@Mid-Grade Ford what is your URL? In my experience, and I've used Dealer.com, DealerOn, and DealerInspire, once you start layering in 3rd party scripts like payment calc, trade tools, credit widgets, hosted chat, etc they cause issues, not the native platform. I spent two years with DealerInspire so have first-hand experience on that side of the fence as well.
DealerOn fell off. Who are the good website providers these days?
- Thread starter Mid-Grade Ford
- Start date
We are a Chevy store, but use Dealer.com. I have no complaints with DDC. Our Client Performance Manager is awesome at what she does, and any time we have had issues all I have to do is email her or support (I always email her first) and I know it's handled. The only time there is a delay in correcting issues is when DDC has to go through GM, which slows things down a little.
Yeah they try to hold rebates hostage from being sent through the feed automatically but there’s ways around it.
If you're open to running a non-certified site, the ideal way to hide the certified site is to obtain a new domain (which you'd need anyway) and use that URL for the certified site. Ideally you'd make it something a little more obscure so that the certified site doesn't populate as easily in a search and utilize your current URL that likely has years of building domain authority as your main site.
Says the vendor from a site company not on program with Ford... Just giving you a hard time @Zack_AF but we run our own WP sites and take this approach BUT we want both our FD DDC sites and our own URLs to take up space on Page 1. I would NOT recommend a dealer go through the added expense of adding their own "marketing" site to just bury the other. IMO. I still feel like @Mid-Grade Ford is having issues with 3rd party plugins, not the native platform, and I'd still love to know what his Ford URL is....
Haha! All good Dan. Just helping anyone that might explore outside options, doesn't even have to be with me! There's others out here that are capable as well.
Yeah I see your point too and perhaps bury might be the wrong term. I agree having the additional support on page 1 is good and there's ways things could run synergistically. However, if a site running support is providing a bad/different experience than what the main site is suppose to offer, I wouldn't think that would be ideal either.
I'd like to know the site as well. 3rd parties could be causing issues and/or it could be global changes that get pushed that break stuff.
Yes. It's a little unconventional, but considering OEMs have both a approved website vendor list AND an approved advertising partner list, unapproved website vendors could take a rip of ad spend (ex: 20-25%) and skirt the approved vendor rules, while still being able to use part of your co-op to fund the website. That's what I'd do if I was trying to sell websites to dealers but I wasn't an approved vendor...
Oh, I see what you are saying. Yes, it is a considerable amount of money to leave on the table with Ford by not participating with vendors. We MAKE money in advertising with Ford. Kia, on the other hand, we dropped the approved site and went back to our own because the co-op loss wasn't very painful vs having control of our price stacks and site for our Kia stores.
