Very interesting comments everyone. I am surprised to not hear too much about systems or solutions that are auto specific and that allow the dealer to run ads day to day and stop them on demand. After all you should be able to target your ads day by day if needed and control them with no monthly mgt fees all within a few easy clicks.

Additionally when it comes to tracking, with PPC you should not only know what you are spending and the cost per lead, you should also know the exact cost per sale. Ultimately this is the only number that matters.

With today's technology and tracking capabilities dealers can actually see the amount of leads they will generate in advance of spending any money! If you really think about what else could you ask for? Also, using the proper tools you should never "burn" through your budget as this can be automatically controlled day by day by bidding technology that staggers your spend equally throughout each day of the month. If you have a $3000/month budget then you will spend about $100/day on PPC and you can even target that spend to different vehicles, departments, and specific geographical areas. This is not guess work anymore it is 100% science and in general dealers should be generating leads at under $10 per lead. Launching PPC campaigns should take a dealer a minute or 2 not countless hours. Companies like ours have spent years studying the metrics, results and best practices to come up with software that automates the parts of the process that do not need to be humanly administered. One thing for sure is this, dealers are burning much more cash on Print, Radio and TV than they ever could on PPC.

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

Is anyone familiar with the company Reach Local. They claim not to charge any monthly management fees. They say they are able to buy keywords from Google in bulk and sell them back to the client at a price they would have paid anyway. This is how they supposedly make their money. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Is anyone familiar with the company Reach Local. They claim not to charge any monthly management fees. They say they are able to buy keywords from Google in bulk and sell them back to the client at a price they would have paid anyway. This is how they supposedly make their money. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I sincerely hope you guys that are so stuck in the SEO whirlpool are in my market area.

If you pay attention to your keyword and phrase click-throughs and conversions, dedicate yourself to being in the proper position in sponsored results (#1 is not necessarily #1), have the relevant content when that click becomes a visitor, have a mack-daddy presentation of your product, target the relevant demographic in relation to your ad/current promotion, know a smidgeon regarding internet statistics and trends, etc.... you shouldn't have a problem.

Having only been in the car business for 3 yrs (eCommerce 15 yrs) I'm simply amazed each and every day with the comments I hear from those in the car biz regarding SEM, SEO and eCommerce/eBusiness as a whole.

My opinion of most SEM and SEO companies are that they typically just throw up the keywords and phrases and set it on autorun. Paying no attention to the actual results but relying on stats spit out by software.

Look at your website statistics, referrals and keywords. Study, analyze and dissect each and every aspect of it. THAT is where you'll find out what's really going on (just before you fire your SEO/SEM vendor). You use autocount and others to determine your market areas and demographics for mailers, TV, radio and newspaper why not the internet?

SEM is exponentially more targetted than SEO or any of the traditional media options. You can highlight individual units or today's new incentives right away. Using landing pages you control in-house is critical to the use of SEM. If you decide to slash prices on old-age units you can let your market area know in moments, not months.

The bottom line is, unless you can find a legitimate SEM company to control this most critical cog of your advertising wheel, hire someone that understands it and train that person the automotive stuff.

We haven't done radio, TV or newspaper in 2 months now.

How much have you spent?

With all the hype about SEM in nearly every publication I've read as of late, I have a few questions. What is a good percentage of budget to devote to SEO/SEM for a major metro dealer? Is it true that a good percentage, say 40%, of sem generates leads for fixed ops? I've heard that number thrown out before. Seems to me that more google searches for make specific dealers in a certain city would be hunting for fixed ops rather than a used car of that make.
Last thing, what about diminishing returns? What B-man alluded to is the more active this medium becomes the more costly it becomes for everybody and the harder it becomes to justify. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

If you do it all the time, yes. If you keep it to a minimum, then no.

Minimums can be rather large.

Alex, I'm sure at this point, those clicks are getting discredited (or credited?) if they're coming from the same places click after click.

I'm glad he brought up something on buying competitors' names. I used to do this before I realized it was converting at almost 100%. Then I started looking at what was going on and realized I was just saving people a click at my expense because these customers were coming over (and converting) anyway.

There are a few of my competitors buying our name + franchise, and it just brings a smile to my face. They get at least 3 clicks a month from me - it is my favorite way to check their sites out! They get a few more from people I've trained to also click on them each month...our GM's love spending their money too!

I'm getting a "2003-ish" vibe from this article. Too bad we're in 2008.

