Technically a vendor to vendor spat followed by Joe's bully-like defense of Brian. It's all good and I'm sure they'll hug it out later.

Great article Terrence! Nice to see you posting in the community.

This post makes me think of a song called "Get Along" by a band called the Holy Cows from my home town in Chelsea Michigan. Gosh I miss the old days.

You know, there was a time, not long ago, that almost nobody in the auto industry knew what SEO or SEM or PPC was. Now it seems like everyone is an expert.

But think about something, if so many experts can rise up in just a few shorts years of practice, then how difficult is Search Engine Marketing really?

So, it's a time-issue really, not a matter of smarts or wits. Sure you can make it complicated but in the end, effective PPC and SEO comes down to understanding a few basic principles and taking the time to apply them.

The smart dealer will do two things…

1.) Have at least one person in-house who understands this stuff and can do it.
2.) Give that person a directive and a budget to work with trustworthy experts.

This way, the dealership can be part of the strategy and not consumed by it. In my experience, dealers with understanding and oversight get better results than those that hire people only to expect miracles after not being involved. Strange, I know.

great post! love the feedback! other than when it turns into catfights between vendors and/or dealers n vendors everyone play nice. everyones in the same sandbox - just trying to grow

Yes Jeffery, that's how community threads work. It's an open exchange. Its how we grow. Inside your napalm attack, you've left me (and the community) a challenge that I have no answer for. It's these discoveries that I treasure. You wrote:

"...anything more then a dozen or two keywords in a group is a waste and is not structured right... "

That's news to me! Back to the drawing board!

With ya Brian, we're on the same page. I am afraid of over simplifying optimization. Lots to consider.

Fair enough...However...Food for thought...my angst wasn't directed at you initially, you just decided to put yourself in the middle if it

Dear Jeffery T,

You started by replying to Brian Pasch, he said:

"...and they should test the broad high volume phrases like "used cars", "used ford", "used nissan", "cars for sale", "toyota dealers""

You replied:

"...those keywords are terrible... way to broad..often very expensive, and will drag down quality scores because they won't have a CTR above 1% (If you are lucky). Thus making a dealer pay even more per click for all other keywords in a campaign..."

I run my PPC totally in the dark, I have no one else to study with or to compare to and I was puzzled by your response, I took the bait from YOUR reply and posted my non-model specific generic keywords and their CTRs.

"used cars" = 7.9% CTR
"buy used cars" = 14.8% CTR
"used car for sale" = 19.05% CTR
buy used cars = 3.49% CTR
and on and on and on...

From that, you told me you needed to retire.

Listen Jeffery, you have to work on your intensity. Not sure if you know it, but its not coming across well, you're so intense I want to nick name you Jeffery T Napalm.

Look at the opportunity you missed. Same message, but with out the angst... You could have written:

"Joe, we are a service that helps people like you excel. I'd bet if we did a thorough review of your work to date, and compare it against our model, the gains we'd bring to your campaigns could be easily pay for our fees and leave you room to expand your reach! Then Joe, for the full picture, let's tally up all the time and research you make into PPC and re-apply that new found time into other areas that need your attention. Now, we're selling more cars and that s a productive partnership!"

Opportunity is everywhere Jeffery T. Even with the know-it-all independents like me.

Joe

When I talk about conversion for car dealer PPC, I am not just speaking about just traditional Google form submission conversion code. When a dealer sends a click to a landing page, I believe it should be more of a dashboard of choices. We should not assume that people are ready for any single task.

A consumer may click on a 2011 Toyota Camry PPC ad to get a phone number to service their vehicle. They may think they want a 2011 Camry but when they see the payment terms on the landing page, they may want to compare what used Camry's cost. They may want to download a PDF brochure. So, why assume what the consumer wants.

Thus, testing designs that engage any action that is brand enhancing and part of the ultimate conversion funnel.

If you listen to calls associated with PPC tracking numbers, many people call to see if the car is in stock and to check on price. Of course, service calls are part of the mix.

So landing pages should encourage calls, and some data published by Dealer.com would say that they prefer to call then submit a lead.

