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Anyone using iHeart's XVin solution - looking for feedback

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#31
Dave Lemmon said:
The companies who are now in the selling VDP business aren't making it work better, they're just creating a sizzle story for insanely overpriced AIA.
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There's big money to be made if you can convince a dealer to pay $4 for something that may only cost the vendor 15 cents on Facebook or a display network. And even bigger money if you can make an OEM fall for the same story and become an approved and highly encouraged traffic source.

Those are insane profit margins when compared to the standard "paltry" 35% paid search management fee.

That is why I am excited that there are finally companies like AET Automotive and Dealers United that are putting the power back in dealers' hands by making it easy to run these types of campaigns in-house.
 
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#32
Ryan Everson said:
There's big money to be made if you can convince a dealer to pay $4 for something that may only cost the vendor 15 cents on Facebook or a display network. And even bigger money if you can make an OEM fall for the same story and become an approved and highly encouraged traffic source.

Those are insane profit margins when compared to the standard "paltry" 35% paid search management fee.

That is why I am excited that there are finally companies like AET Automotive and Dealers United that are putting the power back in dealers' hands by making it easy to run these types of campaigns in-house.
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Yeah, I think this is fine. I also know that our clients are getting AIA as a small part of a much larger social strategy and is done at a very reasonable and transparent agency fee. The number of ways AIA is simply repackaged as something else and sold with insane markups is pretty disheartening and makes me sad for the state of vendors.
 
#33
Ryan Everson said:
$1 per VDP view seems a little pricey when they are using dynamic Facebook AIA and Google Display Ads to generate the traffic.

Although compared to LotLinx's average cost per shopper of around $3-4 using similar tactics, it seems like a bargain.

They sure have dealers' trigger words nailed down though - conquest your competitor's traffic and cancel your third parties!

Did iHeart actually develop this program? Historically they've been more of a middleman reseller of other companies' white-labeled services...
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Ebenn said:
Define high quality? Does the car move off the lot or not? Who cares about vdps if it doesn't sell. Low funnel buyers who want the specifc vin they deep linked too don't send a lead, and don't need to click through multiple pages. Verfiy this is the car they want to buy...go to the dealership and get it! Average days in campaign on Lotlinx is from 11-20 days before its sold. Are there times when Lotlinx has no impact? Of course, as with all. Lotlinx isn't about leads or conversions. Conversions as you said are very low. Low funnel Buyers don't need to email or text or want to be bothered by a follow up call. They want to buy the car. Lotlinx is not for dealers who define success with a high vdp count nor for dealers who want "leads". Lotlinx is for dealers who want to move inventory. It's not for everyone. I had a dealer say.."i don't know how Lotlinx does it but the cars I put in campaign sell and that is all I care about".
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You are 100% Correct, and Iheart is junk, I have seen first hand the amount of traffic they drive to a VDP, and the budget they use to do so. They also offer no VIN level reporting, by spend. With LotLinx you at least know exactly what you spent on every car every month, and we do that for every vendor you use to sends traffic to your website and that part we offer for free. Every time I onboard someone on iHeart onto this free tool its EYE opening to say the least, handful of cars waste 80% of the budget and usually those are the cars organically getting found. Its comical really the claims they make.
 
Dominion DMS
#36
Ryan Everson said:
For new cars, we typically create sets for each model and then the body style category. For used cars, we will create sets for different price ranges, body styles, inventory age, CPO, etc. This strategy also allows us to tailor the ad copy and creative to each set's typical buyer persona, all while being able to direct the budget according to our objectives.
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WOW -- great insight/idea. This right here is why people should be on DealerRefresh.

vs the "check out our super dupper big inventory at great pricing" -- You mean your under 20k vehicles can have a custom text? Your 100+ trucks can mention you have 100+ trucks?

If you do AIA yourself, or with a vender, make sure your strategy allows this type of campaign setup.
 
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Dominion DMS
#37
AutoAng said:
its EYE opening to say the least, handful of cars waste 80% of the budget and usually those are the cars organically getting found.
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Yes, this is a very common pitfall that many dealers and agencies make when setting up AIA campaigns:

Ryan Everson said:
I have seen instances where certain "eye-candy" vehicles capture a lion's share of the clicks when dealers run a single AIA campaign for their entire catalog and are optimizing for content views or clicks, so it is certainly something to be cognizant of.

We run a variety of AIA campaigns - some for the entire catalog, others for segmented vehicle sets. This ensures we still have a level of control over where our AIA budget goes.

For new cars, we typically create sets for each model and then the body style category. For used cars, we will create sets for different price ranges, body styles, inventory age, CPO, etc. This strategy also allows us to tailor the ad copy and creative to each set's typical buyer persona, all while being able to direct the budget according to our objectives.

And it doesn't hurt to create catalog filters to exclude specific vehicle models (high ends sports cars) or vehicle years (classic cars) that don't need the traffic yet tend to receive a lot of it.
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So, LotLinx's premise definitely has some merit. I just don't believe the results we experienced justified the premium price they charged when a strategy could be deployed as described above that also prevents the "eye-candy" issue.
 
Dominion DMS
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