Here's something I have been trying to figure out and gauge vs the market. How much in $ are you spending per vehicle sold?

Add up your total advertising (digital, print, tv, radio, 3rd party leads etc) per month and divide by total number of new & used vehicles sold (exclude any as is/junk or wholesale units).

I'll start. Our dealership is strictly Pre-Owned, so no new vehicles in there. (we are an independent AUTODOME, Selling Used Cars and Trucks in Mississauga, Toronto, Brampton| Used Cars Mississauga). We are 100% digital, no print, tv, radio for the last 2 years.

Taking an average for March, April, May

$456 per vehicle sold.

I would like to be down to $300 or lower of course.

I think this is a good indicator of how efficient our advertising dollars are being spent. Perhaps we can all help each other become more efficient and increase the number of sales for how much we spent.

If you could choose only one and ONLY one - which would you choose to add to your dealers marketing mix?

SEO or SOCIAL MEDIA?

Now, before you jump the gun and start commenting, allow me to define the two for the purpose of this thread...



When referring to SEO: traditional on page SEO content for your dealership website. This includes the optimization of individual content pages, inventory pages (VDP) with the addition of a strong blogging platform (preferably an extension of your dealers primary domain).

Your dealer website / blog can include social "share" buttons but remember, if you choose SEO you have none of your own (dealer) social pages/accounts. So only social share buttons would be permitted.

When referring to Social Media: the use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and such. The sharing of self generated or outside content but used ONLY within your social pages.

If you choose Social - you're opting OUT of any onsite / on page SEO. This includes anything past generic tagging and content on your dealership website.

I know many of you will feel obligated to speak up and comment on the fact that SEO and Social go hand in hand and the fact that SEO has "changed". I believe most of us reading this are already in the know, BUT for the sake of this conversation, lets separate the two.

Consider - If you only have the bandwidth to seriously dedicate resources to one or the other which of the 2 are you going to choose?

Once you've voted and shared your answer here in the comments... share WHY.

WHY did you choose the one you did?

Which do you believe will deliver your dealership more opportunities and better results?

I know, from various discussions with various people from various locations, that leads in general appear to be on the decline. However, I'm looking for some specific metrics on just how bad this is.
Some of the stores I'm working with are down 60-80% from last year, but it's not all in one area.

Specifically I'm wondering about website leads - not so much third party leads, AutoTrader, etc

Hi friends.

Had a meeting w/ a dealer website provider recently and they said that they don't allow the customer to place any external scripts because it might "break the site". Out of curiosity, how many of you have the same level of restrictions?

I'm really referring to vendor sites here, not custom setups.

PS - Even Cobalt allows this, and we all know how most people feel about them

I don't even remember how I can across this post by Tim Martells over on JD Rucker's SOSHABLE blog but WOW!


Tim is going on a RANT and calling industry services OUT on their SEO reporting. Basically, sorta calling them liars and criminals.


The Shocking Truth Behind Reporting In The Automotive Community


I'm not sure of the validity behind his rant or if this is nothing more than an elaborate sales pitch on his end. Either way with words like some of the below quotes from the post, it's hard to ignore.


" For the record, I think this is a wonderful website provider. Their technology is awesome and the ease of use of their products is without peer. But… they are LYING to their customers and this is unacceptable."

"I found that nearly ALL of the keywords being tracked and touted as success had a whopping monthly search volume of… wait for it… ZERO"

"What a monumental task to take on 585 keywords and obtain page 1 rankings in a single month! But what did I find? 583 of those 585 keywords had NEVER been searched. ZERO MONTHLY SEARCH VOLUME. THIS IS CRIMINAL! You are taking a dealer’s money and returning NO VALUE! How can you do that!?"


Oh - and he called out the different industry awards as being full of BS.

"I mean, CarMercial is littered with awards on their website (most which I guess were bought from AutoSuccess) but to see a PCG Digital Marketing AWA award on there really turned my stomach."


Tim finishes his rant recommending that dealers require the following 3 criteria from their SEO company's monthly reporting..


• Keyword Positioning
• Search Volume for each ranking keyword
• Link to every page of content, press release, slideshare, and link that was built, etc.


Click here to read his full rant!


I'm note sure if all of this justifies as criminal behavioral. But I do agree that SEO is an oversold and under performed service on our industry and rarely reported as it should be.


Question and Poll for the DR Community.


On a scale of 1-5 - How much do you trust your SEO provider and their provided reports?


1 being I have NO trust
5 being I have Complete trust

We are thinking about adding a third option for our 24/7 fully staffed automotive live chat service. Below is what we are considering, and the other two choices currently available to our clients. I am looking for the forum members opinion. If you think this new third option would be a good idea or bad idea. Please let me know your thoughts.