Landing pages should have easy navigation to service, used cars, new cars, etc. A consumer dashboard that is clean and not too narrowly focused. This will reward your investment in the click.

While you are bringing up the point that consumers from a PPC action may be likely to return to your website, would you consider adding a few customer testimonial video links on a landing page to allow them to see how their peers were treated?

One Boo Boo in my haste to answer..

"Really? You proved the point with a 1.47% quality score across the board. If I had that for any of my clients I would retire... "

Should have read 1.47% CTR not Quality score....

One last thing... I would be willing to bet allot of the people who read this blog know who I am..including the author, I'm just a quiet guy until I can't bear what I read anymore...

I have 6000 keywords in play, 600 of them are generic keywords.

Mistake 101.... 6000 Keywords in Play..Really?
Anyone who know PPC knows that anything more then a dozen or two keywords in a group is a waste and is not structured right...

The 600 entries are a mix of broad, phrase and exact match.

Broad, phrase and exact...Ok, Which do you bid more for? How about broad plus match, how about negative broad plus match... I can go all day...that statement is amateurish

They are broke out into 5 sub groups to improve Quality Score. The sub groups are Cars,Trucks,Vans, SUVs & Finance. They have an avg Click Thru rate of 1.47% and an avg quality score of 7/10.

Is 1.47% Good?
I can show you ad groups with 10 out of 10's across the board...

Of the 600 generics, less than 20 have a quality score < 6/10 and only 30 have a QS = 6/10

Generics....What does that mean? Do they tie out to a generic ad?

Ahhh... am I prefect? No. But your <1%? and it's relation to QS. You missed that so badly it makes me wonder why or how you missed it so bad. Not good.

Really? You proved the point with a 1.47% quality score across the board. If I had that for any of my clients I would retire...

So I'm confused...Not Good?...What's not good?

Should you think I am "Cherry picking" the list to bend the numbers, lets look at the high volume entries. The top 10 generic phrases create 90% of the traffic (from all 600 entries in this group). The Top ten have an avg CTR of > 7%.

A few Examples are:

"used cars" = 7.9% CTR - Send me a screenshot where you have a sustained CTR of 7.9% for more then 60 Days continually run with more then 100k in impressions....

"buy used cars" = 14.8% CTR "Same statement as above"
"used car for sale" = 19.05% CTR "Same statement as above"
buy used cars = 3.49% CTR
and on and on and on...

Let's make the banter have some worth.... I'll put my company's skills up against anyone and with odds, on my dime..Are you a taker?

Hmmm... I'm a big boy and will simply say this...
I have been in the business for 9 Years, have well over 200 Accounts, Manage High 6-Figures in PPC spend every month and do ok....
That said, I'll take my time and address each of your points over the next few days. And finally, every hates a know it all... I am surely not one, but I see a few of them here, are you one?

Jeffery T,

We havent met, but, welcome aboard. We all welcome passion... Even VENDOR passion ... But, IMO, you've made many errors.

Most importantly, You really need to FIX your numbers. You are presenting yourself as an authority. No.. your presenting yourself as the ONLY authority. Be careful, your numbers (AND your assumptions) from these numbers are wrong.

You wrote to Brian P:

"...those keywords are terrible... way to broad..often very expensive, and will drag down quality scores because they won't have a CTR above 1% (If you are lucky). Thus making a dealer pay even more per click for all other keywords in a campaign..."

Wow, are you off the mark.

I have 6000 keywords in play, 600 of them are generic keywords. The 600 entries are a mix of broad, phrase and exact match. They are broke out into 5 sub groups to improve Quality Score. The sub groups are Cars,Trucks,Vans, SUVs & Finance. They have an avg Click Thru rate of 1.47% and an avg quality score of 7/10. Of the 600 generics, less than 20 have a quality score < 6/10 and only 30 have a QS = 6/10

Ahhh... am I prefect? No. But your <1%? and it's relation to QS. You missed that so badly it makes me wonder why or how you missed it so bad. Not good.

