YouTube, and Discover, shouldn't Google be able to show where the ads were placed? (Screenshot Below).



2) Is there a way to only show vehicle listing ads on Google Search within Pmax?

I read in the onboarding guide (Enable vehicle ads in your Performance Max campaigns - Google Merchant Center Help)

"If you attach a vehicle feed without separately adding other assets such as descriptions, headlines, and images, by adding them under asset groups or by opting into automatic asset creation under campaign settings, your Performance Max campaign will show your vehicle ads only on Google search."

Click to expand...

I went through and only added the vehicle feed without adding other assets, but Google will not allow me to publish the campaign without adding assets such as descriptions, headlines, images, etc. so not sure if I'm reading that paragraph wrong.

Thank you for your time!

Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc1STsAspB0



It has been a while since Shaun Raines was last on RefreshFriday.

What's he up to these days?
HiredGunsAgency

We do know he's helping dealers and vendors create and leverage podcasts to spotlight your thought leadership. If you have ever thought about making a podcast, Shaun, Jeff, and Alex know a thing or two about it. We're going to talk about the dynamics, logistics, and benefits of podcasting.

Also, Shaun brings some funny stories and many tangents. Be ready! And come to have fun.


Join us LIVE on Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube Friday at 1PM
https://www.facebook.com/dealerrefresh
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dealerrefresh
https://www.youtube.com/dealerrefresh

2021 EDIT: It has almost been 3 years since this post was originally started. In that time I have gotten to know the people at SpinCar and do not have the same fears of them I did. In the coming months I plan to work with them to combat the bad perception we started with this thread.

DealerRefresh fights for car dealers. We will bubble the best solutions to the top for dealers and call-out the ones who are doing bad things when we are aware of them. And when we are wrong, we are man enough to say we were.



—————Original Post—————

Huge shout out to Jeffrey Tognetti at DealerX for pointing this out. Folks, there is no other way to say this other than….

It is soooooo fucked up when a vendor you trust, and pay, takes your customer's data and sells it for their own profit.

How much of this is going on? Can we start a list of the assholes doing this crap?



from Sign Up | LinkedIn

Posting this in the forum as well as Facebook and LinkedIn - What CRM are you currently using, why do you love it, and what would you change about it if you could?

Hello everyone,

I'm the general manager of a used car dealership with an inventory of approximately 85 cars. We're currently revisiting our pay structure for salespeople and exploring different models to enhance performance and profitability.

From my experience, I've noticed that a flat salary often leads to complacency among the sales team, which doesn’t drive the performance we’re aiming for. I am considering a model that leans more heavily towards commissions, possibly with a small base salary or draw.

I would love to hear from fellow dealership managers and industry professionals:

1. What pay structure do you use at your dealership?
2. How do you balance base pay and commissions to ensure high motivation and performance?
3. Have you implemented any unique incentives that have proven effective?
4. What challenges have you faced with your current pay plan, and how have you addressed them?

Any insights or examples of what has worked well (or not) for your dealership would be incredibly helpful as we design our new compensation strategy.

Thanks in advance for your help and sharing your experiences!

Best,

I have always brushed CarsForSale.com off as the company that roped dealers in with crazy cheap offers like "Free for your first 6 months, then just $99 /mo after that." A service that would get easily forgotten about and paid by your office out of habit.

But lately they've been churning out new features left and right - providing an incredible value for just $99/mo. I'm truly impressed.

Would I personally use them? No. But they make a ton of sense for small independents.

They are essentially all of these tools bundled together for $99 /mo

• Dealer.com
• Autotrader
• Homenet
• Vauto
• Vinsolutions
• DealerTrack
• Revolution Parts

Yes, for $99 /mo they include all of these features:

• CRM
• DMS
• Desking
• Website & SEO
• Inventory Management System
• Parts & Accessories E-Commerce Store
• Third Party Marketplace
• Reporting & Analytics

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are as good at websites as Dealer.com, as good at inventory management as vAuto, etc.

But we're comparing a $99 /mo tech stack to a $15,000 /mo tech stack.

I would love to see some of the legacy vendors start to release new features like this on the regular.

Not to mention their corporate office is pretty sick, apparently all of those $99's add up...


Full-size T-Rex in middle of office


NASCAR race car in lobby


CFO's bank vault office


Slide to go from 2nd to 1st floor


^ All of this in SOUTH DAKOTA

This is a stab in the dark but do any dealers here source their own feeds for Motorsports/Powersports. I currently work for a Ford dealer and ultimately built our website to integrate with the automation software I use and our CRM. Now they have asked me to look into their Motorsports/Powersports store but I cannot find any companies just providing feeds or a serial/VIN explode option like you see with most vehicle feed providers. We currently use Homenet to handle all of our inventory pushes from PBS. All of our Motorsports inventory is in this program as well but I cannot find a provider.

