Alex, Jeff, and the DR Community,

This new Internet marketing era is a complicated one, isn’t it?

We appreciate your concerns and have taken immediate action. We reviewed all of our thousands of SEM campaigns and we have made the decision to no longer bid on search terms that consist of proper dealer names. It was never our intention to divert consumers from dealer websites, but we can see how our activities could be construed as doing that; I will explain this more below.

We will, however, continue to buy search terms that are combinations of geographic names with franchise names -- so as to respond to consumer searches like “Seattle BMW.” That is because we have inventory and research information that is relevant to consumers looking for BMWs in Seattle. If there happens to be a dealership with the name “Seattle BMW,” it is merely a coincidence. Unfortunately that is what is happening to Proctor Acura because of the city Proctor in Texas. We are still going to show up in searches where the dealer’s name is the name of a geographic location plus a franchise name, but “Checkered Flag Mini,” “Bob Smith BMW” and others with such names should now be removed.

If, for whatever reason, any dealership name is more than just a geographic area and it seems we are still bidding on the name, please let us know, at http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx, and we will respond as quickly as possible.

Why did we bid on these terms? We are offering a research path for consumers who seek more information about vehicles. To that end, the page that the ad sends people to contains in-depth information about the vehicle in question. For example in the case of “Checkered Flag Mini,” the ad linked to: www.edmunds.com/mini/index.html -- which is a Mini vehicle research page, not a “lead generation” page.

We are not attempting to fool the Google user into thinking that we are a dealer. Our advertisements are quite clear that we are an information resource – not a competitor. Our URL displayed to consumers on Google is our name, not a variant on a dealership name – so no consumers will think that they are linking to a dealer and find themselves unexpectedly on Edmunds.com.

Should you ever want to get in touch with us again: we have really great leads partners who support our Leads and Premier Dealer Programs, and you can always reach out to your representative that sells our products. However, the quickest way to get a response from Edmunds.com is by submitting a request through http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx.

Those of you who know me personally, as always, feel free to contact me directly at any time.

Good selling.

John Giamalvo
Director, Dealer Initiatives
Edmunds.com

Tim,
That's why I always enjoy strategizing with you... because you want to win. Let's continue to dominate.

Welcome to my world Alex... It is natural to respond as if you just caught your accountant with their hand in the cookie jar, but it is far more effective to use these same strategies to:

1) Move edmunds off of page 1

2) Put YOUR brand on your competitor's page one listings.

Thats how I roll anyway...

I would argue (to the vendor's chagrin) that PPC has very little value to the dealer -- IF you own page 1. I do zero PPC and we still saw 25,259 visitors to our sites last month. A bullet proof SEO strategy trumps a PPC strategy every time.

Combine that with the fact that consumer habits are trending away from PPC on large ticket items that are more research oriented (Like automotive). Great if you want the best price on a blue ray movie - not so much for a car.

We just axed our last pay-per-lead provider. Amazing what you can do when you generate your own leads.

With a network of dealerships like Alex's one could REALLY dominate their PMA and well beyond. I've done it with a single point store. Now I'm taking it further by leveraging 3 strong brands.

Herb Chambers has 45 franchises. His site does virtually zero SEO and is one of if not the highest trafficked dealer website in the country. All due to the high number of brands he naturally appears for. My single point Nissan store get's approx 25% of HerbChambers.com's total traffic volume.

Use SEO to take back the incremental business thats out there...

OK I'm off my soap box...

Yeah Brian - you are so right! I just drafted a little email, based off of what you're saying, to my third-party lead rep (I'm only down to 1 company these days anyway) asking why I should continue to put money toward their venture when a lot of what they represent is just using our name to sell us customers who were already looking for us.

This can of worms is WAAAAAY DEEP!

I created a paper on this discussion since it is so important for car dealers to understand. Thank you Alex for motivating me to write the article that has been in my head for a while.

If car dealers do nothing to protect their brand, they will have leakage.

Alex,

I think there's an alternative view on this. When I first started in automotive I accidentally did very much the same-- although in that case it was [city name] Honda, which also happened to be a dealership name.

What may be happening is they've generated a huge list of keywords and are using Dynamic Keyword Insertion... so it may simply be the case of a separation/lack of communication between sales and accounts with the technical SEM teams.

While it may be (unlikely), it's still something to consider. Obviously I don't know the real answer.

We gave our sources 30 days notice 3 weeks ago because of this practice. Your right Richard in your analogy, we do feel dependent so we don't give them up. If we all take a stand and more importantly take control of your online presence & position we will have better quality leads and who doesn't want that.