Should you think I am "Cherry picking" the list to bend the numbers, lets look at the high volume entries. The top 10 generic phrases create 90% of the traffic (from all 600 entries in this group). The Top ten have an avg CTR of > 7%.

A few Examples are:

"used cars" = 7.9% CTR
"buy used cars" = 14.8% CTR
"used car for sale" = 19.05% CTR
buy used cars = 3.49% CTR
and on and on and on...

You need to evolve your vendor community voice. Your entire diatribe was all about you. You wrote:

"...Again, dealers should get educated, read as much as they can, then hire a firm with a proven track record to manage their PPC..."

Ouch. Like fingernails on a chalk board.

Jeffery, stop and re-read your replies. You forget where you are. This is very special community of extra-ordinary players that LEAD our industry higher. A water-cooler of higher learning. A community of uncommon fellows breaking new ground at every turn, both vendor and dealer. The dialogue here is not found on on daily dealer visits or the NADA show floor. Yes, there is an army of wanna-be readers, but even these players are very self motivated and hungry for thought provoking details. It just so happens these players got a late start and are just a few chapters back

Lastly,
Brian Pasch has single handedly pioneered dealer internet marketing education as his primary marketing effort. Sure, his education efforts drive other sales, but, isn't that why we're in Social Media? (yuk >:-] This is a common business model for consultants in many industries. Brian's openly transparent education is what he brings here every day. He's got thousands of hours invested in raising the bar for any dealer that wants to learn while they work the 'net.

So... before you drop bombs, earn up some community love from others. I am sure you have a lot of valuable insights. I'd love to read some of the jewels your view of the world has to our community.

A few examples:
Free Mystery Shopping http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f5/mystery-shop-ti...

Free Chat with strong rules with solid ROI stats (a bedrock field study in conversion rates IMO) http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/free-24-7-live...

How are your phone skills? http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f5/how-your-phone-...

Brian, I'd like to challenge your premise. You write:

"...I would like to add that SEM is only effective if the clicks are taking consumers to proven landing pages that convert on the click. The automotive industry is just waking up to landing page conversion optimization...,"

May I challenge your observation? I am stuck in a conversion quandary, with great questions and no answers (yet).

I am exploring the consequence of optimizing for the "almighty conversion and nothing but the conversion" (as it applies to auto-dealer websites ONLY).

Is the submission of a form (aka conversion) our best measurement point to optimize against?

Can someone tell me or show me that THE seminal event prior to purchase is submitting a form? I'll ask another way... is there "A" singular seminal event that fuels the purchase? No?

If not, then if we optimize for "submitting a form", how do we guard against de-optimizing matters important to the "shopper who prefers stealth". We all know 98 of 100 shoppers never submit a form, yet, we optimize for it. Woa... don't rush to reply! Flip that observation over one more time. 85 out of 100 BUYERS were on your site prior to purchase. I'll say it again, 85 of 100 of your BUYERS were at your site yet, we're trying to up the count of a tool that converts at <20%? I wonder if we're aiming at the wrong target. See where I'm going?

It sure would be easier if the stealth auto shopper left us a big bright flag in the analytics that shows us the footprints of a "highly likely buyer". For example, how would you value a shopper that returns to your site for 2nd visit in 24 hours? I say... GAME ON! This shoppers on the hunt and you have what they want! I ask you, should that EXCELLENT METRIC have no weight? What if the highly optimized "squeeze page" blows up return visits?

Ecommerce has this single event called a "Checkout". This checkout has a 100% closing ratio. Lord knows, We are NOT ecommerce.

It goes deeper. We car guys don't have that clean, clear line in the sand like ecommerce. What good is more leads if they SUCK? Lead count could rise 30%, yet it may barely move the needle at the end of the month. Reps time with shoppers is part of the productivity/optimizing equation. It's entirely possible for reps to get tied up with the WRONG customers. Before you optimize for more leads you need a solid historical measure of the un-optimized closing ratio.

