Dale Pollak VS Michael Rose AT DSMC

[yagoparamo]

I recorded this video with my iPhone while at DSMC.

I was paying attention half way when I saw Dale raise his hand after thinking for a while. Last question of the day. I called Peter Leto from Google and made him aware of Dale. I knew this had to be interesting.

Michael explained the new Google cars program, which I'm sure is a great concern to Autotrader. Dale Pollak, Chip Perry, and 2 other of the Autotrader top brass were in attendance.

Michael was talking about their strategy of bringing a better communication system for the consumer to improve their willingness to give up their contact information (proxy contact) as well as market transparency by providing the consumer with market data such as average sale price and so forth. It is interesting to note that KBB is already providing market sales data to the consumer.

When Dale grab the microphone he said he didn't have a question for Michael but for the audience and ask how they felt of this new "race to the bottom" specially in regards to other recent events (2012 True car strategy). Michael defended his position by explaining that they will post average market data not lowest selling data. Please watch the rest of the story.

This video is interesting because it sets the stage for perhaps what could be one of the major most meaningful changes in the digital automotive arean as Google takes the center stage in long tail and make/geo searches.

Ask yourself:

1) Is this the begging of the end for 3rd party website leads?

2) Does Google have this right; customers are better served by finding your cars straight in Google instead of paying Autotrader to pay Google to show your cars (we are cutting a middle man --> cheaper leads)?

3) Are people not sending enough leads because of fear of unlimited solicitation, will Google's proxy approach get us more volume of leads?







PGI 1 - YouTube


Remember, you saw it first on Dealer Refresh!

 

[kcar]

Google Cars? NO.
Cars.com? NO.
AutoTrader? NO.

When will dealers wake up and generate their OWN leads. You all realize that if you CUT OFF AutoTrader for example, and they had zero $$$ from dealers, they would STOP taking up terms like "used ford city" in the searches... And Wow, fancy this, a dealer that's in that city would get the traffic that goes DIRECTLY to their website. And have own their leads, and not have to pay other people for them! Dealers are the root of the problem here, they are paying AT, Cars.com, etc $$$ to screw them over. Keep funding these big car search sites and watch as they keep throwing $$$ to rank for all your city terms.

How any dealer can be okay with Google coming in and stealing all their traffic is beyond me... Does anyone really want to pay for leads, and not even be given the customer's info, and only a proxy e-mail that's not real? I don't. Not to mention, a lead that's also being resold over and over? No thanks. Dealers should be against AT, Cars.com, Google Cars, HARD. Not giving away complete control.

/post. in b4 no one can use their brain to understand this.

 

[yagoparamo]

Google Cars? NO.
Cars.com? NO.
AutoTrader? NO.

When will dealers wake up and generate their OWN leads. You all realize that if you CUT OFF AutoTrader for example, and they had zero $$$ from dealers, they would STOP taking up terms like "used ford city" in the searches... And Wow, fancy this, a dealer that's in that city would get the traffic that goes DIRECTLY to their website. And have own their leads, and not have to pay other people for them! Dealers are the root of the problem here, they are paying AT, Cars.com, etc $$$ to screw them over. Keep funding these big car search sites and watch as they keep throwing $$$ to rank for all your city terms.

How any dealer can be okay with Google coming in and stealing all their traffic is beyond me... Does anyone really want to pay for leads, and not even be given the customer's info, and only a proxy e-mail that's not real? I don't. Not to mention, a lead that's also being resold over and over? No thanks. Dealers should be against AT, Cars.com, Google Cars, HARD. Not giving away complete control.

/post. in b4 no one can use their brain to understand this.

If it was that simple...

 

[yagoparamo]

If it was that simple...

Now that Joe joined...

If it was that simple Joe and I would own the largest network of dealers across the nation! It will be called JoeNation.

Whether you like Autotrader, Cars.com, etc or not the reality is that you need to advertise and you will pay whether it is to them, or building your own assets, or going back to newspaper.

I can tell you that one bad thing about building your own assets (there are also lots of good things though) is that when you fail you pay the full price. Dealers that spend a lot of money in link farming lost everything when Google did their Panda/Penguin updates last year. So if you build your stuff, make sure you have a really good well thought multi strategy (build your own stuff but also play with the 3rd party networks).

On the other hand, if Autotrader/Cars fail in their strategy, you cancel and that is the end of the story (look at Vehix.com).

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Thanks for sharing this with the community Yago. You may just have recorded a piece of history here.

Is Google a true threat to AutoTrader and Cars.com? Really?

 

[yagoparamo]

Thanks for sharing this with the community Yago. You may just have recorded a piece of history here.

Is Google a true threat to AutoTrader and Cars.com? Really?

I think so.

Much of the traffic these and other 3rd party sites have comes from showing in long tail searches. Searches that dealers SHOULD have are dominated by them. Look at ford f150 seattle where Autotrader, Yahoo, and Cars.com are on top. Even the 'spaced' search ford f 150 seattle has Cargurus and Autotrader in there.

Autotrader can't advertise locally in every single town's TV and newspaper. Organic SEO and SEM has to be their main game.

How can you win at SEO and SEM when you play against the team that owns the court and makes the rules?

 

[joe.pistell]

2 years ago, right here at DR I wrote:

"Be afraid Mr. Perry be verrrry afraid"
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f21/new-spin-autotrader-buy-thon-1394-2.html#post12926

I wrote:
"...Vendors, once the beast (Google) lowers its sights on our vertical, look out. Mega game changer is an understatement (read this post). I've been in discussions with a VP of a Google Products Technology vendor (edgenet.com). I wanted her to explore our space, but, their biz model wont work here. Someone hook me up with an exec. over at "Google Products". I need to bend their ear for 30 mins and open up our door."

 

[joe.pistell]

Which lead to one of my most awesome DR posts ever*:

"An Open Letter to Mark O’Neil – Chairman and CEO of DealerTrack"
Is DealerTrack Chrome the Answer Google Has Been Looking For?


*IMO only

 

[joe.pistell]

Summary.

Theres a BIGGER wave coming!
Once google and chrome agree on vehicle attributes and establish standards, BAM! Here comes PPC ads with photos, all coming from your daily website export! You'll simply run a daily export to your google store and your PPC campaigns will grab the images and data from your store... and there goes a giant sucking sound from AutoTraders share of the dealers digital spend.

 

[Viracocha]

I was midly entertained that Vauto's visonary showed concern over a race to the bottom. Is that not what Vauto has done in the used vehicle arena; lowered gross expectation by encouraging dealers to compete for the same top 10 spots on autotrader? Now before the rush of Pollaknation supporters comes in, take note i do not use vauto's software but do acknowledge that there is more to it than that.