Current Options

1. CarChat24 Complete support service: Software and highly trained Staff are provided 24/7. Dealers are billed for support, sales leads, and appointments set. Service and Parts leads are always free.

2. CarChat24 Backup support service: Dealers chat with site visitors using our software, and CarChat24 acts as a 24/7 Backup to take any chat not taken by the dealership agent(s). Dealers are billed for use of software, backup support, sales leads, and appointments set by CarChat24. Service and Parts leads are always free.

Not Yet Available

Option 3: CarChat24 Performance based support service: Software and highly trained Staff are provided 24/7. Dealers are only billed for sales leads, and appointments set. Service leads, Parts leads, and the 24/7 completely staffed live chat support would be free.

With the proposed third option dealers would only pay for sales leads and appointments, and they would get the 24/7 staffed support for free.

Note: We have already shown with our 2 month case study here on DealerRefresh that our Chat Leads come as an increase in conversion, see link below.

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/free-24-7-live-dealer-chat-support-staff-leads-case-study-2-months-505-12.html


I am strongly considering adding this third option and look forward to seeing the forum members opinions


.

Do you think TrueCar deserves a second chance after all that has been said and done?


AutoCon 2012 (conference) is right around the corner. Kudos to Ralph and the DealerElite team for breaking into the conference arena - going up against the Digital Dealer Conference and the dis-likes of Mike Roscoe. I hope the best for Ralph and everyone working hard to make AutoCon become a success. There's no doubt that our industry desperately needs continued education. The difficult task is getting the dealer principles and owners more involved, but thats another topic of conversation.

One of the big surprises IMO is the announcement that TrueCar has become a sponsor of AutoCon 2012 by offering a Full Ride Scholarship Program to 12 automotive professionals. Click here to read more about the sponsorship and or to sign-up.


"The TrueCar AutoCon Scholarship Program is further evidence of the remarkable transformation that has taken place at TrueCar since the beginning of 2012. After receiving a remarkable level of criticism within the auto industry during the second half of 2011, TrueCar has evolved and revised their automotive purchasing programs for consumers and affiliated corporations to be far more dealer friendly. TrueCar’s objectives supported by these changes have included raising dealer profit margins to levels that provide more room for dealers to cover facility costs and the staffing levels needed to properly service new vehicle buyers sent to them by TrueCar."


Has TrueCar really changed? ..or is this nothing more than another marketing stunt - trying to once again pull the covers over the dealers eyes. I'm not sure I personally have a full opinion on this move quite yet - but I do believe that it seems like a stretch, after all of this...

Dealers, wake up! Edmunds TMV and TrueCar Has Your Transactional Data
TrueCar Scam on Dealerships - Are You Being Scammed?
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f40/truecar-using-zag-dealer-data-create-value-743.html
California New Car Dealers Association TrueCar Alert
Colorado Department of Revenue Cities TrueCar Advertising Violations
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/...truecar-dms-scandal-i-cant-remember-2391.html
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f46/...te-truecar-thread-post-your-updates-2369.html

VatorNews - How TrueCar faced down the auto industry and rebounded

And let's not forget Jim Zieglers post/rant against TrueCar with 100's of comments from the industry (that happens to be on the same site that is now allowing them to sponsor) True Car and ZAG - Cyber Bandits or Good for the Business? - Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community

I'm in not way using this thread to call out AutoCon and the AutoCon crew for allowing TrueCar to be a sponsor. Maybe they have good reasons for this (other than $). Maybe TrueCar has changed their stripes and are wanting to now side more with the dealership.

After all that has been said and done out of the TrueCar camp - do you believe this is nothing more than a marketing stunt and MORE importantly - does TrueCar deserve a second chance?

What do you think?

Customers’ satisfaction had been a loudly spoken mantra in the modern age which if done professionally will build your brand image as well as help you achieve manifold business growth.

We have seen in the recent decades that huge corporations have been investing in all the fancy call center facilities with extensive trainings, efficient standard operating procedures, multi-tier quality levels, and multimillion dollars CRM as well as expensive management team with Six Sigma and many other world class certifications.

Let me revisit the situation as aforesaid, has this made customers’ life easy? I would like to answer this as well, NO, customers have to go through tedious menu, need to navigate through in order to reach the department that they need to get in touch with – which is at the expensive of the customers time and efforts. In the recent times when normal working hours are becoming round-the-clock and even more…… people do not like to hang on the phone and navigate through the monotonous menu, reach to the concerned person, who can do nothing but take their message. We do not like to reach to a company while we are relaxing at home or enjoying our weekends with friends and family. So, the call center really helps us achieve customers’ satisfaction and gives dividend to our customers. My answer is not really…..

