A little bird dropped by the dealership today and mentioned AutoTrader.com reps have been instructed, from on-high, not to post on Dealer Refresh anymore!

Ashley, Brian is on target. What time period did they claim this placement of product would remain "exclusive". I'll take a guess that no other Honda dealers have taken the bait because they don't see the value/need for it in the first place. I know of many Honda dealerships with midline product w/Autotrader doing just fine, esp. w/certified pre-owned. I can't see them offering you"exclusivity" for more than a 6 month term.

@Ashley
once you sign up they will visit your competition (bring in the big wig from corporate) tell them they can't compete without (insert package here) and tell them how great your business is since you switched to (insert package here) pretty soon your exclusive package isn't so exclusive anymore.
(this all came to me in a dream last night)
btw after your recommendation I switched to v-auto goose-aid much tastier then the old fashioned kool-aid and it's only 15.3% more expensive but you will experience a 25.3% increase in clarity.

Here ya go Joe. I got some VAuto Koolaid for you

Back to Autotrader and I hate to do this. Is anyone else having Alpha/increase discussions with their ATC reps? Does paying or should i say "bidding" for Alpha make sense? If it does I'll jump on it. It's a few weeks past the bidding deadline and no Honda dealership in my market has placed a "bid" yet. Now is the time!!!

Btw...this is Bad Ashley talking...

The bullet is taking aim!

Car dealers & ISM's whipsawed in "the perfect storm".

A time line as I see it.
Old School:
---Dealers loyally spend in newsprint.
---Newsprint owned the dealers for decades.
---Newsprint grew fat and happy.

New School:
---Customers Drive dealers onto the net (dealers dont like change.
---Internet Classified sites reward Early Adopters (most all of us here are Early Adopters).
---More and more "late to the party" dealers jump into the Net
---BZ was borne (the end can't be far can it?
---Internet ad spending rockeets & ROI plummets for Early Adoptors, but, it's new biz for the old school bunch.
---Internet Classified sites steal marketshare from newsprint
---Internet Classified sites want some of that "newsprint windfall"
---Internet Classified sites grow fat and happy.

New-New School
---Early Adopters, sick of the rate rape, embrace PPC and SEO
---BZ & all others attack new SEO/PPC revenue pool, most are bandaid additions to a duct-taped platform that would fail in anyother highly competitive verticle (not yours Mark B.
---WebSite builders grow fat and happy.

Where does this lead too?..ISM's still fighting for a flat. Can anyone pass me some vAuto Koolaid?

Me thinks we're in the wrong biz!
just my $0.02
Joe

A lot of good points posted on this subject but to back up to a higher level I think that we may be too focused on whether or not the advertising on websites like autotrader is effective and maybe not focused enough on the real money losing ads that are being run in Newspapers, TV and Radio. I think it is really time that dealers look at reducing conventional ad spend and testing out the various local online ad sources that provide proven results and full reporting and metrics (cost per lead, cost per sale..etc) Internet is a science and it is really time that we all stop guessing with all of our ad dollars and hold advertising companies 100% accountable for the results. With that said I think there is a place for branding but not to the tune of 40k/month like many dealers are spending.

I realize I am simplifying things but if you look a the majority of US dealers, the use of local search and local online advertising is off the mark by a huge margin and only a small % of dealers are truly capitalizing on the emergence of internet shopping being the norm. Even for all the dealers worried about their 3rd party costs they should realize that many of the leads they are buying from these websites could have been theirs first gereration instead of buying it 2nd or 3rd generation for 200-300% more! Maximize your local online advertising and cut the middle man out whenever possible, that is the key!

Many new programs available now to dealers allow them to gauge the effectiveness of all of their ad sources side by side so that they can see what in fact newspaper, radio, tv and internet are doing as compared to one another. Even more related to this string of posts is that you can have all of your 3rd party lead providers side by side and gauge which produce the most leads, lowest cost per sale each day, week, month and year. At the end of the day this is all that matters and will empower dealers to transition the correct amount of money away from costly and ineffective traditional advertising spend.

This has to be the goal, too many dealers are hurting with profits and it doesn't have to be there way.

