Tis the season for looking at everything we're doing with a fine tooth comb. The owner just got back from a Ford Dealer intro meeting, and is hot and heavy on the Clickmotive solution provided by Ford Direct. Who has signed on? I'm looking specifically for Ford feedback in regards to the package purchased via Ford Direct. I suspect they will have their paws on some crucial pieces of the development, the analytics, the changeability, etc. I'm just wondering what those surprises are!
FordDirect offering Clickmotive solution - Good? Bad? Ugly?
- Thread starter JillB
- Start date
- Dec 30, 2009
- 1,883
- 480
- First Name
- Yago
In general--most offerings by the OEM--are watered down programs and not the real deal.
Most of the time are cheap so it is a great way to test the company and the product then decide what you want to do.
Contracts tend to be very permissive since the OEM is involved and can mediate should you have any problems.
Most of the time are cheap so it is a great way to test the company and the product then decide what you want to do.
Contracts tend to be very permissive since the OEM is involved and can mediate should you have any problems.
I have sign to have the new clickmotive but only as a second website for ford. We use Tk as our primary. The biggest problem we have with it is the lack of seo for cities outside our Ford area. I will be live in a few days I will update you on weather it produces any better than the slightly upgraded ford direct site we had before. It does seem to be a good value for the money for additional page one defense.
We are considering signing on with ClickMotive/FordDirect DealerConnection Elite website, but (three years later) I have the exact same worries that JillB had. I want to have a very hands on approach to our website development, and I suspect that I'm not going to be able to push the boundaries of dealer websites the way I espect to. Just looking around the Internet, it seems to me that the FordDirect sites are OK, but up to my standards. Is there anyone out there who can share their experiences with FordDirect and/or ClickMotive?
Run. I have near daily issues with FordDirect that go unanswered and unresolved. I’m thinking about posting my experiences since they keep telling me I’m the only one that ever has these issues with them. They have major vendor issues.
We have two ClickMotive DealerConnection Elite sites (Ford & Lincoln) plus Dealer.com sites. The Dealer.com sites do a better job of converting traffic to leads when you compare the traffic vs. conversion on each site. Plus the Dealer.com sites seem to be much more navigable and user friendly. Dealer.com is ridiculously slow getting anything done, especially after the merger, but still has a better final product. The logical solution is to get rid of the low performer and save money and headaches by eliminating a vendor. But FordDirect holds us hostage with their products so that is not an option.
I emailed Ford Elite/ClickMotive support on 5/21/2014 with a message that asked them to post that we are open Memorial Day from 11 AM to 5 PM. They responded back that they would create and post banners for the homepage slideshows. As a side note, I refuse to do anything with the ClickMotive sites because I do not want them, so I email all requests to them and let them take care of it.
Yesterday I get an email (after Memorial Day) that states, “I'm very sorry about your banners. I wasn't able to get your banners up in time as requested for your Memorial Day hours. They are attached to this e-mail so that you may use them in the future. If there's anything I can do make this right, please let me know.”
I looked at the slide they sent and it says we are open from 11 PM to 3 PM. Mistakes happen, but to miss both the open and close times and not get it posted is inexcusable. This is typical of the lazy, sloppy work I get from ClickMotive.
I emailed them back and their response was that it takes 3 – 5 days to complete the slides (not sure why they brought that up; they volunteered to create the slides and told me it would be done). The best part of the email was, “I will send these banners back to our graphics team and ask them to revise the hours and send the corrected banners your way.” What am I going to do with them? Frame them in my office? The Holiday is over.
We have two ClickMotive DealerConnection Elite sites (Ford & Lincoln) plus Dealer.com sites. The Dealer.com sites do a better job of converting traffic to leads when you compare the traffic vs. conversion on each site. Plus the Dealer.com sites seem to be much more navigable and user friendly. Dealer.com is ridiculously slow getting anything done, especially after the merger, but still has a better final product. The logical solution is to get rid of the low performer and save money and headaches by eliminating a vendor. But FordDirect holds us hostage with their products so that is not an option.
I emailed Ford Elite/ClickMotive support on 5/21/2014 with a message that asked them to post that we are open Memorial Day from 11 AM to 5 PM. They responded back that they would create and post banners for the homepage slideshows. As a side note, I refuse to do anything with the ClickMotive sites because I do not want them, so I email all requests to them and let them take care of it.
Yesterday I get an email (after Memorial Day) that states, “I'm very sorry about your banners. I wasn't able to get your banners up in time as requested for your Memorial Day hours. They are attached to this e-mail so that you may use them in the future. If there's anything I can do make this right, please let me know.”
I looked at the slide they sent and it says we are open from 11 PM to 3 PM. Mistakes happen, but to miss both the open and close times and not get it posted is inexcusable. This is typical of the lazy, sloppy work I get from ClickMotive.
I emailed them back and their response was that it takes 3 – 5 days to complete the slides (not sure why they brought that up; they volunteered to create the slides and told me it would be done). The best part of the email was, “I will send these banners back to our graphics team and ask them to revise the hours and send the corrected banners your way.” What am I going to do with them? Frame them in my office? The Holiday is over.
Don't do it. Do not do it. Run, run, run.
I know there are some terrible website companies out there but clickmotive is absolutely terrrrrrrible.
Repeat, do not do it.
*seriously, avoid at all cost*
I know there are some terrible website companies out there but clickmotive is absolutely terrrrrrrible.
Repeat, do not do it.
*seriously, avoid at all cost*
Dan, thanks for taking the time yesterday to speak with Howard about your experience. We appreciate you sharing your feedback and encourage you to connect with us directly if you have any further questions.
Wouldn't running two websites (FordDirect and the other one) for the same business hurt the organic search rankings for both sites? Apparently this FordDirect site is required, whether you opt for the Elite version or not. Even if we don't choose someone other than FordDirect to develop our site, we will still have this crappy baseline FordDirect site drawing our visitors away.
FD/Clickmotive Sites have awful built in (and on going) SEO.
Do what you will, but any $ spent on these sites is a waste. I know you have to have a FD site, but I would do everything in your power to get a second site that is actually worth a sh!t, because FD is truly awful. I could go on and on..
You will compete against yourself if you have two sites. There is another thread on here about that. FordDirect is going to offer Dealer.com sites as an option (late 2014?) for the Elite sites so our dealership will likely consolidate and only have the FordDirect Dealer.com sites for Ford and Lincoln. So that may be an option for your store if you don't mind waiting.
