Websites, SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Marketing

This thread discusses Twitter's value for dealerships, with the original poster arguing that despite Twitter's character limitations, it's effective for customer service and listening to feedback. While replies highlight practical implementation challenges (building followers, competing with Facebook's larger user base), the consensus is that Twitter's worth depends on your target demographic and geographic market, and should be promoted across all dealership touchpoints to drive awareness and engagement.

A GM's proposal to issue iPads to all salespeople sparks debate about whether the devices are a genuine business necessity or just a luxury want. While skeptics argue laptops could serve the same function, experienced users demonstrate real value through sales apps like vAuto's RealDeal, eCarlist, and Cars.com tools that enable on-lot pricing comparisons, customer objections handling, and appraisals—though the consensus is that iPads work best for salespeople committed to using them regularly rather than as a blanket rollout.

Ryan Deemer argues that modern automotive marketing has become overly complicated with numerous channels and trends, causing dealers to lose sight of fundamental marketing principles: reaching the right customer at the right time with the right offer. Respondents agree that this core question should guide all marketing strategy, and while internet managers must experiment with various "triggers" to understand what resonates with customers, ultimately only actual sales determine whether the approach was correct. The thread emphasizes that successful marketing requires balancing trendy tactics with back-to-basics customer targeting fundamentals.

Sparked by a 2008 Kelsey Group study showing 33% of dealers using online video with 59% planning to adopt it, the thread debates whether video marketing actually drives car sales or simply builds dealership brand awareness. Contributors largely agree that vehicle-specific videos alone won't close deals, but dealership culture and personality videos can meaningfully influence buyer decisions further up the funnel. A recurring caution emerged around vendor overpromising — with participants comparing the space to the 'wild west' and warning against snake-oil pitches.

A user shares a productivity tip for dealership staff struggling to write vehicle comments: using speech recognition software instead of typing to generate descriptions faster and with minimal training required. The discussion remains light and brief, with community members jokingly offering to compensate the original poster for the helpful advice, and one mention of an alternative tool (Max 3.0) that offers automated descriptions.

Google Places removed third-party review sites (DealerRater, Edmunds, Yelp, etc.) from search results, displaying only Google-native reviews in the SERP snippet, which frustrated dealers who had invested heavily in building reviews across multiple platforms. Participants debate whether this is Google leveraging market dominance to force dealers toward its own tools and services, or a legitimate quality control measure, with most concluding that dealers must now diversify their review strategy across both Google and third-party sites rather than relying on any single platform.

The thread explores how dealership websites are missing a key conversion opportunity by neglecting customized 'Thank You' pages after form submissions, and how Google Analytics Multi-Channel Sales Funnels can help track their impact. Contributors debate whether a dedicated thank-you page risks disrupting the shopper's navigation flow versus the opportunity to drive further engagement — such as prompting credit applications, email signups, or showcasing similar vehicles. The core insight is that over 90% of dealer websites fail to re-engage already-converted visitors, leaving a low-cost, high-return marketing opportunity untapped.

Automotive dealers debate whether to adopt Facebook's new Timeline format for business pages, with opinions split between those warning of lost functionality and limited controls versus those advocating early adoption to maximize the new features. The thread highlights Coca-Cola's sophisticated timeline implementation as a model for brands willing to invest effort, while skeptics argue Facebook is restricting organic reach to force paid promotion. The key insight is that the decision depends on each dealership's current Facebook optimization level—those with minimal setup may benefit more from switching than those with existing investments.

Nathan Carr shares his dealership's PPC metrics (CPC: $1.38, CPL: $7-8, 18%+ conversion rate) and seeks benchmarking feedback from other dealers in the competitive Chicago market. Respondents from Dealer.com confirm his numbers are excellent and suggest optimization strategies like segmented campaigns by keyword volume/radius and Infiniti brand-specific targeting, while noting that his strong conversion rate may be inflated by heavy brand-name bidding. The key insight is that while Nathan's overall metrics are industry-leading, expansion beyond brand protection into more competitive long-tail and general keywords will likely increase costs but improve volume.

Automotive professionals discuss the unconventional and visually chaotic website of LingsCars, a UK-based car leasing business run by Ling, which became notable for winning a "Brian Pash website award" despite its busy design. Ling herself joins the conversation to clarify that she's generating significant business results—100,000 monthly visits, 300 proposals, and over 100 orders per month with commission income exceeding $80,000 monthly—demonstrating that effective automotive marketing doesn't require traditional web design principles.

A Nissan dealer inquires about DealerLink's special finance lead generation service as a potential addition to their existing BlueSky partnership, prompting another industry professional to provide a checklist of critical questions to evaluate any special finance lead provider, including contract terms, lender partnerships, CRM compatibility, lead processing frequency, and BDC requirements. The thread highlights that dealers should conduct thorough due diligence on pricing structure, operational flexibility, and transparency before committing to a new lead source in the competitive special finance market.

