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Community members discuss their attendance plans for the NADA 100-year anniversary conference, with several confirmations (ryan.gerardi, Jason, WillMcG32) and several declining (Alexander Lau, Rick Buffkin, Jeff Kershner). Ryan Leslie proposes an official DealerRefresh meetup at the event, and Molly Curry offers to write an article about exhibitor deals that Jeff Kershner agrees to host on the platform.
This thread announces a DealerRefresh webinar featuring Rune Hauge from Drive Motors discussing how dealers can adapt their e-commerce strategies to meet the shopping behaviors of millennials and modern consumers. While the original premise focuses on millennials, the key insight is that online car shopping has become essential for all demographics—not just younger buyers—requiring dealers to implement features like virtual test drives and streamlined online experiences to remain competitive.
AutoFi and Informativ are hosting a webinar showcasing six strategies that top dealers use to accelerate their sales and finance processes while maintaining FTC Safeguards Rule compliance. The session addresses the industry tension between speeding up customer transactions and avoiding compliance violations that can result in significant penalties for dealerships.
Ryan Gerardi shares an edited webinar conversation with AutoLeadStar's CEO about using AI tools to optimize automotive digital marketing, covering how AI can personalize the customer journey by tracking behavior, automating campaign segmentation, and scaling personalization across all buyers. The discussion includes a preview of AutoLeadStar's new machine learning tool launching Fall 2017, designed to address common problems like irrelevant popups and lack of personalization. The key insight is that AI enables dealers to maximize marketing ROI by automating and intelligently customizing every stage of the online shopping experience.
A webinar about digital retailing and consumer experience scheduled for March 26th was canceled due to technical issues and the chaos of the early pandemic period. Attendees encountered registration errors and sought clarification, but organizers from TradePending postponed the event to reschedule once conditions stabilized. The thread reflects the industry-wide disruption dealers faced in spring 2020 as they pivoted to remote work.
DealerOn is hosting a free, invitation-only networking event in Ashburn, Virginia featuring golf, a Google presentation, and industry speakers for automotive professionals. While the original post promotes the event, the thread quickly derails into off-topic golf anecdotes and product recommendations unrelated to the dealership industry, suggesting the discussion lost its professional focus.
Jeff Kershner announces a Roadster webinar featuring two experienced salespeople—Dustin Dutterer (Sun Automotive Group) and Gabe Hale (Rallye BMW)—discussing how digital retailing has impacted their day-to-day selling and improved their results. The webinar promises to cover dealership culture supporting sales success and how technology enables parallel deal management to boost productivity. The thread itself contains minimal discussion beyond the announcement and a brief, lighthearted typo correction.
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This thread announces an AutoLeadStar and Google webinar focused on marketing automation for dealerships, specifically addressing inefficiencies like manual ad creation, outdated inventory ads, and lack of reporting transparency. A commenter expresses concern about email marketing frequency, prompting acknowledgment from the organizer about finding better campaign cadence. The thread serves primarily as a webinar announcement with a redirect to a related discussion forum about the broader question of outsourcing versus in-house marketing management.
Jon Berna from Driven Data answers dealer questions about analytics and marketing performance, revealing that inventory levels correlate 61% with website engagement and that leads have a logarithmic (not linear) relationship with sales. The discussion covers Driven Data's competitive positioning versus Clarivoy, their Facebook Custom Audience integration capabilities (with 95% match rates for DMS sales data), and analysis of high-performing outlier dealerships, though the data suggests these outliers are actually high-inventory stores with surprisingly poor engagement rather than small-market success stories.
Jeff Kershner announces a MomentFeed webinar featuring marketing managers from Pinch a Penny (a major pool supply retailer) to discuss leveraging online reviews for business growth. The key insight highlighted is that nearly 70% of consumers rely on reviews before purchasing, and improving a star rating from 3 to 4 can drive 10% increases in foot traffic and revenue. The post emphasizes the importance of having a review management strategy in place.
Alex Snyder and Jeff Kershner announced an upcoming webinar featuring 10 critical questions dealers should ask when evaluating digital marketing vendors, covering voice search, data utilization, SEO, content strategy, fees, reviews integration, certifications, account support, and ROI tracking. The broadcast, scheduled for Wednesday at 1:00 PM EST as part of a two-part series, emphasizes that these evaluation criteria are essential considerations for dealers selecting or assessing their current marketing providers.
This thread announces Session #4 of the DealerRefresh Roundtable, which examines automotive marketing attribution and debates its necessity and practical application for dealers, covering last-touch vs. multi-touch models, credit allocation between marketing and sales, and gaps in current vendor data sharing. A key insight from the discussion is that attribution reports are often ineffective because they lack actionable recommendations, benchmarks, and timely data—making them unhelpful for dealers trying to make strategic decisions. A follow-up RefreshFriday segment was scheduled to explore the value of attribution while addressing these historical shortcomings.