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com, Inc
www.dealer.com

AutoTrader CEO Chip Perry, for instance, says the one thing dealers want to know from him is “why do you raise your rates 20 percent every year?” But they seem to get the value of a medium that is used “seven times more than newspapers,” he says — even if their spending doesn’t nearly reflect it.

Mark,

Who said the $620 was not accurate? That could very well be the correct number for the dealer addressed in Ian's post above, based on market, inventory size and advertising level. Please check your facts before complaining about things that you may only be imagining.

They do have a valid point about bots.. I scrape our own listings every hour, my competitors daily, and I've found a ton of other sites that scrape them as well (automotive.com, for instance).

A similar situation occurred to us a couple years ago. They can't even manage to sent letters like this with the appropriate numbers involved! Why should I believe the statistics they provide us when they can't even send an accurate rubber stamp increase letter to the dealership? Why do we continue to pay them what we do? Please help me with this.

****************************************************************
Your Advertising Consultant has probably shared with you that we
are moving to a single renewal date. We hope this will make your
budget planning process simpler and more in line with other
media. Starting on March 31st, 2008, your new monthly rate will
be $620. Please contact your local
Advertising Consultant or the District Manager for your area,
Mark Busby at (901) 299-8602 with any questions or
concerns.
*******************************************************************

So has anyone confirmed with their AT rep that the new monthly rates is $620/month????

Ben,

That is very interesting, but in ATC's defense (can you believe I'm going to stick-up for them?!!!) a lot of Internet statistics are not accurate. There are hundreds of reasons for this, and will probably continue to be this way until some sort of regulatory agency/system is put in place for the entire web.

As far as our vigilance toward ATC, they've earned it. Despite statistics not being accurate the money sure is! They charge more and we get less. They're the only vendor I've experienced this with, and they needed to be called out on it.

All I can say is "Wow" after just having found this thread, it seems many of us are looking at our ROI from Autotrader with alot of vigilance these days. I wanted to ask if anyone else has noticed this disclaimer that Autotrader.com has recently place in numerous locations on it's activity reporting section of their back end tool?

† Autotrader.com strives to ensure the accuracy of our reporting and adheres to the Guidelines and Best Practices published by the standard-setting Internet Advertising Bureau. Despite our best efforts, the activities of data scrapers (which use automated "bots" to extract data from our website), coupled with technical complexity of measuring Internet traffic, sometimes make us less confident of our numbers than we would like to be. The numbers marked with an cross above may have been materially inflated by activity outside of our control. We are working to correct the situation, so that future reports will provide you with accurate data to help you drive your business.

Jeez...this post is still getting a lot of attention I guess. Just when I thought it was done, I come back and there are enough new comments to keep me reading for 30 min. I'd call that a hot topic.

Going back to the posts about Autotrader raising rates and having a common renewal date...I worked there for a few years and still have many friends who work there. When I asked about this rate increase/common renewal date, one Autotrader employee told me pretty much the same thing that Lightnup (aka Lighten Up) is saying. Autotrader is basically 'taking care of' their dealers who have been with them long-term. As far as forcing a common renewal date of 3/31/08, this makes sense from a business standpoint. For the dealers that are apparently getting hit with higher prices at that time, I would be mad as hell, but hey, if you want to be on Autotrader you have to pay what they ask for. Many of my clients have "downgraded" their Autotrader packages and are still seeing the same number of leads, so it's producing a better ROI with the cheaper package. (Note that I work primarily with independents).

Simon - I still think that internet marketing on Autotrader.com and Cars.com is a bargain, although as many have pointed out, for some dealers the money could be allocated differently for a better ROI. You may be one of those dealers.

Blanco - Definitely call Autotrader and get the rep in your store. Even if it's just stopping in to say hi, they should be showing their face.

TR - I would be happy to speak to you, but like others, I am curious what you're interested in speaking about. I've worked for both Autotrader.com and Trader Publishing.

TR,

You might get more response to your request if you let us know what is on your mind. For all I know you may be Lightnup's other alias hell bent on revenge against anyone that would leave the ranks. Once you're in the only way out is in a bag, right?

(Lighten up, Lightnup. only teasing)

Cheers.

Would the former AutoTrader/Trader Inc/Dominion employees please contact me at [email protected] Thanks

Blanco - Call 800-353-9350 and tell them you need to see your rep this week or you are cancelling! There's no excuse for not having seen him or her for that long.

