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Best Website Provider?

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AmandaByelich

Aug 18, 2009
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First Name
New River Auto Mall
#1
I work at a large automall that consists of 7 dealers and 11 brands, not to mention about 200 pre-owned vehicles. We are currently using 2 different dealer website providers for different stores (Reynolds and Dealerskins). For convenience and accuracy, we would like all of our websites to be with the same company. Who are people using? What is the most reliable company? Who has the best support? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Our contracts are up soon so we're hoping to make this decision ASAP. Thanks!
 
#2
We use Dealer.com. With their website, I have a lot of control over adding / editing / deleting pages off my site. They have 2 weekly training sessions with trainers at Dealer.com for the different parts of their backend tool, as well as a Q&A on Wednesdays for anyone to call in and discuss any questions they may have. I don't have a whole lot of numbers to compare pricing to, so I can't give an accurate reading on where they measure up in that department. Our account manager has always been on the ball and worked with me on new ideas and answering questions. I'm also a big fan of their reports - a lot of useful information in them. We do use LeadMachine, their ILM tool.

I recommend Dealer.com. I haven't used any other provider, but they have done quite well for me and our dealership. Send me a message with any other questions if you have any.
 
#3
Hi Amanda,

There are a lot of good providers out there. As we provide a great solution I'm biased towards ours, but here are a few things to ask.

1) How will you track and improve over time?
2) Are you able to "tag" your advertising, such as e-mails, paid search, display?
3) What areas are customizable?
4) Do you want to do video?
5) Do you care about mobile accessibility?
6) What is the provider doing to stay competitive going forward?
7) Is the company dealer focused, or customer focused?
8) How many different reports will you have to look at to measure your success
9) How are you measuring success?
 
#5
Amanda - glad you made it on here! You've definitely got a great question that plenty of dealers need to ask from time to time. Of course there will be some highly biased responses (like mine) toward companies we are currently using.

I've been through quite a few (AutoMark [Reynolds & Reynolds purchased later], Traver [ADP purchased later], DealerOn) and have found my happy home with Dealer.com.

Aside from talking about my experiences with Dealer.com, I think I'm going to take Nick's approach and label some things for your consideration.

SEO - I think this is first and foremost on anybody's list. How does the website provider open up things for search engines to find you?

  • do they change the meta-tagging for each page of your site or allow you to do it yourself?
  • do they allow you to change the titles of pages?
  • do they allow for custom page layouts and various font formats?...this is kind of standard
  • do they allow for image tagging?
  • do they allow for video uploads?
  • do they allow you to put custom messages on inventory for advertising purposes?
The SEO list is endless and fluid, so you want to make sure that the company is mobile enough to change with the Google's and Yahoo's as they make changes to how they index your site.

Reports - you've got to be able to see if you're effective.

  • do they monitor bounce rates?
  • do they monitor bounce rates on specific pages so you know whether to change things on a page or not?
  • do they monitor lead conversion rates?
  • do they monitor lead conversion rates per each form so you know to fix a form?
  • do they measure your inventory health: prices, comments, pictures?
  • do they tell you which cars are the most viewed and which aren't being viewed at all?
  • do they measure the time a customer spends on your site?
Like SEO, reports need to be fluid and constantly added to. There are always new break-throughs and ideas being derived from website analytics (reports).

Inventory - this will be the most viewed part of your site.

  • do they display your inventory in a user-friendly way?
  • do they allow you to embed specials in your inventory?
  • do they have conversion points on the inventory (forms, phone numbers, chat points)?
  • do they allow you to integrate "extras" on the inventory (upload to twitter, facebook, etc)?
  • do they make it easy for a customer to find your dealership from the inventory page?
  • do they allow a customer to easily reset the search parameters to start a search over again?
This is an area that can make or break you, so spend a lot of time figuring out what you want from your inventory display pages.

Leads - do they send XML leads so you can receive them easily in your CRM?

  • do they provide a way to track all your leads?
  • do they provide an ILM tool?
  • do they provide an automated response for customers who have submitted a lead?
  • can the automated response be turned off or customized?
Of course, conversion is the main goal of your website and leads are the easiest tracked.

There are many other questions to ask and some of these questions are more important than others. Some are things that could be in development with a site provider, so be sure to get an ETA if they say they're working on it.

I'd like to finish up by saying that I have no idea how knowledgeable you are Amanda, so please don't be offended if some of the things I posted are Internet 101 and you're well beyond it. Feel free to ask me any direct question you like.
 
#6
Why is it that Dealer Web sites look the same 24/7/365?

Of all of the marketing media on our planet, why are dealer sites STALE? Ask for "CSS based design". Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) makes it EASY for a site to take on Seasonal Holiday themes (4th July sale, Presidents day, Thankgiving, Halloween, Christmas, Spring, Summer, Fall ...). Have an annual or semi-annual mega sale? CSS can make it easy. Closed Sundays? Have a special SUNDAY look or theme.

Do shoppers like a black background page or a white?
Forget artistic opinion! Make both pages and do A/B tests with CSS.

18 months from now you want a full blown makeover but don't want to pay a lot of $$$? CSS based design will get you there.

hope this helps,
 
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#7
Amanda,

You have a large operation. IMO, here is the MOST important question...

Do you have an in-house Internet Marketing Director (IMD)? Is it you?

The IMD should be driving the scope of the job. This person will be on the point, working on the 3rd most valuable asset you have. IMO, a dealer’s most precious non-cash assets 1-2-3 are:
#1) your Brand.
#2) your real estate.
#3) your web site.


The IMD's job is to "work your web audience". How large is your web audience?
  • For every car you sell at New River Auto Mall, 99.2 visitors came to your site and didn’t buy.
  • 50% of your visitors are in the market for >3 weeks
Give an IMD the tools (read: a killer site) there is an enormous upside to explore and exploit.

Look at your web traffic stats. Folllow along in this thread: http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f40/web-visitors-vs-sales-survey-218.html Find a way work the website visitors you have already have with a goal to sell a small fraction more than your currently selling now. The ROI potential is off the charts!

The IMD needs to make your web site alive with fresh specials, theme based specials (i.e. ladies day, SUV Sell Down Sale, Gas Sippers on Special), manuf'er promos, in-house videos (walk arounds, testimonials, 3rd party videos like WheelsTV, etc), sales and service chat, service specials, service appts, service shuttle scheduling, inventory recording standards (pic quality, options detail quality)
IMD will be working hard with Contact Management processes, email marketing (prospect campaigns and client referral/retention campaigns), all of which point back to the home site.

IMD will need a site that is Pay-Per-Click and SEO friendly.
IMD will attend meetings with management to offer web based solutions to sales, marketing and operations.
IMD works with and co-ordinates with ad agency to tie all the moving parts together.

Improving “Inventory Recording Standards” has big upside but so few understand…

We haven’t even touched on Reputation Management! Akkkk!!

There so much more, but I'm getting a little freaked out with how the scope of this job has grown over the years...
 
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#8
Design: Custom (compliant and included in package)...

SEO: Top Organic (pro-active trackable results and included in package)...

Support: The BEST (a human who really knows their stuff answers the phone and performs the updates)...

Having a website that looks awesome, performs even better, captivates the buyer, entices them to submit a lead, can be changed at the drop of a hat, can use true vehicle video, mobile browser detection redirect, and will get car buyers to the showroom floor... PRICELESS ! (Actually we cost less than our competition)

Our work speaks for itself...

DealerFire
Matthew Cole
[email protected]
www.dealerfire.com
tel: (920) 230-1111
fax: (920) 230-1107
 
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