Hhhhhmmmmmmmmm! Search traffic without conversion. The number one concern for every dealer should be "how am I going to convert this traffic to usable leads"? Conversion is a piece of cake - want o know how?

Never buy your PPC from a company that does organic and never buy your organic from a company that does PPC. Trust me this is the golden rule of search traffic.

Steve

This article is so far off track of what is actually true that its bordering on just plain stupid.

"“One example is ‘Honda Accord,’” he says. “If someone types in that when they are just researching cars, and it takes them to your dealership site, they often leave right away.”"

If you have the right text ad crafted then it shouldn't matter what phase the buyer is in. You will qualify them BEFORE THEY CLICK THE AD using the text in that ad.

We can see upwards of 10-20% conversion rates on some of those broader type terms.

I highly suggest you follow the advice in this article so our clients can get cheaper clicks on those broader keywords and all of YOUR leads.

P.S. To Ken: There is no where near the available traffic on organic local terms as there is on broader PPC terms that are locally targeted by IP.

B-Man

CPC is good for new sites, promotions, and arbitrage. What it is REALLY good for, is reaffirming your good organic positioning. So when someone searches for "2008 honda accord in massachusetts" not only are you ranking high organically, the user also is shown your ad, giving them a good feeling about your site right away.

CPC isn't as a sustainable source of traffic like good SEO is. That is where we spend the most time.

Ken H - I'll tell you why people still focus on PPC. All research concerning Search Marketing, public and private that I have seen, shows a multiplyer effect from placing in both organic as well as paid search. These studies have been conducted over the past 8 years and have been very conclusive. I've personally experienced this affect with my own sites.

There are companies who flat out dominate the organic results and still pay $100,000+ a month on paid search, and, they are not doing it for the fun of it. They have tested, studied the results, and understand the performance dynamics - it pays very well to succeed at both. Search marketing is a very detailed and knowledge based practice. Many who dabble in it feel they have a very comprehensive understanding of it, unfortunately they are mislead. They are only dealing with the tip of the iceberg. This is why it pays to hire Search Engine expertise, hold them accountable for their performance, and let them do their job.

Dealers should be concentrating efforts on the organic search side of the equation in which 75 to 80% of all searches occur at no fixed cost per click to the dealer also. There are "whitehat" companies offering good fixed cost organic SEO services out there. Why are dealers so concerned about PPC when only 15 to 20% of the activity happens there? Think about it, how often do you yourself actually click onto a paid listing? was it truly the most relevant for you in your search?

Any of the reputable web development companies will have measures against spam. We began adding captcha images to our client contact forms about a year ago and it cut down TREMENDOUSLY on the amount of spam submissions received. Any of the methods discussed by Cutts are simple and effective.

By the way, I still see a lot of dealers displaying their email address on their site. That's another way to open yourselves up to additional spam.

Heres somne places for CAPTCHAs

Good stuff. Does anyone know of a dealer website company that offers the type of spam fighting applications that Cutts discussed in this video or is it something that we have to go out and get on our own and "bolt on" to our websites? I've been asking Reynolds and Reynolds for this for over a year now. I really like the idea of having someone answer a simple math question before they submit a form.

Sending THANK YOU cards immediately after someone has left the dealership has some rewarding results. You may ask yourself if it's worth the 5 minutes, and first class postage - but consider the impact:

#1 None of your competitors is doing it.
#2 You stand out from the crowd.
#3 It show true appreciation towards the customer.
#4 Your chances of a be-back skyrocket.

I always learned that you don't have to be better than everyone else, just different.

Cheers!

I make my living on selling direct mail (snail mail) to dealers. Some mail isn't even worth the cost of the postage, that is a fact. But some pieces work better than everything else combined.

Here's an example. I ran a mailer for a client last month (Honda store) that featured the high fuel-efficiency of certain Honda products. We featured the vehicles, lease payments, APR's, but the leader was the MPG! With high gas prices on the mind, we took advantage of that and spoke to their wallets.

We did 10k for $7800, sold 42 units which broke down to $185.70 per car (a number that brought smiles ear-to-ear)!

I'd say that this mailer worked, amd most would agree. The difference is in the thought, creativity, and execution of said concepts that make these kinds of mailers work while others fail.

Just my humble opinion!

Thanks for the post Alex.

