Cool new feature. Will it justify it's costs in generating more customer call activity to support the ROI? I doubt it.

"Let me try this again. I took a screen shot of it this time.


Maybe these will be part of the "ALPHA" packages. ??"

.............................

Interesting Ian. So that will be above the spotlights? I heard about it somewhere else, and asked my rep - he said it will be for strategic marketing campaigns that run on a 10-15 day period. Looks expensive to me. I wonder if it is really a way to give big-budget dealers an advantage on smaller dealers again.....since ATC sold so many partner packages making their original "partner dealers" upset?

I could be totally wrong, but that was my initial thought.

Congratulations Jennifer - you are the 100th poster in this thread!

Notice how many people have jumped in this thread to refute on behalf of AutoTrader, but will not leave their actual information? Wonder why? If these people feel as though they're adding something worthwhile to this thread, they should be open about who they are. Engage in the debate. Show us why we're wrong. Debate is a healthy thing, and we're missing it these days. Thank you "Internet Jeff" for being the exception - I may not agree with you on this one, but I respect you for working to make a debate.

When people hide behind the interwebz, and don't fight back when challenged, that person is a waste of time.

Dealer Refresh gives us all the opportunity to have a voice - vendors and dealers together. Let's debate - let's make ourselves better!

I agree with you Michael! I talk to so many dealers everyday and going in to the approach of the confidence of dealers trying to gather ideas to sell more cars. They are not stupid, along with the ISM's. I had been an ISM for 4 years before jumping aboard with TK Carsites and having that comment from DS aka AT insulting dealers and ISM's shows he/she never worked on the floor. They must hate their job at AutoTrader! Maybe DS needs to justify their job!!

I love the latest "DS" post must be someone that works at Autotrader. Sounds like he just got out of one of their training classes and all he/she compares Autotrader to is the traditional media vs. other internet resources dealers can use.. Cars.com,UsedCars.com, AutoUsa, Autobytel, Dealix, Google Base, SEM/SEO, tools to capture customer info on their website, hmmm? Apples to Oranges sounds like spin zone to me.

Love the arrogant attitude and devious laugh "ha ha ha" and then calling dealers, or ISMs stupid or justifying their jobs? That's a great approach - let's insult our customers.

I think you've missed a big point discussed here and that is many dealerships not seeing positive enough ROI for the investment in Autotrader's Premium Listings. Lets talk price & effectiveness. Toyota dealership w/50 used units with Autotrader Premium listings @ $5600 a month rate. Same dealership at the middle tiered level of ad product from Autotrader @ $1800 a month. Cost per used unit listed w/Premium Listings @ $112. Cost per used unit listed w/middle tiered ads with Autotrader @ $36. Selling 5 units per month on average from the Premium Listing product costs @ $1,120 a copy, selling 5 used units w/middle tiered ad product costs @ $360 per copy. Listening to the same spiel on and on from Autotrader about how valuable the Premium Listing products really are, priceless!

I laugh out loud at all the self righteous dealer personnel that cry about AT making money. Guess what, if you could do something better you would have. Try branding you dealership on your budget...

HA, HA, HA

Ain't going to happen. Hire an employee to do SEM and SEO? Now your budget is already blown through the roof, with no more traffic than you get now.

Know why AT works? Its called Top Of Mind Awareness. When a customer is constantly being drilled to search for cars and find a car on AT.com they use the service. Then when they go to look for a car, they don't have to use a search engine because they already know about AT. Can't say that about the dealership's sites, especially as the internet core audience matures.

Can anyone on these posts tell me why you would spend literally tens of thousands of dollars per month on mass marketing (i.e. newspapers, tv, radio) that reach only 3-4% of the public that s actively shopping for a vehicle at any one time?

You give $100000 a year to a newpaper showing 10% of your inventory, that reaches 400000 people a day. At a 4% shopping rate for cars we are talking about 16000 POTENTIAL viewers of your liner ad. For a quarter of that price you can list ALL your inventory on AT, show specs, research vehicles, get financing quotes and even fill out applications before they come in.

Now I see why you want to get rid of it. Because you can justify your jobs. Some times in going into a dealer I think "you are too stupid to work/own this dealership". More times than not that is proven out.

I like reading these posts to get the feed back from everyone that is having both good and bad opinions on auto trader. Like I said they work good only when you work them too. I hear from so many dealers spending thousands of dollars on ad's that don't work, 3rd party leads, just invest in a website that actually captures the customers then having to pay for them to come to your site! Getting a properly optimized site and getting to the top of the organic searches is the best way to go then to pay to be at the top. I am not trying to sell anything but from my past experience I would rather dump a buttload of cash on a site that actually pays you back in the ROI!