I do not have the answers (yet but, another issue that bothers me is WHO profits the most from optimizing pages for conversion? The HIPPO does. He sees more ROI (but can't visualize the downside because it's not measured). I've got no issues with the HIPPO, I'm paid the same way. We all here to get cars over the curb. I just WANT IT ALL

Lost and HUNGRY in Syracuse.

Background:
I've been following the conversion industry for a few years . As you know, if you step outside our vertical, page optimization is already in the 5th inning (while Larry Bruce is throwing the 1st pitch over the plate and no one's watching). And… like all things technical, we're a few years behind the Internet leaders. I’ve been following the brilliant work of Tim Ash of SiteTuners.com and the conversion rockstars at Conversion Rate Experts – Optimization for your website. There is an bunch of upside in conversion optimizing, but, it should be all about addressing the unanswered needs of the shopper 1st, then, the conversions should follow.

Not jumping in this argument because this is between Jeffrey T and Brian Pasch, but I want to point something out.

Metaphorically speaking....

Porsche is properly pronounced Por-sha; not Porsh. And SEM is total Search Engine Marketing to include both Pay Per Click and Organic Search. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_market...

Tim, you and Terrance brings up a VERY good point. PPC and SEO are interconnected on a budgeting basis.

SUMMARY:
As PPC costs rise, it also "drags up" the 'value' of SEO.

DETAILS:
Adwords is an auction based system. As more buyers that get involved, they place higher bid on keywords they want to own. This creates rising values on our "sea of keywords" connected to our market. We'd all agree that dealers -overall- don't really participate in adwords, but, with each new wave of dealers that are discovering adwords, it will simply raise the cost for every adwords buyer.

This PPC bidding system creates a rising tide on our "sea of keywords". This will raise the value of everyone's SEO efforts too. PPC or organic, the SERP* game is all about visibility. Getting PPC visibility is as easy as throwing a switch (and opening your wallet). Organic visibility on the other hand is a long and very complex road.

Simply put, dollars and time spent NOW in Organic SEO is like money in the bank. Not only can Organic SEO displace PPC dollars spent, but, with as our "sea of PPC keywords" rising month over month, year over year, your Organic SEO investment will pay dividends.. and pay you back WITH INTEREST!

@ Brian Pasch
Your Comment: "PCG is starting a free 8-week SEM study on February 15th to start educating dealers on how to setup, test, measure, and refine their PPC spending....."

Self promotion is all fine and swell but..those keywords are terrible... way to broad..often very expensive, and will drag down quality scores because they won't have a CTR above 1% (If you are lucky). Thus making a dealer pay even more per click for all other keywords in a campaign, even the ones that perform well. Again, dealers should get educated, read as much as they can, then hire a firm with a proven track record to manage their PPC. Here is a great book after they go through as much Adwords tutorials as they can take..
https://kindle.amazon.com/work/advanced-google-ad...

@ Brian Pasch
Your Comment: "I believe that dealers who want to increase their market advantage in 2011 will need to increase resources to inspect their analytics and work on conversion testing."

Analytics...?? Dealerships have a hard enough time selling cars, now they should delve extensively into Analytics? Conversion testing? Lets think about this... What analytics should they look at? Bounce rate? Keywords? Here is just two of the many problems with just those two of infinite things that can be gleamed from analytics:

1) Bounce rates go up with PPC done right so dealerships would be mislead to believe that their site is performing worse due to a higher bounce rate

2) Keywords - Most dealerships with base SEO done right are found for thousands of keywords, when in reality there are a dozen (boiled down from how they are typed in) that convert steadily

A/B Testing?
Developing a good landing page with-in a site isn't rocket science... getting the right people to it using PPC, maybe close.

Here are 2 Things dealers must learn in 2011

1)Understand How Google Works
Know that Google is made up of 3 Networks
A-Search
B-Search Partners
C-Display
*Understand how each of them work, and how different ad styles perform on each. (For example Text Ads perform terrible on the Display Network).

2) How to hire the proper digital ad firm - Dealers need to learn as much as you they can so that they can interview the right firm to manage their web based advertising. (Google, Bing, Linked-in & Facebook Ads etc.)