As good as the strategy that Brian scarfed.. :P

You can capitalize on dealers that are not paying attention via ad networks with an aggressive content network PPC campaign and use "your" pages to drive traffic to a well optimized landing page (for conversion) to steal the lead sale away from them for way less than a search network click.

Content network + Review Sites + Well optimized landing page = Low cost online marketing campaign...

I feel an arbitrage attack coming on..

Third party lead providers and dealers remind me of America and oil. We despise the countries that sell us the oil but we keep buying it and do nothing to reduce our dependence on it.

I agree with Pasch's statement "The PPC campaign is nothing compared to the organically optimized pages that Edmunds has on most dealers in the USA."

Take a stand! Develop your own sources of leads and stop buying theirs.

You should. That was strong!

I'll take that as a compliment...

Take note everyone - Brian is showing you how to turn something into a sales pitch. Master sales person at work!

Alex,
I understand your concern for using your multi-million dollar brand in a PPC campaign but is this really much different than what Edmunds.com and other content/lead collection portals, review sites and business directories have been doing for years via SEO?

For example, type into Google "Checkered Flag Honda" and you will see on page one an SEO optimized page for your dealership from Edmunds.


On this page, you can post a review or get a price quote for a Honda or any car. Why would they optimize a page on their website for your dealership? Why would they take the time to create a page for most dealerships in the USA?

They are using your "brand" to generate traffic and leads. This has been going on for years and its a multi-million dollar business that drains equity from your brand.

YellowBot.com has an optimized page for your brand name:


So does Yelp.com:


So does SuperPages.com:

All of these people are using your multi-million dollar brand to generate Google Adsense revenue and to collect leads that they can sell for $15-$20 on the wholesale market.

These leads are then purchased and sold to 3 dealers for a total of $60. There are millions of dollars tied up in leveraging car dealership brand name.

The PPC campaign is nothing compared to the organically optimized pages that Edmunds has on most dealers in the USA.

The PPC caught your eye but the real money is that Edmunds.com is showing up on Google Page One for in the organic listings for searches on many dealer names.

As long as there are no "rules" about organically optimized content pages or profile pages, the only way to diminish the brand drain is to make sure lead collectors DO NOT show on Google Page One or two for searches on your brand name.

That's what I do for my clients who want to make that a reality.

Alex S. - At least your account rep has called you back. I will assume my rep is on an extended Thanksgiving.

It looks like they are doing the same thing with the Toyota dealer here in town. It's obviously nation wide and across many brands.
No mistake!

Edmunds did not have any sponsored links in a search for my dealer but Chrysler did! Yep!

Tim - that's hilarious! Just remember the future is Senator Bluto

I still have not heard anything from Edmunds. My account rep has called me twice since 5:00 PM telling me someone was going to call me on my cell phone this evening. I'm very bummed not to hear from them yet. I like Edmunds. I want to work things out with them.

he,he,he,he

Grass Roots, Grass Roots,
Lets stand up and
give'um the Boots!

Tim, that's funny stuff right there, but on the money. (says Joe as he runs out the door screaming after Tim)

So let all click fraud! Yahoo! (not the search engine) Alex lead the charge! Spike the nubers! Post to the other blog sites? Ralph, David, Brian, Jarad?

I cost'um .49-$1.25 Made me feel good Alex!

Click, click, click
lets hit Edmund's
with a big stick!

D-Day (Ralph P): War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
Bluto: (Alex)Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter (Jeff K): [whispering] Germans?
Boon (Brian P): Forget it, he's rolling.
Bluto: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough... [thinks hard] the tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go! [runs out, alone; then returns] What the **** happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my *** from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer (Edmunds), he's a dead man! Marmalard (Edmunds), dead! Niedermeyer -
Otter: Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.
D-Day: Let's do it.
Bluto: LET'S DO IT!!

wow holy shyte Alex... all I can say is that is bloody shady of them. Good luck in getting that resolved.

Dang... that's incredible. We're not having our name taken, yet. But now that it's out in the open I'm sure something will be taken care of soon!

At first I thought...let me give them the benefit of the doubt. If I click on their ad with your dealership name as the title, it MUST go to a page on Edmunds.com featuring Checkered Flag MINI, right?

Nope.

Targeting business names with ppc keywords is nothing new, but to be so blatant about it...I agree, it's wrong.

Thanks for the heads up on this Alex. I was thinking about using this company in the future but this certainly needs to be addressed before I move forward with them or any of their affiliates. I wonder how long this has been happening?

Alex, all I can say is wow. Over 13 years in this business and that's probably the most blatant example I've seen.

We all knew that we were competing against the KBBs and Edmunds for SERP ranking but actually using your name....wow.

I assume your counsel is on it.

Joe Turner