Refresh Friday is a weekly live broadcast series on DealerRefresh that expanded in 2018 from 30 to 40 minutes per episode, featuring industry experts discussing trending automotive retail topics like autonomous vehicles, inventory management, digital marketing, and vendor platforms. The thread documents episodes from January through March 2018, each featuring different guest speakers and hosts discussing current industry challenges, data insights, and business strategies relevant to car dealers and automotive professionals. The series serves as a primary resource for dealers seeking peer insights and expert commentary on rapidly evolving automotive retail issues.
Alex Snyder announces a live broadcast battle between DealerKnows and DealerRefresh scheduled for Friday at 1:00 PM ET on DealerRefresh's Facebook page, framed humorously as competing for microphone time with Joe Webb. The post uses playful competitive language to promote what appears to be a lighthearted on-air competition or debate between the two platforms.
Jeff Kershner highlights Kevin Frye's reputation as a dedicated dealer presenter at Digital Dealer conferences and directs the community to his detailed review of Digital Dealer 24, which took place in Orlando, FL, encouraging discussion and Q&A. The thread serves as a recommendation and discussion hub for Kevin's conference insights, with Alex Snyder's brief reply affirming Kevin's consistent quality contributions to the industry. The key insight is that Kevin Frye is recognized as a valuable community voice who actively synthesizes and shares takeaways from major industry events with his peer dealers.
This thread discusses a one-hour podcast episode hosted by Ryan Gerardi and Chris Leslie covering 2018 automotive industry trends, including how vendors can better demonstrate value to dealers and the rise of subscription-based vehicle ownership models. A key insight emerges from Alexander Lau's response: vendors should prioritize transparency by clearly presenting their KPIs and performance metrics within a sales attribution model to prove whether they actually drive car sales, which would separate high-performing vendors from those without substantive value. The thread also touches on the challenge of reaching dealers outside online communities.
This thread promotes a DealerOn webinar by Dave Spannhake on opportunity marketing that teaches dealers how to leverage customer data and digital marketing concepts like "big data" and "programmatic advertising" to drive website traffic and improve conversion rates. The session focuses on developing strategic website plans using proven tactics and industry-wide data to attract more shoppers. The key insight is that automotive vendors have access to significant customer information that can be strategically applied to boost both traffic and sales conversions.
Dane Saville announces a webinar hosted by his CEO in partnership with DealerOn, scheduled for Thursday at 12:00 P.M. Eastern, focusing on an updated strategy for opportunity marketing that uses data to drive traffic, conversions, and sales. The webinar promotes a proven approach to customer acquisition, with registration available via the provided link.
This webinar, hosted on January 24th, covers how to apply four-square write-up marketing strategies to your dealership website to generate more leads and customers. Key topics include setting up targeted marketing tactics for each write-up component, leveraging trade evaluator tools to improve gross profit, and optimizing overall website conversion rates. The session features Dave Pavlu, founder of Best Price Now, discussing practical tactics to increase first-party leads through write-up-focused strategies.
This thread announces a DealerRefresh webinar scheduled for January 17th featuring Podium, focused on leveraging online reviews to drive showroom traffic and boost dealership visibility. The webinar addresses how customer reviews impact search rankings on major automotive sites (Google, Cars.com, DealerRater, Edmunds) and influence purchase decisions, positioning online reputation management as a critical complement to traditional advertising spending. The key insight is that strong online reviews function as both a credibility signal and an SEO tool that converts online searches into actual showroom visits.
This webinar covers the importance of establishing a vehicle disposition strategy at the time of purchase, rather than after acquisition, to improve efficiency and pricing effectiveness in used car operations. The session emphasizes evaluating market days supply and vehicle desirability upfront to determine whether units should be targeted for retail, wholesale, or a hybrid approach, which then informs pricing tactics like holding for gross margin versus rapid discounting. The key insight is that pre-planned disposition strategies keep alternative sales channels in focus and enable dealers to optimize pricing decisions based on realistic market conditions.
This webinar features a case study from Ben Robertaccio of Morries Auto Group and David Metter of AutoHook on how to identify and reduce lost sales through traffic conversion analysis. The presentation demonstrates how one Subaru dealership increased sales and reduced customer defection despite declining market conditions and lead volume, using data-driven methods to pinpoint losses by salesperson, lead source, model, competitor, and geography. The key insight is that systematically analyzing where and why sales are being lost enables dealers to make targeted improvements and recover revenue they're currently leaving on the table.