The Weekly Refresh: Cars.com, Web2Carz.com, AOL and VAST.com, Baby boomers, Dealers ARE tech-savvy

[Jeff Kershner]

• Cars.com partnership goes live with Yahoo, while AutoTrader partners with kbb.com. I think Cars.com got the better deal here! What do you think?

• Web2Carz wants your dealer's inventory on their website and it’s FREE! Plus you get your inventory will be send to their data distribution partners such as Google and Oodle. Contact Alex Bravy for more information at 1-847-780-4821.

• AOL teams up with VAST.com to power AOL Autos used car marketplace. I spoke with Kevin Laws, CEO of Vast and Doug Eddy of AOL, they seem to have an interesting product in their hands. I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

• According to a Deloitte & Touche study:
  
  "The Web surfing habits of boomers and over-60s are more firmly rooted in traditional media than those of their younger counterparts"
  
  "67% of boomers visited sites after seeing ads on TV or in print. Matures, those between 61 and 75, were just as likely to be driven to the Web by print ads and less likely by TV ads."

• Online Wheels and Deals ...Today's Auto Retailers are a Tech-Savvy Bunch, according to a Recent Study.
  
  JupiterResearch and NADAguides.com surveyed 106 car dealerships nationwide.
  
  "28 percent of the respondents indicated they spent more than $50,000 in 2006 on online advertising and marketing"

 

[Lightnup (blog)]

Yahoo! is definitely the number one site for traffic but how many of those people are actually shopping for cars?

kbb.com alone gets more unique visitors each month than cars.com does (source: compete.com) and, most importantly, they go to kbb.com for car shopping info, not games, sports, news or movies.

AutoTrader.com definitely got the bettter deal.

 

[McCoy]

According to Alexa.com only 5% of KBB.com's visitors go to their Used Cars section. Having 10 million unique visitors a month, that's about 500,000 used car shoppers. On the other hand, of the 130 million unique vistors monthly to Yahoo.com, over 6 million unique vistors go to Yahoo Autos monthly and Cars.com powers all the New and Used cars. That is 5.5 million monthly reasons why this is a better deal for Cars.com and its participating dealers.

 

[Dave Rudey]

In the coke and Pepsi battle that is Cars.com and Autotrader.com, we have to keep our eye on the 8-ball and remember that advertising with these sites is all about volume, delivering the eye balls to your web site, your listings, to become your leads. Yahoo Autos is 7x as big as the kbb.com used section.

Also, on the Cars.com media buy, don't forget the Super Bowl. http://www.carsgameface.com

The NBA is fun for them, just like ESPN college football is for us- but the Super Bowl is what will differentiate Cars.com from Autotrader.com. And I have seen our Super Bowl commercials...they are funny as all h%ll !!

-Dave
312-601-5614 with ?'s.

 

[Mitch]

If everyone made business decisions according to Alexa.com stats, there would be a lot more bankruptcy filings.

There are plenty of pros and cons to list between the two partnerships... but it's certain that both sites have as many eyeballs as they need to make it work, so I'd say it will come down to which site is the most dedicated to the arrangement.

But as a personal testimonial, as involved as I am in automotive Internet ops, I'd never think to use KBB to shop for my next car.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Lightnup -

Notice how the Cars.com guys actually use their real names? For some reason, they don't have anything to hide!

 

[web2carz]

Jeff,
Thanks for helping us get the word out about the free used car listings on Web2Carz.com for dealers.
I would like to add that not only is placing the inventory on the site is free the leads are free as well.

Alex Bravy
for ? please email me: [email protected]

 

[Internet Ferret]

I'm going to use the "wait & see" approach to this classified swap. Cars.com didn't make this decision to leave KBB for Yahoo but it’s nice to see that Dave toes the company line. By the way Dave you need to check your facts before your next sales call. According to Nielsen KBB has 55% UC traffic...did you really believe that only 5% of KBB's traffic was people looking up their "Blue Book value" of their trade-in? If your stat is indeed true, the obvious question would be why did Cars remain partnered with KBB for so long?

I believe this is a tit for tat situation. Both companies are scrambling for an increase in visitors because their numbers are stagnating and Google is quietly looming. IMO Autotrader has a better site and has a larger share of the AIU audience. I agree with the posts on this site stating they've pissed off a lot of dealers with their greedy and arrogant approach. As for Cars.com, I think they’re a dealer friendly site with a tangible response rate in the markets where they have newspaper affiliation (Classified Ventures) and I can back this up with reporting from both types of markets). I hope their Super Bowl commercial does indeed increase their traffic but let’s be honest.…Do you remember any of the commercials from last year’s game? ………. Me neither!

As stated previously, I’ve got a “wait & see” attitude on this subject. However, as a customer of KBB and Autotrader I’m excited, I will actually have an exclusive callout on the KBB classified section.

 

[Jeff Larsen (blog)]

Who got the better deal? Post the article again in 6 months and review the results.

Who is the real winner? All of us that use online advertising to deliver more customers to the dealership's doorsteps.

Competition draws more people to the action. Our consumers like alternatives, just as we do when choosing a Coke or Pepsi.

 

[[email protected]]

What has made Cars.com powerful over the years is their connection to the newspapers. Where I have had success with Cars.com is in the synergy between the old school classified and the online listing.