Your Comment "Just as a bad SEO strategy is a waste of money, pumping thousands of dollars of Adwords spending to send shoppers to the home page of the dealership website or to an inventory listing page can be a big waste of money."

Agreed, but... if dealerships think "Geo Targeting", "Day Parting" and "Landing Page A/B Testing" are solely the answers, then they're wasting just as much money as they would driving traffic to their home page. PPC is predicated on Quality Score. And, in order to get good quality scores across your campaigns a dealer would need to understand ad text for mobile vs. computers, how ad extensions work, use of negative keywords and what ad to run on what network... for starters.
Very few if any dealerships should manage their own PPC. And, if they understood how the Reach Local's, Dealer.Com's & Cobalt's of the world managed it for them then they would do nothing but buy full page spreads in the newspaper..
Dealerships should take the time to find the right professionals to manage their campaigns, and read enough to know what to look for before hiring them. Conferences and seminars are full of self-promotional fluff. More can be learned from reading the right blogs and books then any workshop..

@ Brian Pasch
Your Comment "There is no doubt that SEM produces immediate traffic, however it does not guarantee that the investment and traffic will be profitable."

SEM doesn't guarantee it will be profitable, and SEO does? If SEM is done right a dealership will get a 20 Fold return over any investment in SEO.
If you build an ad that has transactional based ad text, targeted to the right page, run when people are most app to see it, placed on the right network, excluded from being seen by the wrong audience (negative keywords) the chances of PPC converting is at least 20 Fold that of SEO. We can prove it. We did a SEO vs. SEM study on a very large Honda dealer we have as a client that is top ranked (1 through 4 positions organically on Google) for 100's of keywords. To say that the SEM cannibalized the SEO would be, being polite. I'll post it to our site.

Your Comment: I would like to add that SEM is only effective if the clicks are taking consumers to proven landing pages that convert on the click.

This is exactly what the problem is with SEO.... With PPC you can bring them to the proper page, update offers on the fly and have transactional based traffic go to a page that is relevant - In real time. With SEO, it takes time for a site whose content is not updated regularly (Especially from a low Page Ranked Site) to get re-indexed for the current offers and when it finally is - the offer is expired.

Your Comment "I would like to see more dealers understand that conversion of traffic, SEO and SEM, must be the next step in the evolution of automotive advertising..."

A/B test landing pages is skill? How about phrase match vs. exact match or broad plus match with relation to negative keywords and transactional ad text.... PPC done right is KILLER, landing pages are important but not hard to figure out.

AND

Joe, you sound like an Adwords Certified Professional to me.

@Tim - the urgency is simply more immediate traffic and the rising costs of CPCs. I suggest driving as much traffic as possible and getting your brand out there while it's still relatively cheap to do so.

Great post Terrance, PPC is a great source of highly targeted traffic and can result in a solid ROI provided everything is in good shape with a dealers website.

My suggestion to dealers is to first clean up all the issues on the site before launching a campaign (404's, pageload, keyword use). This is normally part of the SEO process in my opinion because SEO should always be underway because I've seen minor coding issues, or URL changes cause major problems (loss of pagerank) without the dealer even aware of it.

Dealers must have Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and a provider or trained inhouse staff to keep track of their rankings by monitoring the things that influence rankings, keep improving the site on all levels, but as far as SEO the main ones:

1. Inbound Links (from trusted sites like bbb, angies list, and other local directories)
2. Unique Content (create a good template, images, call to action, etc.)
3. Usability (can a user find what they wanted on the page or via a link on the page)

If the main pages of a dealers website do not have good titles, descriptions, or internal links (with use of rel="nofollow" to non-important pages like privacy page, print vehicle page (this often shows up as a soft-404) - then they won't be passing juice through properly and won't be able to rank for non-branded keywords.

Once the site has the ability to rank well for non-branded keywords (the real SEO work) and begins to compete for the ones that have a higher monthly volume it might then be time for SEM/PPC because the pages should have a good quality score (won't waste money overpaying for clicks).

