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  1. Ryan Everson

    Finance source for smaller dealers

    In the current climate, it's more difficult than ever for a independent dealer to get lender partnerships. Many lenders have completely cut off independents, opting for franchise dealers only. Have you considered acquiring a Mitsubishi franchise?
  2. Ryan Everson

    A different approach to dealer website/chat AI? Ever heard of Seezar?

    If I had to guess, I'd say less than 1% of dealers have in-house dealership staff answering live website chats consistently during business hours.
  3. Ryan Everson

    Aging Experiment - Trying to Get Sales Lurkers Engaged

    You are a vAuto customer. You have a solid recon process. Your pricing strategy is to start high and discount as a unit ages. There is a carrot to turn cars fast. There is a stick to not let cars age. Your floorplan expense and holding costs are lower than the average dealer.
  4. Ryan Everson

    UI and UX - dealer sites 2.0

    Agreed. @Carsten I would encourage you to consider spending 6 months inside a dealership (not remote) as an internet marketing manager and it will be the best investment you've ever made in yourself. Attend every meeting you can. Ingrain yourself. It will be a lot of work, and may seem beneath...
  5. Ryan Everson

    UI and UX - dealer sites 2.0

    I can't believe it's 2024 and we still don't have scratch n' sniff websites
  7. Ryan Everson

    A different approach to dealer website/chat AI? Ever heard of Seezar?

    Totally agree that AI chat agents will likely replace most of the current human chat agents within the next year or two at most companies, if they haven't already. Once trained, they will perform better, more consistently, and reply faster. And you can still implement a hybrid approach that...
  8. Ryan Everson

    A different approach to dealer website/chat AI? Ever heard of Seezar?

    Yeah I grabbed that screenshot right from Seezar's website. But it's not unique to Seezar, lots of other chat companies do the same exact thing. Many dealers have shared their success of completely eliminating lead forms and instead leading all CTA buttons directly into chat. On the surface...
  9. Ryan Everson

    Looking for a new digital retailing vendor to replace AutoFi

    Exactly the right question to ask. Everyone's definition of digital retailing and their goals are different. I would argue it's not a commoditized service and lack of GA4 events might not be a deal breaker necessarily. We personally have had great success with Gubagoo Virtual Retailing. They...
  10. Ryan Everson

    A different approach to dealer website/chat AI? Ever heard of Seezar?

    Just what customers want - a chatbot that presents them with a lead form
  11. Ryan Everson

    Marketing Opt Out

    Agreed, and it's so much easier to sending 1-to-1 direct mail postcards nowadays! Many email platforms even offer automated direct mail post cards as an add-on to add within your email sequence flows. Much like bulk email blasts are dying (due to email providers sending offenders straight to...
  13. Ryan Everson

    Marketing Opt Out

    My email provider charges $0.0003 per email delivered. Our lovely government charges $0.53 for postage and then add in another ~$0.10 for printing. That means I can send 2,100 emails for every 1 post card you send. I believe you might also be the exception to the rule - everyone I encounter...
  14. Ryan Everson

    Marketing Opt Out

    Because dealers still haven't realized bulk email blasts are dead :rip:
  15. Ryan Everson

    Websites

    Yeah that's a common thing I've heard from some of our service managers too, often based on an experience or anecdote from 5+ years ago and they've completely written off service schedulers ever since. Every service scheduler has different functionality and some of it depends on their...
  16. Ryan Everson

    Websites

    How often do you run into same day or next day appointment bookings since it's not synced with your shop availability?
  17. Ryan Everson

    Websites

    It doesn't appear so, I checked a few Toyota dealers near me and they all have different service schedulers: xTime CDK Service Edge Dealer FX CDK Service Edge probably provides the least user friendly interface of the bunch.
  19. Ryan Everson

    How do I get current, real time dealer datafeeds?

    Or just take a look at TrueCar's stock price: But to answer your question regarding feeds: You would need to reach out to the dealer's inventory syndicator (Homenet for example) and ask them to send you a feed (usually a CSV data dump on your SFTP server). The dealership would have to...
  20. Ryan Everson

    Websites

    I agree iframes are bad and should generally be avoided, but it's almost a given that the majority of dealership service schedulers are iframes. As I've referenced countless times on DealerRefresh, the service scheduler space is ripe for disruption. But to say it's bad for SEO, isn't really...
  21. Ryan Everson

    Auto Comply update to Cookie Consent

    No consent popup: ❌ Autotrader ❌ CarGurus ❌ Edmunds ❌ TrueCar ❌ Asbury ❌ Group1 ❌ Driveway ❌ Carvana ❌ Chase ❌ Wells Fargo ❌ CapitalOne ❌ Target ❌ Walmart Has consent popup: ✅ ComplyAuto clients
  22. Ryan Everson

    How do I get current, real time dealer datafeeds?

    It sounds like you are describing something that already exists = TrueCar.
  23. Ryan Everson

    Websites

    Having an iframed service scheduler isn't going to hurt your SEO.
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