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Dealer.com and inline CSS

alexharrisdcj

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Dec 12, 2013
11
2
First Name
Alex
Hello Dealer Refresh! Long time lurker here (lurked before I even had a job as an internet manager,) and I really do appreciate the community and the feedback everyone seems to give.

I've recently become the internet manager/director/techie at my dealership (fairly large dealership, 200 cars/month,) and have a background in web development/design.

We are currently on board with Dealer.com with our entire auto group, and the limited amount of customization and control is unbelievable. I just wanted to see if anyone on here has had any experience getting more control out of them? My main interest right now is being able to use inline CSS, which would be a godsend.

This is the current state of our website right now, and I feel it needs some serious changes, as it looks nearly identical to every dealership in our area. I've already contacted my DDC rep, but I just wanted to see what kind of experience everyone around here has had with them.

NOTE: I'm not bashing Dealer.com, I understand that not everyone in my position has the same background and experience to be able to dive into the website deeper.

Thanks for all the help!
 
Good luck, its a battle I have fought for years now. Attempting to build custom landing pages. Heck it took weeks to get Google Remarketing code placed on 20 of my dealers sites about a year ago. Now I just try to do my best to avoid dealing with them for anything. They do not like creatives trying to meddle in their business at all.
 
I may have a solution. I've tested it on the V9 platform on our end and it works.
It's not perfect, but if you have a background in web development it should work for you.

You can PM me or find me online and shoot me an email.
 
Re: dealer.com

This is very discouraging. We are thinking about moving our sites to dealer com

It's still a great platform, we just had to find our own solution to the lack of customization because the hourly rate for changes in Canada was $275. I'm not sure what that would cost in the U.S., but if you have someone savvy in-house who manages your website, it's easy enough to work around things if you know what you're doing. The one-time setup is tricky, but after that you can just FTP a stylesheet for different pages to do what you want to do.
 
The best solution I've come across is using frameless iframes(which I hate with a passion...) to pull specifically designed pages from my own private server. While this allows freedom to design things the way I want, it's still a very hacked together solution, and not easy to make responsive.
 
The best solution I've come across is using frameless iframes(which I hate with a passion...) to pull specifically designed pages from my own private server. While this allows freedom to design things the way I want, it's still a very hacked together solution, and not easy to make responsive.

Also makes these pages not SEO friendly as Google will treat them as empty pages.
 
Re: dealer.com

It's still a great platform, we just had to find our own solution to the lack of customization because the hourly rate for changes in Canada was $275. I'm not sure what that would cost in the U.S., but if you have someone savvy in-house who manages your website, it's easy enough to work around things if you know what you're doing. The one-time setup is tricky, but after that you can just FTP a stylesheet for different pages to do what you want to do.


Well at least they give you more back-end access than Ecarlist.....We aren't allowed to change anything ourselves.
 
Re: dealer.com

Well at least they give you more back-end access than Ecarlist.....We aren't allowed to change anything ourselves.

I very seldom find sites where you can't find a way to do it.
I don't know much about Ecarlist, but just find a place to inject the CSS/JS and I'm sure you'll be fine.. if they give you any admin tools at all.
 
What you need is called "Advanced Composer Access". There is an agreement that will need to be filled out that essentially absolves DDC of anything you might destroy with the enhanced access. It will also give you access to limited JavaScript functionality.

Your DDC rep should be able to assist you with getting it set up.
 
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