Working the comments really good for auto trader will give back what you put into it. Just an hour a day if not less making creative comments will capture your customers online.

Enjoy selling and good luck!

IMO: Reduce AutoTrader position spending.

Customers can see positioning structure. Customers are drilling down to year-make-model then sorting by price (wouldn't you?).

Create select Loss Leaders from your prime sellers list (highest volume sellers). Be sure to price yourself a few ticks below market. Add text to suggest large selection and special pricing.

Viola' Traffic again!
Joe

When ever the "cost per closed deal" conversation is brought up with Autotrader, they get very quiet. As a customer of theirs for the past 5 or so years the phone call numbers are going down year upon year. We've maintained our top tiered listing position with them but with the rising rate increases it's costing us considerably per deal sourced from them. We track all walk ins and have incentivised our staff on providing us with accurate walk in traffic sourcing. We've informed them that in order for management to most effectively spend the ad dollar to gain the most customer traffic, we need to acurately know where our walk in/showroom traffic is coming from. They've been very cooperative in doing this as it only helps them in the long run also. I'm not so sure that the added features of the past year or so have managed to do anything significant in bringing more attention to our pre owned vehicles listed with them, anyone else experiencing this? Our Rep is a good guy and looks out for us w/tips etc. but it seems even his head is spinning as to how to sell the product w/a straight face to us anymore. I'm not sure that the investement we've made w/them is paying off as it once was and I'm curious to see if we stepped down to a cheaper product w/them for 4 or 5 months we'd notice any real significant difference? other than possibly saving cost per closed sourced deals from them.

Joe Pistell,

Would like to share my results of Autotrader.com with you and what works for me in my market. Im sure I could learn some things from you as well. Contact Mr. Kershner for my info.

My responsibilities include handling all of the incoming calls and emails from AT, dealer website and GM OneSource- setting the appts, taking the appts, closing, and finally the delivery.

Obviously I end up cherry picking, and the least time consuming/highest profit deals are the used car leads from AT. Could only imagine what the dealership could produce from all incoming leads if I had the time to work properly. It's a work in progress and big paradigm shift for the dealership.

Look forward to speaking with you Joe.

Alex,

We have been on board for a long while with ATC and have experimented with almost every type of Package you can imagine from owning the top 7 makes in the area and forking out.....Gasp.... over 10K a month! Paying all of the money to still hover around $250 a lead. Deliveries were up and ROI had a growth spurt but nothing to justify the outrageous prices we were handing over. As far as the $7700 dollar mention I know plenty of dealers spending over that amount and more. We have since discontinued our top 7 make placement and consolidated to 3 makes with some verticals. We are processing a cost analysis and I dont think we are going to be players at our current rate. Now one thing can be said for sure the new 08 prices are going to be ridiculous!!!! I have spoken with several independents that are shelling out the 10K a month and will continue to do so because that is one of the only ad sources they use.

The new program is called ALPHA and it operates like it sounds. I have no doubt they plan on pitting dealers against each other for some of these top positions. The larger franchised dealers are going to slug it out for these spots. AT will continue to nickel and dime the independents with a somewhat inflated representation of what they are really receiving. I have heard estimates from Industry leaders that ALPHA pkgs may start around double what Partner pkgs are retailing for. I know AT works for us. Could they work in the same capacity for less money? YES! I think its time we start holding their feet to the fire a little. When you see your rep next time tell em you want more, that you just dont think your getting your money's worth. My rep said "Look at all the Floor Traffic and Web traffic we produce" My question is this TRULY measurable? There are a few ways of doing it but this cant be AT's only response when you are presenting your product as best you can online.

Ian,

I can't see what you're talking about in the link, but I heard about the new ad unit I think you're bringing up. It is going to allow one dealer to dominate a particular make with a big flash ad above the standards, the partners, the spotlights....everything. I can only imagine how expensive this thing is going to be!

I wonder what will be next?

On a different note, I didn't want to get into actual dollar figures - I wanted to keep things somewhat civilized, but....I had a phone call from a single-point dealer on this thread and heard he is paying $7,700 a month to have a partner listing on ATC. Is anyone else paying that kind of money? If so, do you get an industrial sized jar of vaseline with that bill? Yeah, it might be cheaper than buying a print ad, but that is leaps and bounds beyond any other online spend I know of.

Internet Jeff,
Your AT performance stats are very different than my *market experiences.

My AT shoppers are very stealth and could only be found in post sale surveys. See 6 months of 2007 Call Count Records, AT is buried in the pack:


I would like to study your marketplace. Which dealership do you represent?

Joe
p.s. Marketplaces are fluid, dynamic beasts. We all share space on AT with our competitiors, so, SIZE MATTERS.