Facebook introduced a new "Auto Intender" targeting category that identifies users actively searching for a new vehicle, offering automotive dealers a more precise audience segment for advertising. The thread presents initial reactions from dealers and marketing professionals who express interest in testing this feature, though no substantive discussion or performance data emerges from participants. The key takeaway is that this represents a potentially valuable new targeting option for auto dealers, though its actual effectiveness remains to be determined through testing.

John Quinn questions whether Facebook will remain a viable long-term marketing platform for car dealers, drawing a comparison to fad products like Pet Rocks, while acknowledging its current advertising importance. Responses emphasize the need for marketers to stay adaptive across evolving digital channels rather than betting everything on one platform, with one commenter noting that predicting which platforms will succeed is inherently uncertain.

Automotive dealership professionals debated which leads should be counted in monthly performance reports, with disagreement between management (who wanted to count all leads) and sales staff (who wanted to exclude duplicates, bad contact info, and unresponsive leads). The consensus that emerged favors excluding only leads with truly invalid contact information, duplicates (counting the original), and known non-human submissions, while counting unresponsive leads to maintain accountability for follow-up quality and email effectiveness. The underlying issue driving the debate was the poor ROI of third-party lead sources and whether dealers should reallocate marketing spend toward higher-performing channels rather than simply chasing lead volume.

John Quinn questions whether dealerships can use retargeting pixels based on visitor engagement with their social media pages (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist) as part of a broader digital marketing strategy, citing a Brian Pasch article. He's essentially asking if it's possible to create pixel pools from social page visitors and retarget them with ads, but receives no responses or insights in the thread.

A dealer asks whether print mailers still drive results for automotive sales and service, questioning common claims that they're wasteful. Responses indicate mailers can be effective, with one dealer reporting 10-20 sales per campaign through MUDD, while another emphasizes mailers' underrated value for brand awareness and guaranteed impressions, even when ROI is difficult to measure in the short term.

The thread introduces Haystack Digital Marketing Platform's "path-to-conversion" reporting feature, which tracks all search terms and display ads a customer interacts with before converting to a lead, providing deeper insight into customer intent beyond standard search marketing metrics. By placing cookies on user browsers, the tool maps the complete customer journey across multiple touchpoints, helping dealers understand which ads and keywords actually drive conversions rather than relying on last-click attribution alone. The key insight is that this multi-touch visibility enables dealers to optimize their search and display marketing spend more effectively by understanding the full path customers take to conversion.

Dealers discuss whether Pinterest, then the fastest-growing social network with nearly 11 million visitors and a predominantly female 25-44 demographic, is worth pursuing for automotive retail. The general consensus is skeptical at the dealer level — participants worry about spam and geographic irrelevance — though some see potential for OEMs to create pinnable content that could drive local dealership traffic. A few contributors shared external resources on business uses of Pinterest for those still curious about finding the right angle.

A vendor promotes SMS marketing as superior to email, citing statistics showing higher text message open rates and lower spam perception, but community members challenge the data's credibility and question the vendor's conflict of interest. Experienced dealers in the thread acknowledge SMS's value for transactional alerts (like price drops) but report that customers actively resist aggressive sales-focused texting and quickly opt out. The consensus suggests SMS works best for opt-in service notifications rather than marketing pitches, and aggressive text marketing risks damaging dealer reputation and customer relationships.

Shereef announces an upcoming beta test for CarChat24, a chat service product, and invites DealerRefresh members to participate as early adopters starting mid to late February for 30-40 days. Beta participants will receive free access to the Premium Pro version supporting up to 5 operators across multiple platforms (Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android) in exchange for identifying bugs, providing feedback, and suggesting features. The post appears to be cut off before detailing all benefits, but the key opportunity is gaining early access to a new communication tool in exchange for helping refine the product before its full release.

Dealers discuss best practices for optimizing YouTube videos to drive local traffic, with the original poster sharing examples of geo-targeted vehicle videos and asking whether lengthy descriptions help or hurt performance. Respondents largely agree that video optimization matters for SEO and local search visibility, but emphasize keeping descriptions concise and consumer-focused rather than keyword-stuffed, while titles should include year, make, model, and target cities without over-complicating. The consensus suggests individual vehicle videos do provide value for search rankings when properly tagged, though some debate whether the ROI justifies the production expense compared to other marketing channels.

A dealer seeks training recommendations for a newly hired, inexperienced Internet Manager who has sales background but no automotive experience. The community strongly recommends using DealerRefresh itself as the primary learning resource, supplemented by external content like webinars and articles on phone skills and Internet Manager responsibilities, while emphasizing the importance of protecting the new hire from negative influences from existing dealership staff.