"Their rep is trying to get another $1000.00 on top of the new contract with nothing extra added to the package. That's way more then a 8% increase over what they are currently paying" We haven't seen a rep from autotrader in about 5 months, can't wait to entertain the next one that decides to show up for a renewal discussion.

Brian - What you posted as a "fact" is TOTALLY inaccurate and not at all factual. EVERY dealer on a regular monthly rate with AT as of the date that '08 rates became available are "Legacy dealers", as you call them, subject to the "Legacy" rates. Only dealers who were NOT AT customers on that date are considered New business.

What is a fact is that AT reps told their non-signed-dealers that they could get the "Legacy" rate, as you call it, IF they signed up before X date. Those dealers that chose not to are subject to the New dealer rate when they sign up. It couldn't be any clearer or fairer than that.

How can either of these companies seek to squeeze more out of us as I've been reading on this board and experienced first hand, receiving much less customer activity from either companies products for the past 18 months? I'm not sure how others feel but the strongest ROI for our dealership the past year has been our manuf's efforts in increasing their search engine display advertising and driving internet customers to us from it. We maintained our top tiered products w/both autotrader and cars.com last year but when we have sit downs with both of them in the coming months it will be to completely re-evaluate our positions with them. It's costing us more and contributing less & less, month after month. Both of them are crazy if you ask me, especially in this economic climate. In speaking with dealers in our immediate area, we all have experienced pretty much the same, I don't think this is a unique situation at least not in our area of biz.

Facts:

If you've signed with AutoTrader.com within the last 12 months as new business for them they will be seeking upwards of a 30% increase from you by 3/31/08. If you are a "legacy" account with them for longer than 12 months they will be seeking a "Legacy" renewal increase of 8% from you by 3/31/08.

Cars.com will be seeking a 20% increase in most markets also by 3/31/08

As sales in most markets for either imports or domestic brands have flattened and the customer activity from either brand of interned classified companies has flattened, it will be interesting to see which of these companies sustains the larger churn rate of unsatisfied dealer customers in 2008 as more & more dealerships place a larger slice of their advertising budget towards meaningful/trackable results from SEO & SEM.

Should be an interesting year for both AutoTrader.com & Cars.com

Lightnup-

Cars.com is owned by Classified Ventures, which is a joint venture between Belo Corporation, Gannett Company, The McClatchy Company, Tribune Company, and The Washington Post Company. Each market that Cars.com participates in is unique and managed primarily by the media partner(affiliate) located in that region, with the exception of a few markets that are managed directly by Cars.com. That being said, each market controls its own pricing and strategies for their Cars.com business. If a rate increase were to occur it is solely up to the local market/affiliate managing the relationship with the dealer. I have been working in Hampton Roads, VA for Cars.com/Tribune for 4.5 years and we have been very fair to our dealers when it comes to pricing. We are partners. If we were to introduce a price increase in 2008, and yes we are considering it, it would be fair and I doubt it will be close to 20%. I also doubt that Cars.com will receive backlash from the dealers for this, especially those in Hampton Roads,VA.

Hope this helps.

Lightnup, what market do you work in, or are you in AutoTrader.com corporate office in Atlanta?

Ian - Why don't you just say, "Hey, look at what I just copied and pasted from the Monday DearlerRefresh thread without verifying whether it's accurate or not." Unless, of course, you are the one that posted the same inaccurate message on the other thread.

Again, as was posted on THAT thread, if a dealer just signed up, or renewed their contract last week, they are NOT about to see another price hike. Why is that, you might ask. Because if they just signed up, or renewed their contract last week, they would have done so at Autotrader's '08 pricing since this is, um, '08. Those dealers are not about to see another price hike as Ian and Anonymous have both posted erroneously.

But those dealers are still going to be asked to pay more money for their Internet advertising soon, since the word has spread that cars.com is going up 20% across the board in March. (Apparently a rising tide does lift all boats.) Perhaps Ruby or one of the other enthusiastic cars.com employees who have posted here could confirm or deny whether that is true.

I just heard that AutoTrader was going to a common renewal date for all dealer on March 1st and rates were going up 8%. Even if a dealer just signed up or renewed their contract last week, they’re about to see another price hike.