Another issue is that all advertising should be tracked via tagged URL's (just Google URL tagging) so that it can be monitored in Google Analytics for conversion rate by campaign.

Once the data begins to identify the best sources of traffic, the budget can be adjusted accordingly. Campaigns that aren't producing can be shut down, and fine tuning of the others can begin.

Setting up microsites, blogs, etc are a great way to build additional awareness of the dealer brand, but again, they need to be part of the entire online marketing strategy.

Blogs build awareness simply because its in their DNA to be social and appreciated when they have remarkable content (good stuff that attracts links). This is very hard for dealers to manage on their own, even our clients hire inhouse staff to help produce quality content and engage their audience on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Its really important that dealers really recognize how much this works and outperforms traditional marketing. Many of the dealers that are doing it well are seeing massive growth, and it's an exciting time to be involved in this industry.

We manage our PPC inhouse (My Son and I)! I have found there are boat loads of strategy to explore and exploit. Here's my view of the PPC battle field.

Dealer Inventory Profile.
Every car dealer has a different "inventory profile" and this profile will govern how you approach PPC. For example, let's say we had 2 dealers, one is an exotic dealer and the other is a mega-multiroof dealer. The Inventory Profiles of these 2 dealers greatly influences the "width" of the PPC campaign. The exotic dealer can't convert someone looking for "used cars" so he buys very narrow, low volume, long tail keywords (like: "used porsche 911"), where as the Mega-Store, deep in thousands of units for sale, can convert traffic from keywords like "used cars" (and lots of other generic high volume short tail keywords like “Chevrolet SUV”, “SUV for sale”, “minivan seats 8”, “awd minivan”, “AWD for sale”, and on and on and on.). So... we can see how the inventory profile drives your PPC attack plan.

In my case, my inventory profile rewards the wide open PPC funnel. PPC is 20% of my sites total traffic, it creates 16% of my lead volume and does it with <10% of our ad budget. That’s kick-ass ROI. For those PPC visitors that don’t submit a lead (a whole topic unto itself!), the traffic metrics all look like quality visits. Comparing PPC traffic to my organic traffic (who _also_ don’t leave leads , everything looks acceptable: Number of pages viewed, time on site, bounce rate all look right.

Geo Opportunities (aka where are you?).
Also, as Tim mentioned, the stores location(s) adds a layer of opportunity (aka strategy) on top of Inventory Profile. There is rural vs metro AND don’t forget rural dealer close to metro.

Because you can geo-position your ads, my plan was to build and optimize our PPC ads in our local market, then, copy them all into the “next market over”. In my case, I made 4 “next market overs” North, South, East and West. I can budget, track and optimize each region separately. For example, I have seen excellent results from us reaching into rural markets. With Googles new CPA* bidding optimizing campaigns out of my home market will be far easier. *Cost Per Acquisition [Acquisition = Lead]

Tim, I am with you, but you can’t deny that since Google has jacked up local SERPs, the map based keyword SERPs are seen much more often and we all know these Map based results push organic down below the fold. We know Local SEO is H-O-T (local SEO is not organic). That being said, Top 3 positions in PPC have never worked better, whereas organic SEO is fighting to stay above the fold. I am not saying organc SEO is futile, I am saying its share of the pie on high volume generic terms is getting smaller.

I agree, nice article. I even agree with the 52% organic remark. It's interesting though... That with an SEO strategy that 52% of organic traffic represented tens of thousands of website visitors versus the 1 thousand visitors it represented when we began with our SEO strategy in the fall of 2006. The ROI becomes infinite when you have your employee(s) trained to do this vs paying a company to do it for you.

I just don't see the urgency of ppc. With products like Dealer.com's dominator and ReachLocal there isn't a whole lot of need to get right on PPC. Sure, have budget... Now what?

Send a check. Problem solved. If you're suggesting a ton of strategizing needs to be done, this just isn't the case. Algorithms are far more successful managing bid strategies than people are. So where's the urgency?

$2k/month for rural small store. $5k/month for larger metro store. Next... I mean, back to SEO...which has changed DRAMATICALLY! AGAIN!