* MY MARKET.
- Smallish market in UpState NY (300k).
- I'd define my market demographics as anything but upscale... Lunch Pail is more like it
- Small mass media budget (TV-Radio).
- It's a single point Chevrolet store w/100 used.
- 2 power players near by with over 2,000 used units within 10 miles.

This store is the classic old school family franchise operation where the property had been paid for generations ago and the last faciltites upgrade was when Nixon was Pres! hahaha...

Alex- Thanks for a great article for all of us to view our opinions from our experiences on this side of the biz. I think we all have learned much from this post and I based my opinions from results, not personal interests in gaining employment. Grass isn't always greener on the other side!

Caradgirl- Not only do I have a cute and classy AT consultant, but she also suggests dealerships to be on Autotrader.com and Cars.com to capture both types of internet car shoppers. It just happens that the majority of my current page views, emails, calls and sales come from Autotrader shoppers.

Question of post- Is AutoTrader.com worth the price hike? Yes! Im not excited about going to the owner in 3 months with a bigger invoice, yet I have the ROI to show its worth. And, it still blows traditional advertising costs out of the water with trackable 24/7 Internet Department results and that's excluding the non-sourced sales from the showroom.

Where do most shop for variety and best price on high ticket items; houses, computers, flat screens? The internet. Who is the number one online resource for automobile advertising?

That's where my money would be spent first, after a quality dealership website, then to additional online advertising sources.

Update!! (Now at 11 sales for month, 7 from AutoTrader)

Thank you for comment jp - sounds like you have too much time on your hands if you're taking the time to sit and read all these blogs. Some of us use two hands to type, read faster than the average person, and can think quick on our feet, so taking 2-5 minutes to post a comment probably isn't hurting business. On top of that, most of the dealers posting here are market leaders for their region. We're not complaining about business being down - we're talking about AutoTrader.com raising rates without adding any extra substance....did you actually read this thread?

I'm going to jump out on a limb and make an assumption with this next remark: I'm glad I don't work for AutoTrader either!

...posted from my house at 4:09 AM EST just before heading to the airport to catch a plane for....you'd never believe it....business.

You guys have way too much time on your hands! I am glad none of you work for me. I can see why you are not selling cars because you take way too much of your time to sit and write these blogs.

They are thieves but hey Kelly Blue Book listings will fix this in a jiffy right????? Spin, Spin, Spin, keep sellin' the Spin!!!!

Well Autotrader really stuck it to me. in May they called and said the prices were going to go up.They told me I could buy up to 45 select ads which i did. They also said I could have the ads until needed and the 60 day time was not a issue. Well after the 60 days were up I had 30 some ads to use. After alot of talk with autotrader they finally gave them back. Well guess what! after that 60 days I had 10 ads left and the deal we had they said is no longer a deal THEY RIPPED ME OFF. sTILL 10 ADS LEFT!!! i GOT SCREWED BIG TIME. Hey a deal is a deal what are they thinking?

Sounds like Autotrader is a bad name like Microsoft is? or Chevron? or AT&T? or GM or Ford...
Who doesn't want to pay higher rates. No One...
Who else do we gripe about... Cable company, gas companies, mortgage rates, car companies..
What does everyone think will happen when the next newest technology launches.. ie: Google... Prices will go up, traffic will go up, rates go up, traffic goes up, rates go up, etc..
I worked in newspapers back in the day and I heard dealers complain about rates ALL the time. Things are not different. Same argument, different company. Base your advertising buying decisions on who can perform, who can reach car buyers the most cost efficiently. Prices will go up... if they go down that is the time to worry about something bad going on.
BTW, KBB.com and Autotrader.com just announced a partnership... stay tuned...

AT used to be completely free in 1998. I was one of the first Non-Franchised dealers on AT in Ohio. AT WAS the best thing since sliced bread. That was nearly 10 years ago. Every single solitary year our rates go up. It was free in 1998. The rates were $250 in 1999. Then $400. Then $700. Then $800. Then $900. Then $1000. Then $1200. Then $1400. We are now paying AT $1650 per month for our package. For $1650 per month, we can have an unlimited amount of inventory listed, we get a thumbnail picture on the main search page, a useless credit application link (only bustout's apply for a loan without seeing a car), a bold logo which doesn't stand out, a few spotlight ad's which generate ZERO leads, and 9 pictures of our vehicles to be hosted on the AT site.

We track every single phone call and UP on the lot. We find out if they were stopping in because of an internet site or whether they were drive by traffic.

