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Multiple Website Vendors

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ajholland

ajholland

Boss
Nov 29, 2009
172
12
First Name
Aaron
#1
Our current situation finds us with 2 websites for our GM and Ford stores. We have to have a Cobalt site for GM and a Dealer Connection site for Ford. Do most people maintain 2 sites in these situations?

If I switch to one Dealer Connection site for Ford, my website vendors line up like this:

Group Site-DealerOn
Nissan-DealerOn
Carmart (pre-owned)-DealerOn
GM store #1-Cobalt and DealerOn
GM store #2-Cobalt and DealerOn
Ford-Dealer Connection (Click Motive)
Subaru-Dealer.com

It's kind of a pain working with 4 website vendors for 6 stores...is this typical, do you all face this same sort of thing?
 
#3
What I found is that easy isn't always better. When I started, we had our Dealer sites (dealer.com) for our CDJ and Subaru franchise, Cobalt for our Chevy site and a local company all our other sites. It was a hassle to say the least. We turned everything over to Dealer.com (because we we already with two) except for our Chevy site. In the end we got ride of our local sites and just kept the big dawgs. While I am happy with Dealer.com, Cobalt, not so much. I just don't think they perform as strong. I wish our Chevy was Dealer.com as well but those are the breaks. I didn't want to go back to having two sites for Chevy. The new Powersite is more appealing than the old. I just wished it "powered" more leads our way!
 
#4
ryanabbott said:
What I found is that easy isn't always better. When I started, we had our Dealer sites (dealer.com) for our CDJ and Subaru franchise, Cobalt for our Chevy site and a local company all our other sites. It was a hassle to say the least. We turned everything over to Dealer.com (because we we already with two) except for our Chevy site. In the end we got ride of our local sites and just kept the big dawgs. While I am happy with Dealer.com, Cobalt, not so much. I just don't think they perform as strong. I wish our Chevy was Dealer.com as well but those are the breaks. I didn't want to go back to having two sites for Chevy. The new Powersite is more appealing than the old. I just wished it "powered" more leads our way!
Click to expand...

I agree, while the Cobalt sites are far from great, the Powersite does look better and appear to be an improvement. The question really is if it's worth the extra $$$ to have a 2nd site or just go with the Cobalt site.
 
#5
ajholland said:
I agree, while the Cobalt sites are far from great, the Powersite does look better and appear to be an improvement. The question really is if it's worth the extra $$$ to have a 2nd site or just go with the Cobalt site.
Click to expand...

We asked ourself this same question and came away with, no. It wasn't worth it. Not really for the cost but for the confusion of having the customer go to one site or the other. It was also a split focus (on my part) and I was using my energy for two sites rather than focusing on one.
 
#6
If you are part of a group and want a consistent theme with a standardized process to update then having a secondary (or primary) website makes sense. You can then focus the OEM sites 90% on new and make the "other" sites more well-rounded. It does take a lot of effort but if you have a lackluster OEM website provider and need to stretch your legs it can be worth it.
 
#7
Cobalt has done a fine job for our GM stores. We're in the process of acquiring a Chryler store, so the Dealer.com experience will be a learning process. The biggest problem Cobalt has is image. Competitors have done well (DealerEProcess comes to mind) by telling dealers that Cobalt is lying to them. It's a lazy selling tactic which we found to not be true, but it plays on every independent-minded DP's indignant attitude about the way Cobalt was forced on them. Many of these dealers, with stripped, unmodified websites lacking SEO will point out how poorly their Cobalt site performs. Really... you get out what you put in.
 
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#8
If you challenge Cobalt you can get good results. Their new site designs for GM are 100% better then before. The new analytics are impressive as well. The ADP acquisition definitely helped. Most dealers never challenge them and get bad results....duh.

If I worked at a smaller < 100 car a month GM single point store I would just keep the Cobalt site.
 
#10
terrencegordon said:
Like, to a duel? Sorry for the sarcasm, but that's like having to kick my waiter in the shin to get a refill on my tea.
Click to expand...

Funny thing about this is I have to challenge ecarlist a lot more than Cobalt to get good results. Still waiting on hundreds my uploaded videos to feed to cars.com, autotrader and my websites.

Sorry if that felt like a shin-kick just want some more tea!
 
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