Here's the kicker. We didn't send it to a credit list or a saturation list, we sent the Honda mailer to all the '85 to '95 gas guzzlers (F150's, Dodge Ram's, C1500's) within the dealers PMA.

These owners were most likely to be the segment that were affected most by high gas prices, and most likely to respond to the MPG leader! We also mentioned new and pre-owned trucks and SUV's in stock in case the compacts were out of the question.

"the most effective direct mail contains a compelling message to a qualified targeted audience"...Posted by: Jeff Kershner

Perfectly put Jeff and the top 3 things to a successful e-mail:
1. compelling message
2. compelling message
3. compelling message

It's like the old saying "garbage in garbage out" so my add is
make a choice of what to say in that message;

A. Be entertaining-i.e. video clips or high quality pics of the new models NOT computer generated assimilations.

B. Be informative-period...Simple good looking and formatted text of what's new and exciting about your PRODUCT. I could care less about the dealership. We are not friends and have not been over to each others home for dinner, so I don't need and EGO invite to come to the store to see the new and improved showroom or service department.

Customers want to keep it professional that is the balance and has been my experience in the 20 years on the automotive retail side.

*5 seconds is my guess on how long you have that they will read the message "IF" the prospect even opens the mail because the subject line was interesting enough to do so. Hi it's me AGAIN from ABC motors keeps the knowbody home lights off on my e-mail.

I hate when I get sent everything possible that someone cant put in a message just short of e-mailing the entire site.

Also, I'll get some crap for this...Oh well. Get the pic's of the kids, girlfriend and fishing trips off the desk unless you are an owner or manager.

Your better off limping on the lot seeking sympathy that you need to soften up the customer to buy because the $$$ will help pay for the operation.

Thanks and that's all my ramble for awhile...
Have a great summer!!!

Pete

The modernization of mail from being the wild west or spam a lot has begun.

That has been my argument for some time now about "open" e-mail contact.

I have chosen to keep the contact mail address off websites period.

What I am doing is setting up incoming mail that only accepts forms submitted from the website or e-flyer.

Also when sending an e-campaign using a disposable address so it doesn't linger and collect junk.

Every month a campaign is run the return contact e-mail is different. The fact is that noboby goes back probably after a month to view the e-flyer and contact you at a later date.

That's my thoughts and the best to all...Pete

Two words, Spam Blocker. The reason to not completely eliminate snail mail is exactly those two words. We've all had numerous times when we've attempted to contact a lead that has only given us an e mail only to never hear back from them at all. You follow up for months on end, trying new techniques to get that person's attention, only to have them finally come to the dealership complaining that no one has ever attempted to reach them back. Or maybe it's just me..... Most lead's make you at least put an address or phone number. The people that want the less obtrusive shopping experience are much more likely to put an address online than a phone number. So for that reason I would say snail mail is not extinct yet.....although it may be going that way sooner rather than later as the "new breed" grows into the "old breed's" footsteps.

I'm talking to the paper now Joe - lol.

IMO, Snail mail has its place in marketing. I think its best suited to keeping the door open with prior customers. You have a relationship with past customers, so your unopened mail if far more likely to be opened & read.

Marketing is all about finding an opportunity to share a meaningful moment. Snail mail waits patiently for the reader to arrive, with a message that shares space with no other advertiser and is delivered in a time and place that is comfortable to your customer.

What are you gonna send them?
If you are a multi-franchise player, I can’t think of a better medium than a periodic snail mail newsletter with mix of unique automobile content and inventory/promotion. No one on the planet is better setup to leverage this idea than our Alex Snyder and his all new mega content monster http://www.checkeredflag.com. The content they churn out is just sick… so sick, his local paper should buy his content from him!

Anyways, back to the rest of us humans…
If you are a small store, you sell you! A highly personalized mailer should get read.

Snail mail needs to hit some hot buttons. Content to include could be: Bird Dogs, Testimonials, Community Event(s), New Arrivals, What’s Hot, What’s on Sale, managers clearance, payment car, special finance and on and on and on… Use of coupons, tracking codes or exclusive discounts helps when it comes to ROI review time.

Just a few passing thoughts...
Joe

We’re all getting slammed with ad messages. Junk Mail, SPAM, Banner ads, Commercials on TV and Radio, now that I think of it, the 'Net is worse than all of the above combined.

IMO, Snail mail has its place in marketing. I think its best suited to keeping the door open with prior customers. You have a relationship with past customers, so your unopened mail is far more likely to be opened & read.

Joe