When I first started on AT, sales were slow...maybe 3-5 cars per month from AT. I experienced roughly 10-12 sales per month from AT around 2001-2002. In 2003, when I feel AT maximized their ROI, I was selling nearly 20-22 cars every single month from AT alone for only $700-$800 bucks. Fast foward 3 and a half short years and I am back to selling 5 cars per month through AT and spending $1650 to do so. Now in the relative sense of advertising, $300 per vehicle for advertising isn't a horrible number when you are grossing $2000... But it is nearly impossible to have that kind of gross when advertising on AT.

Do a search on AT for a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee within 50 miles of your dealership. I just ran that search and there are TWO HUNDRED AND THREE 2004 Grand Cherokee's that come up. How in the world is an internet shopper going to land on my vehicle. To try to combat this problem, we've priced our vehicles so low online to get the customers in our door. Now we've eliminated our gross, but in many cases, we DO get customers in the door. Now the problem is the customers want to negotiate. It's a big problem since I am averaging $1000 gross per vehicle advertised online. So then we lose the sale because the customer wants to haggle, and we have no room left...

AT was great when there was little or no competition from other local dealers. Eventually, all of the dealers figured out AT was the biggest and best site to list their inventories on. It was the biggest bang for the buck. In 2003, they were on top of the world. But as nearly every thread on this site has pointed out, those times have come and gone and all that's left are extremely high monthly fees and very few sales.

Internet Jeff: You said 4 of your 8 sales this month are from AutoTrader.com...I think that you are in the minority and are extremely lucky.

We take 9 excellent pictures and we write excellent ads for each and every vehicle we list...but AT just isn't giving us back the ROI we became used to and now expect. The real question is what do we do now?

We were on Cars.com from 2004-2005 for 18 months. We were paying Cars.com $1100 per month and experiencing less than 2 sales per month from their site. I am not sure why it took us 18 months and $20K to cancel our contract. Cars.com rolled out some newer more attractive products and as our sales flatlined in early 2007, we decided to give them another shot. At $750 per month, it seemed like the 2 sales a month would be worth it...and of course we were hoping for more. We are still only averaging 2 sales per month over the last 4-5 months from Cars.com....

Going back to the original question: What do you think of AutoTrader.com's price hikes?

I am extremely unhappy about it...but I have come to expect it every year. Who wants to pay more and more each year for less and less?? As long as we the dealers pay their rates, AT is going to continue raising them....and can you blame them? It's just like the oil companies that are gouging us for gasoline...we aren't happy to pay $3 bucks per gallon...but what other choice is there???

ATC management like lemmings are walking straight into the flames of collapse, you can smell the fear of the unknown anymore. They've asked too much and delivered too little. I predict they will shed reps enormously after Jan 1st. Dealers have had their fill of the double speak, even their own sales reps don't believe it!

Internet Jeff: 1)you sound like you're a green pea 2) you must have a cute AT rep because you are blind to what is happening around you.
The Titanic (a.k.a. AT) is seeing the fallout begin. Not only did dealers see a rate increase recently, you're about to see another one and you won't even know it. New contracts allow AT to raise your rate without you even knowing it...in some cases 60%. Cars.com is closing the gap. AT keeps touting the JD Powers survey: their score was 682 (out of 1,000) and Cars.com's score was 678: 4 points difference. Considering the fact that Cars.com costs less and yields the same results, where is the REAL dealer satisfaction in comparing the two? And...go to JD Powers and see who powers their online classifieds. It's not AT. As a former Internet mgr, wholesaler, and now Cars.com rep, I have seen the growth, I have seen the AT greed. Can't wait to see them price themselves right out of the market and on to the street. They have and are losing their best reps that have been there from the beginning due to changes in pay structure. What they do is outline a new pay plan, tell you to sell it, then change the pay plan to benefit themselves. Now, not only are they taking dealer profit, but employee profit. Chip Perry: how do you sleep at night? Your pigs are getting fat, but you're about to get slaughtered.

When I was in first grade I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the first time and after seeing the Oompa Loompas, I was instantly in love.

I asked my mom what kind of people the Oompa Loompas were, because I just had to have one. She looked at the television and said "I don't know. Must be some sort of pygmie or something."

Sounded good to me.

A few months later my first grade teacher asked our class to write our Christmas lists to Santa. Of course the #1 thing I wanted was a pygmie. Well I never got my pygmie. All I got was a meeting with my parents and the teacher. At the time I still believed in Santa and thought he was a big fat RAT!!!!!

As far as ATC-no comment-lol

I worked there for almost 4 years.... I can tell you that priority #1 for ATC is 5x.. they want to be a 500 million dollar co. by any means necessary (they might be already or pretty close). During my time there I saw 4 rate increases. Thye have no plans to stop increasing rates.