• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Google My Business adds inventory

Thanks Dan.... As an inventory mgmt software development company working with DBA, they often send me dealer groups who have a want or need to separate a combined feed or who want to move beyond "Scraping" to get the real benefits of SEO activated inside the dealer's individual GMBs. We have the unique ability to parse data feeds from multiple rooftops and multiple sources (prices from VAuto, Photos from Excite, Seller Notes from Homenet) into a single feed, append that feed for optimal GMB SEO and Merchandising per store, and then submit a rooftop to GMB inventory file through DBA into GMB. Scraping works for some as a quick-fix but, as I outlined, is not going to win you any organic optimization favor within Google's GMB ranking algorithm. I'm happy to jump on a call with you and my contact at GMB and see what we might be able to understand about your current feed setup and see if our service would make sense. I can tell you that, if SEO & SRP to VDP conversion is your focus....DBA would rather put you together with a partner like us to get the results you want/expect (SEO ranking results a scrape cannot duplicate). My mobile is 561-307-8849. Happy to see how or whether there is a fit for your focus.
Do you all have any data sets to prove that you have value beyond in-house use and optimization of GMB posts, offers, inventory, services etc?
 
Savvy Dealer is an approved vendor. They are based out Tampa, FL
Anthony, nothing wrong with saying "We" if you work for them. How about throwing out the process that a dealer would need to go through with you guys if they wanted to at least get started. Also, give your insight to the program and where it is going from a Vendor perspective?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ryan Everson
Awkward! A new rep sent me a screen shot of one of our GMB Mobile listings with our inventory today. He literally claimed that his company posted our inventory on GMB not knowing we had set it up end of January. I won't say the company name but it starts with an "E", ends with an "s" and in the middle sounds like, "dmund".

"On another note, I'm not sure if you have been updated yet... E&%^#@$ has partnered with Google and your inventory now shows up on mobile devices under your Google Business Profile!

This is a prime example of why I joined this company! They are ahead of the game here."

What other vendors are you all using and what major companies are now wrapping this within their offering?
 
Awkward! A new rep sent me a screen shot of one of our GMB Mobile listings with our inventory today. He literally claimed that his company posted our inventory on GMB not knowing we had set it up end of January. I won't say the company name but it starts with an "E", ends with an "s" and in the middle sounds like, "dmund".

"On another note, I'm not sure if you have been updated yet... E&%^#@$ has partnered with Google and your inventory now shows up on mobile devices under your Google Business Profile!

This is a prime example of why I joined this company! They are ahead of the game here."

What other vendors are you all using and what major companies are now wrapping this within their offering?
UPDATE Edmunds did send an apology. They also clarified they've done this proactively for all dealers that didn't opt-out after an email communication earlier this month. I can appreciate a vendor that seeks me out to bring clarity and accepts responsibility. They did say it was sent out on the 12th. I think they misspoke and it went out on the 5th with a cut-off of the 12th (I found it in my spam). The roll-out on their end was not supposed to replace any prior feed that a dealer was already running. In our case, the Edmunds feed DID replace the ones we had set up with DBA Platform which isn't good and now adds work on our plate to fix.

For those of you that set up Cars for Sale early, and are also Edmunds dealers, check your listings to see if your UTM tags now contains campaign=edmunds_carsforsale. If you'd like to resolve and revert back to your other provider, you can reach out to (and he asked me to post):

Ian Isch - Edmunds
Senior Director, Sales Development
216.315.1222 mobile
 
Last edited:
UPDATE Edmunds did send an apology. They also clarified they've done this proactively for all dealers that didn't opt-out after an email communication earlier this month. I can appreciate a vendor that seeks me out to bring clarity and accepts responsibility. They did say it was sent out on the 12th. I think they misspoke and it went out on the 5th with a cut-off of the 12th (I found it in my spam). The roll-out on their end was not supposed to replace any prior feed that a dealer was already running. In our case, the Edmunds feed DID replace the ones we had set up with DBA Platform which isn't good and now adds work on our plate to fix.

For those of you that set up Cars for Sale early, and are also Edmunds dealers, check your listings to see if your UTM tags now contains campaign=edmunds_carsforsale. If you'd like to resolve and revert back to your other provider, you can reach out to (and he asked me to post):

Ian Isch - Edmunds
Senior Director, Sales Development
216.315.1222 mobile
I’m kinda surprised you still have edmunds on as a vendor, given the ownership change.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alex Vetter
I’m kinda surprised you still have edmunds on as a vendor, given the ownership change.
@Rob As I've spent more time in this business, I realized that making changes on vendors based on emotions/relationships usually didn't pan out. That and we are grandfathered in at a pretty low rate LOL. Seriously though, if you look at some of my posts from 3 to 10 years ago, it was "that rep made me mad, fire 'em" or "I hate that company just because, fire 'em". Decisions are now, and will be, based on performance. I think our industry, actually I know our industry, is extremely emotional and relationship based. That isn't scalable (as a decision or sales model), for us or the vendors.
 
@Rob As I've spent more time in this business, I realized that making changes on vendors based on emotions/relationships usually didn't pan out. That and we are grandfathered in at a pretty low rate LOL. Seriously though, if you look at some of my posts from 3 to 10 years ago, it was "that rep made me mad, fire 'em" or "I hate that company just because, fire 'em". Decisions are now, and will be, based on performance. I think our industry, actually I know our industry, is extremely emotional and relationship based. That isn't scalable (as a decision or sales model), for us or the vendors.
I mean I don’t see choosing not to give a major competitor money & data every month as emotional, but that’s just me.

I agree that changing vendors on a whim is generally a poor choice. But I don’t think it applies here at all. To each their own, eh?