There is a company in our space that works with dealers to show them how bad those lists, "100,000 double-opted in-market shoppers", actually are. Wait till you hear Chad's story from one of our stores....
Conquest Email Services - Exposed?
- Thread starter JessicaRuth
- Start date
This is a follow-up from another board from late July when one of our stores decided to run with Dealer's United. I've had at least a dozen dealers reach out to me personally since I posted in July with a similar hunch.
How I found my data:
1. Since we have the website in house I can pull access logs. A majority Those IPs who came to website from email showed as coming from our city, but was a proxy IP address. The other IPs were from eastern europe, Russia, China, and Chile.
2. We used a 3rd party vendor called Gray Cloak which detects impression and click fraud. http://greycloak1.com/products/ They're report came back and matched my findings from analytics and IP log.
3. Watching analytics real-time and reviewing afterwards.
My followup:
I feel a little obligated to follow up with the Driving Sales community on what I saw from the DealersUnited Email conquest campaign. It was without a doubt, 100% scam. We ended up receiving a full refund after explaining our position with the CEO.
First, thanks to the emailers who reached out and provided me with information regarding DU. Their email conquest are outsourced to a 3rd party company called Take 5 Solutions and design work was outsourced to Omni Advertising, so DU doesn't actually do any work.
From the DealersUnited Email Conquest.
100k emails sent. This alone I raised question right away.
1,446 sessions with 97.51% new sessions.
Of those session 75% came from a single IP range (191.101.40.xxx to 191.101.43.xxx) It turned up to be a proxy server located in our city.
1. 100% of the visitors don't have cookies enabled.
2. 98% of the traffic is coming from a desktop with mobile getting 1% and tablet 1%.
3. I have hidden links within the site that only are visited by bots in which I use to collect bot IP addresses. I'm seeing these "visitors" land on this bot catch page (http://www.andersonmazdaoflincoln.com/spam-bot/)
4. All visitors follow the same behavior. Land on a page, stay there for 1 min to 1 1/2 min. Visit another page (often obscure unrelated pages) stay for 1 min to 1 1/2 min then exit or another page for 1 min to 1 1/2 min.
5. All traffic stay 2-3 minutes and visits 2-3 pages. My traffic matches within .2 seconds and .1 pages/visit of another Google Analytic screenshot I've received.
6. As I watch in real-time, the IP access logs and Google Analytics the traffic comes in waves. It'll be dead, then all of a sudden 20-30 and upwards of 100 visitors from the email campaign. After a few minutes, quiet.
7. Not a single inventory search/filter has been completed. I have php/javascript/ajax system which hasn't been touched by a single visitor. All pageviews are from hard links within a page.
A few ideas generated. Take 5 Solutions uses a system tied to a rewards program (fill out survey, click a few links, stay within parameters, get paid --- http://www.inboxdollars.com/pages/paid-email) and/or a bot program that generates enough humanlike traffic that passes by most analytics viewers.
How I found my data:
1. Since we have the website in house I can pull access logs. A majority Those IPs who came to website from email showed as coming from our city, but was a proxy IP address. The other IPs were from eastern europe, Russia, China, and Chile.
2. We used a 3rd party vendor called Gray Cloak which detects impression and click fraud. http://greycloak1.com/products/ They're report came back and matched my findings from analytics and IP log.
3. Watching analytics real-time and reviewing afterwards.
My followup:
I feel a little obligated to follow up with the Driving Sales community on what I saw from the DealersUnited Email conquest campaign. It was without a doubt, 100% scam. We ended up receiving a full refund after explaining our position with the CEO.
First, thanks to the emailers who reached out and provided me with information regarding DU. Their email conquest are outsourced to a 3rd party company called Take 5 Solutions and design work was outsourced to Omni Advertising, so DU doesn't actually do any work.
From the DealersUnited Email Conquest.
100k emails sent. This alone I raised question right away.
1,446 sessions with 97.51% new sessions.
Of those session 75% came from a single IP range (191.101.40.xxx to 191.101.43.xxx) It turned up to be a proxy server located in our city.
1. 100% of the visitors don't have cookies enabled.
2. 98% of the traffic is coming from a desktop with mobile getting 1% and tablet 1%.
3. I have hidden links within the site that only are visited by bots in which I use to collect bot IP addresses. I'm seeing these "visitors" land on this bot catch page (http://www.andersonmazdaoflincoln.com/spam-bot/)
4. All visitors follow the same behavior. Land on a page, stay there for 1 min to 1 1/2 min. Visit another page (often obscure unrelated pages) stay for 1 min to 1 1/2 min then exit or another page for 1 min to 1 1/2 min.
5. All traffic stay 2-3 minutes and visits 2-3 pages. My traffic matches within .2 seconds and .1 pages/visit of another Google Analytic screenshot I've received.
6. As I watch in real-time, the IP access logs and Google Analytics the traffic comes in waves. It'll be dead, then all of a sudden 20-30 and upwards of 100 visitors from the email campaign. After a few minutes, quiet.
7. Not a single inventory search/filter has been completed. I have php/javascript/ajax system which hasn't been touched by a single visitor. All pageviews are from hard links within a page.
A few ideas generated. Take 5 Solutions uses a system tied to a rewards program (fill out survey, click a few links, stay within parameters, get paid --- http://www.inboxdollars.com/pages/paid-email) and/or a bot program that generates enough humanlike traffic that passes by most analytics viewers.
- Dec 30, 2009
- 1,883
- 480
- First Name
- Yago
If anything, the report started a conversation that hopefully will lead to a better use of email campaigns.
I would love to see some dealers feedback on how it works for them, regardless of what people say:
Did you sell more cars or not?