Just wanted to see if anyone here knows any companies. They currently use a third party website provider Dealer Spike but it's very limited (I can't even edit the homepage).

Our current setup is cumbersome in that we can receive text messages through our website and the tracking numbers we use on craigslist/facebook, but I have to manually log into our website's CRM tool and forward those texts to the CRM we actually use. It will send them in the proper format, but it doesn't do it automatically.

I'm looking for a company that does call tracking and will take any incoming phone call and forward to our main dealer line or route directly to our sales ring group and the text messages will be forwarded in ADF format to the CRM as a lead.

Does it exist? Is there a better option without switching CRM/website providers

Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9wXgBzkt5E


If you don't know @JDHigginbotham , you haven't been in the DealerRefresh forums lately. J.D. has become a staple in explaining texting regulations, phone systems, and some deep technical stuff regarding communicating with customers.

Although he has told us he can't dive too deeply into something top secret, we are going to pull as much out of him as possible as it relates to a hole in the dealership's phone system that few of us are aware of.

If you are in the business of communicating with customers, you'll want to tune-in for what J.D. has to say.


Join us LIVE on Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube Friday at 1PM
https://www.facebook.com/dealerrefresh
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dealerrefresh
https://www.youtube.com/dealerrefresh

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

We are constantly striving to get feedback as we build product. Considering the size and importance of CRM I thought I ask this community on some methods used to evaluate a good CRM. During my days as a GM I thought these basic KPI's (IRT, Connection Rate, Appt Set, Appt Shown and Close Rates) were good indicators. I know these metrics are also people and process driven, but curious beyond these old metrics if there are other ways you all evaluate a good CRM. Things like design, UI, etc are nice but tough to put a finger on the impact it makes. Appreciate the feedback and look forward to learning more!

Hey guys, I've been working with a dealership over in Morrisville, PA for a little while now, and I decided to take a peak into their marketing strategy to find the reason why we were having such a low walk in traffic.

Their location is extremely hidden & it's very unusual to have someone come in from just seeing our lot.

I understand it's very difficult to handle finances, manage a team, bills, inventory & etc so the last thing they want to do is handle marketing

So the problem was clear, we didn't have a good location so how would we bring more clients in?

I decided to take matters into my own hands and basically optimized their online presence to bring more people and get more appointments. And shockingly it was a great success!

We started this project late in January and the dealership went from selling 12 cars/mo to 26 in February!!

Therefore, I see many dealerships trying to do their best to make sure they are being seen and honestly the logical answer is to just get your business in front of more people.

I can share how I've done this in a video or a different thread but I was curious to know if any of you guys have considered even looking into this?

Experimenting with Gubagoo as a replacement for a couple CTAs on our site. We’ve been using Gubagoo for several years and I am hell bent on a more active CTA vs the usual mundane “get price”, “check availability” etc.. and moving towards “let’s chat”, “text us now” etc.. which Gubagoo has been great with installing for us.

Any thoughts? Active CTA vs Static CTA?

Hi all! I have an idea for a new app for marketers. In a nutshell, it will help them share their work, advertising layouts and ideas. In addition to exchange, it will offer tools for joint development of high-value advertising and marketing projects.

There are doubts about the very idea of reusing advertising materials during exchange from the point of view of non-uniqueness in b2b. Although in b2c everyone has long been using the same second-hand and secondary markets for cars, equipment, and real estate. Also, approaches to sales techniques (scripts, 5 steps of sales, etc.) have been used for a long time.

I would like to enlist some opinions from a respected audience. Please write whether the idea itself is normal in your opinion? All the mechanics for implementation have already been thought out, but I don’t want to try at random... Thank you!

Howdy!

To preface: Our group uses VinSolutions.

Our group has a buying center and we have been sending these leads to our VinSolutions CRM. It's a bit tricky to label these leads and process as VinSolutions doesn't inheritantly have a "Buying" process in the CRM, just Sales and Service. This makes communication, and reporting difficult.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks when it comes to using VinSolutions as a buying CRM or do you use another CRM with better buying process capabilities?

Thank you!
Bill

I have a feeling this isn't going to go as smooth I would like it.

Starting next week we are going to implement Voice ID for Elead CRM - integration through AVID Technology. AVID will receive a snippet of everyones recorded voice for Voice ID - determining who took the phone-up by recognizing that users voice and then assigning the phone-up to that particular sales rep inside of eLead CRM.

Anyone else daring to get into this FUN MESS?

I have a feeling this is only going to cause more work and chaos. Though I HOPE I'm wrong.