Let’s talk about the other efficient and cost effective solution available…. yes, I am talking about Live Chat. Thanks to the easy accessibility of the Internet, it is now possible for small, medium and large-scale entrepreneurs to take advantage of the live chat system and live chat support for:

• mail-in service
• carry-in service
• hot lines
• lead generation
• pre-sale, and
• sale

I was asked who should use live chat. I replied all the companies which are in the virtual world (website) must add live chat function but with professional support. No matter which industry it is that you are dealing with, you will definitely enjoy numerous benefits when you see website with live chat.
The list of benefits is never ending… but to mention few include but not limited to:

• your operational costs will be reduced because a live chat system is less costly to maintain than even the smallest call center facility.
• your customer’s trust, satisfaction and loyalty will be built once they see the “live chat” option on your website. This means that they can get in touch with a live representative from your company anytime they need to.
• you can watch your sales increase as the level of customer satisfaction gets higher – and the sales potential of your website gets optimized.
• in a nut-shell, you will see a true interactive website which everyone desires to have.

See, a lot of people do online shopping from work or after hours when they cannot talk on the phone. This is where live chat shows its real value because the visitors can be engaged with you on a chat as long as they wish to be without disturbing their task in hand. You can hit them with your sales pitch since they are in the shopping mood. There is no engaging on the phone yet looking other things in front of the prospective customer which has a potential of distracting them.


The bottom-line is that the live chat is an inbound text call center which all the online businesses must consider seriously.

What are you tracking for month-end reporting?

How many companies do you buy leads from? This isn't how many companies do you get leads from this is about how many sell you a package of leads or charge per lead?


If you want to publically post your number, feel free to do so! Could be a good conversation. We buy from 1 company: AutoUSA.

Not including emailed reports - how many times did you talk with your search marketing vendor last month?

I'm just curious -

How many people actually have a domain setup in their dealership? The phrases:

"Active Directory"
"DHCP"
"File Server"

All goes in one ear out the other. Then when you talk about price it will def. get ignored. I don't think I need to give the reasons why it would be an obvious advantage to us to move to a domain. I'm more or less just interested how many people have a system setup they can actually brag to their IT buddies about.

For the record we have 100+ systems that really are only run to applications Remote Desktop (Autobase) and Reynolds. For e-mail and file sharing we use google apps (for business obv.). For content filtering - We have a Sonicwall in place. Other than that we are pretty basic. If it was up to me we would have been on a domain a year ago with group policies and mandatory profiles setup. Though maybe that's just the network nazi that comes in.

Fill out the poll, please!

Ben Anderson with AutomotionTV posted an article over on the blog - http://www.dealerrefresh.com/mobile-reshaping-dealers-marketing-plan

The post highlights 3 key findings around Mobile.

1. The younger generation considers a smartphone a necessity, including those just above the poverty level.
2. When they can afford it, the older generation is adopting to new smartphone technology.
3. Younger subscribers, new within the last 3 months, are choosing smartphones 8 out of 10 times.


Compare this number with current subscribers of which less than 50% are smartphone owners. Those are some hard facts we shouldn't ignore. Would you agree?


What I'm curious about are your mobile numbers. Let's all contribute by posting our current numbers for our mobile website(s) right in on DealerRefresh.

While you're at it - take the survey and post your prediction of mobile website traffic to your dealership website end of 2013 below your current numbers.

This could be an interesting read 2 years from now.

I'll get us started.

Frederick Nissan Mobile stats (30 day average as of today)

% of Mobile Visits = 16.56% (of overall traffic)
Average of mobile page views = 7.32
Average time on Mobile website = 4:22

#1 Mobile Device/Browser - Andriod
#2 Mobile Device/Browser - iPhone
#3 Mobile Device/Browser - iPad

By the end of 2012 I predict an increase of 15% in mobile traffic.

We're currently using DealerOn for our mobile websites.

What are your current Stats?

Thought I would start a poll to see who takes their own photos versus paying a 3rd party provider to do it.

In these tough economic times I would think more and more dealerships would take their own photos to cut costs.

Anyone have any tips on how to better take your own photos?

Do you work out of both tools at the same time (bi-manual input system )? If YES, I'm curious as to why you still have two separate tools in this day and age?

If NO, how long have you been off of ILM and solely using just CRM?