I would love to see some dealers feedback on how it works for them, regardless of what people say:
Did you sell more cars or not?
- Apr 23, 2014
- 4
- 0
- First Name
- Christain
This discussion is great. There is nothing better for Dealers than having them share what does or doesn't work for their stories.
Chad ( @csabatka1 ) , I appreciate you providing feedback on your experience with this vendor/product. As you mentioned, Dealers United re-sold the product being questioned. While I'm proud to share that since we began in 2011, we've partnered with over 70 different for over 100 products & services, I'll be the first to admit that we heavily rely on the Vendors that we enter into agreement to fulfill the product that has been offered and maintain Dealers United's reputation as a trusted source for products & services,
Recently, there have been some very concerning information that has come out about one of our Vendors. Since the information has come to light, our team has been researching point by point and gathering the facts needed to come to a full conclusion for our Dealer Members. Once we gather all of the facts, we will present our response and next course of action. I can assure you that we will always do what is right for our Dealer Members, who have been and will always be the main focus of Dealers United.
If anyone else has any additional information, feedback, or questions, please contact me directly.
Christian Ziegler, COO
[email protected]
(941) 366-6760
Chad ( @csabatka1 ) , I appreciate you providing feedback on your experience with this vendor/product. As you mentioned, Dealers United re-sold the product being questioned. While I'm proud to share that since we began in 2011, we've partnered with over 70 different for over 100 products & services, I'll be the first to admit that we heavily rely on the Vendors that we enter into agreement to fulfill the product that has been offered and maintain Dealers United's reputation as a trusted source for products & services,
Recently, there have been some very concerning information that has come out about one of our Vendors. Since the information has come to light, our team has been researching point by point and gathering the facts needed to come to a full conclusion for our Dealer Members. Once we gather all of the facts, we will present our response and next course of action. I can assure you that we will always do what is right for our Dealer Members, who have been and will always be the main focus of Dealers United.
If anyone else has any additional information, feedback, or questions, please contact me directly.
Christian Ziegler, COO
[email protected]
(941) 366-6760
- Oct 28, 2012
- 411
- 280
- Awards
- 5
- First Name
- Chris K
- Apr 23, 2014
- 4
- 0
- First Name
- Christain
@Chris Leslie - Thanks for the opportunity to share what Dealers United does.
Dealers United uses our 6,500+ Dealer Members as leverage to:
All of this comes at no cost or obligation to the Dealers who sign up. (If you're interested, head over to www.DealersUnited.com or feel free to email me at: [email protected]).
Hope that answers your question!
Thanks!
-Christian
Dealers United uses our 6,500+ Dealer Members as leverage to:
- Negotiate Favored Nation Pricing
- Secure the Best Terms possible for Dealers (including No Contracts)
- Spotlight innovative products coming into the Automotive Industry
- Provide 24/7 Customer Service
- Centralized Billing
- Serve as an information & best practices resource for our Dealer Members
- Crowdsource what's working or not working for Dealers
- Vet and hold Vendors accountable if they are not providing value to Dealers
All of this comes at no cost or obligation to the Dealers who sign up. (If you're interested, head over to www.DealersUnited.com or feel free to email me at: [email protected]).
Hope that answers your question!
Thanks!
-Christian
- Oct 28, 2012
- 411
- 280
- Awards
- 5
- First Name
- Chris K
- Apr 23, 2014
- 4
- 0
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- Christain
@Chris Leslie - We help provide negotiation & buying power and then continuing using that group to leverage for A+ customer service.
Here are two videos that give a pretty good overview of Dealers Untied:
Overview of Dealers United:
Founding Video: Why DealersUnited Was Created:
You could also look at it this way: As you know, many Dealers pay for agencies to help research, select and manage their products & services. We do all of that, in addition the other points I listed (in a previous post) at no cost to the Dealer.
Hope that provides clarification. Please feel free to give me a buzz if you'd like a more in-depth explanation.
-Christian
(941)366-6760
Here are two videos that give a pretty good overview of Dealers Untied:
Overview of Dealers United:
Founding Video: Why DealersUnited Was Created:
You could also look at it this way: As you know, many Dealers pay for agencies to help research, select and manage their products & services. We do all of that, in addition the other points I listed (in a previous post) at no cost to the Dealer.
Hope that provides clarification. Please feel free to give me a buzz if you'd like a more in-depth explanation.
-Christian
(941)366-6760
- Oct 28, 2014
- 73
- 26
- First Name
- Skutch
@Christian Ziegler thanks for explaining your situation. Keep us posted on what you find out.
It would be nice to get some feedback and explanations from some actual vendors who are running these email campaigns. Where are you?
I have a few dealers which run these email campaigns with some success, meaning: they have sales match-back reports that will show roughly 20% of monthly sales. Maybe those reports are fake too?
It would be nice to get some feedback and explanations from some actual vendors who are running these email campaigns. Where are you?
I have a few dealers which run these email campaigns with some success, meaning: they have sales match-back reports that will show roughly 20% of monthly sales. Maybe those reports are fake too?
- Apr 23, 2014
- 4
- 0
- First Name
- Christain
@skutchhenks - I appreciate the opportunity to do so. I will keep you posted with developments on the issue we are involved with and ask that you continue to send me any additional information on this topic that you read or receive (my email is: [email protected]).
Obviously, the best thing Dealers can do is to constantly ask questions (re: Vendors) and continue to share (with other Dealers) what is or isn't working. That's why these message boards are great!
Have a great weekend!
-Christian
Obviously, the best thing Dealers can do is to constantly ask questions (re: Vendors) and continue to share (with other Dealers) what is or isn't working. That's why these message boards are great!
Have a great weekend!
-Christian