So, your dealership has spent a ton of dough implementing Argis. To install, $10,000 and $3,000 +/- monthly. Your techs are finally on board and following the rules. Your advisors are putting forth the effort and some customers are buying. Time to move on to the next big ticket aid to selling more.

Wrong! Look at the database you're growing. The car is back in the customer's garage and you know what it needs. It seems, this is as far as it goes. What about follow-up? What about scraping every last penny out of the pipe you've spent a fortune on? This is a opportunity, not a lost sale!

With whatever upselling tools you invest in, make sure you're prepared to complete the course. Everyone says it but, who is doing it?

Are your advisors following up? Should they? Or, would a better use of their time, and talent, be spent face to face with customers on the drive? If you work the program, your advisors won't have time to call to get customers in because they'll have one customer after another all day long in front of them. So, who's going to do the follow-up on your Argis/MPI?

Not Internet Sales. They exist to sell cars. They exist to feed the salespeople on your lot the qualified buyers they need to sell to all day long.

If advisors are to service what salespeople are to sales then what's the service equivalent of the Internet Sales Department?

And.... discuss!

When you buy third party leads, will you accept them if all you get is an email address?

First Name: Not Required
Last Name: Not Required
Email Address: REQUIRED
Phone Number: Not Required

Vehicle of Interest: Not Required

I use DealerTrack's Finance App. system on my site. F&I leads go right into the DealerTrack backend.

Looking at the last 4 years, about 18 months ago, My Finance Leads counts began trending down.. WAY down.

Do you use DealerTrack? Do you have a history of Finanace form traffic stats?

Here's a 30 day sample of Finance Apps:

How are your Finance apps doing?

I've been receiving more and more requests from dealers that are receiving compliance issues on their Paid Search and Organic SEO. The premise is that a dealer is not allowed to "target" locations outside of their AOI.

For SEM it includes limiting the geo-targeting to your AOI, and for SEO it includes removing any literal mentions of areas outside your AOI.

My questions is this:
If a dealer can buy a TV spot or a Radio spot that covers their major Metro, then why can't they do the same with their Search Engine Marketing? Because it's more transparent? Or am I missing something here?

Who's benefiting here? Surely not the consumer.

...ok that was two questions.

I'm curious as to how many DealerRefresh dealers are working with a BDC of some sort. I'd also like to make this a thread where BDC questions are asked and answered.

I personally think a BDC is a necessity in dealer groups with 3 or more stores.

Given that people spend more time on FaceBook than on Google, a trend that is growing – how valuable would it be if customers posted reviews onto their personal Facebook wall?



Reviews wouldn’t be seen publically, but their influence would be higher as they would have the same influence as a personal referral.

I realized that I'm logging into facebook every couple of days instead of a few times a day. In speaking with Jeff he said his facebook usage has also dwindled. Are you still using facebook like you used to?

I'm not talking about business. I'm asking about YOUR personal usage.

Greetings,

I need help with a bogus website riding on our SEO listings in google, yahoo,bing etc..Do a search via the big 3 using www.woodybuttschevy.com. Click on the number 2 listing which looks like this
woodybuttschevy - woodybuttschevy.com - byron, GA Business


woodybuttschevy Corp locates in 909 cochran dr; byron,GA 31008,Domain is woodybuttschevy.com, we can find it in zip code 31008 business or GA business.
www.qxiu.com/GA/52529-woodybuttschevy.htm - Cached

Here are the problems.

1. Open the page and anti virus software detects Virus Generic JS.
2. Most of the information on the site is not from Woody Butts. There are 3 numbers listed. One is correct. The email woodybuttschevy does not work. The address is another city about 40 miles from our location.
3. Tried listing site with qxiu but said site is already listed. Tried signing up with company and after submit receive pade does not exist.
4. Site says qxiu is out of China with a China phone #. Emailed with no result.
5. Called local and 800 #'s and get an answering machine.
6. Our "Site" has had over 200 visitors on the qxiu site. One link does take the customer to our site. another link takes them to hotfrog.com

How do I get the listings removed from the search engines. Hate to see our customers getting virus warnings and being redirected to a wrong phone # and address?

All help is appreciated!

Brian Thompson
Woody Butts Chevy Cochran GA

Do you have an iPad? It was super-cool when it came out, but you can't put it in your pocket and it dosent have a keyboard, so... How often do you use it?

It always amazed me how difficult it was for my coworkers to rarely get their paper work right when selling a car. Sure, I could understand not getting a stip together because they don't happen all that often, but to forget a trade appraisal form, the credit application, or a signed privacy act notice - these kind of things always shocked me.

What are some of the common paper work problems you have seen?