General Motors and Cobalt Websites-The Big Rip Off and the Slow Deception

[Guest Poster]

This posting has been removed.

After a deep conversation with Frank, I have decided to remove his post from DealerRefresh. It really sirred up form shit and at the end of the day I would never want anyone to loose their job. I have asked Frank to write a quick retraction request which you can read below.

If you're familiar with the post, please continue to comment (please keep your comments clean and respectful though )

Jeff, Alex an the rest of the DealerRefresh community;

I appreciate your support, I have been watching my post and I am asking that you remove it for a couple of reasons. First of all I have a huge amount of respect for General Motors and Cobalt websites. In our current economic situation I think it would be a benefit to support the manufacture. I also have a huge respect for the dealer I currently work for and I would not want any bad press for this or any dealer just because of my own personal opinion. I appreciate your cooperation in removing my article from DealerRefresh. After review The GM and dealer principle at this store disagree with my opinion and are 100% on board General Motors marketing plan.

Thank you

Frank Davis

 

[Anonymous (blog)]

I do not want to share my name because who knows what the repercussions could be if someone at GM saw the reaction. However, you hit the nail on the head!! The only thing MORE WASTEFUL than IMR is the LMA and that would take another 2 page article! Let the dealers do what they do best. QUIT getting in bed with VENDORS!!!!

 

[Jon Groenig]

I agree with you Frank, I was working at a GM dealership when they started pushing the free website from Cobalt. I was in the process of getting a Dealer.com website put in place and had to justify spending $900 versus the free site. We had a management meeting to compare the two websites side by side, by the end of the meeting they had decided that while losing the links was a negative, they would still rather go with the Dealer.com site because the look, feel, and navigation were much better than the options that were available from Cobalt at that time.

A dealers website is a major part of their online presence and they should be able to decide who they want to use, they shouldn't be told "use our piece of crap or you won't get our links".

 

[umer.autojini]

@Frank... excellent piece. From my understanding... the "free" program is no longer available. Is that correct?

 

[Frank Davis]

Umer,,,,,You can still have the "free" website with Cobalt. You do not however get the support person unless you pay the 299.00 fee they implemented at the first of the year, They sent out a memo with a bill attatched charging the 299.00. If you choose not to pay the charge then they will still keep the website up and give you the "free" pay per click advertising using the name of your dealership redirecting to the Cobalt website. You can get support from Cobalt if you are not paying the 299.00 but they claim you lose more than you gain, huh?

Another idea was to up sell other services and products once the dealer is on the "free" website and I am sure it has worked. Brilliant plan as I had said give em free stuff but really charge them for it, then up sell the real good stuff, Great plan, awesome monopoly.

 

[Kevin Frye]

Frank, I sense your frustration... I would venture to offer this. I believe much of the reason that GM started with the mandatory Cobalt sites was to bring a lot of GM dealers into the "modern era", as there were still LOTS of GM dealers that had not grasped the importance of the Internet yet. I can tell you in my area that at least one GM dealer had a website that one of their employees put up on their own because the owner didn't see any value in the Internet (and it was not a good website...). There were lots of GM dealers with no websites, or very poor websites across the country. This approach by GM brought some standardization across their brands and got dealers to get "onboard" with the Internet.

In GM's defense, I have seen a tremendous improvement in their emphasis on being aggressive and good on the Internet. I work with 15 brands, and I would place GM in the top 3 brands for OEM support for the Internet.

With all that said, we still have separate websites for our GM stores, and keep the Cobalt one for the OEM link (I agree, you must have). I also agree that the pay per click using the dealer name for the search terms makes no sense (but makes lots of dollars for the vendor hosting the ppc...). In a perfect world, we could have our own websites linked to GM's sites - but I would imagine that GM would want some requirements met (fair enough) to ensure quality for all of their stores....

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Frank - great post! I love it on 3 levels:

1. It strikes home with other brands we do carry, so I can relate - MINI, VW, Audi, Porsche
2. CoBalt is the worst site provider, of the big ones, in the automotive arena - I'd rather pay for something else than take their freebie
3. The more of us complaining about these stupid OEM sites, the better!

I think we need to have an article that talks about all the OEM sites and where they're wrong. Something we can refer our OEM's to when they ask our opinion on things.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

One size fits all. That’s the approach many of the manufacturers take with these mandated dealer website and online marketing ventures. It’s nothing short of a pain in the A$$, especially for the more aggressive dealers that usually have their own thing going on.

I’m not for it BUT I can understand why it happens. And I believe it happens for many reasons. In this example with GM, I think Kevin explained it very well in his comment. “Cobalt sites was to bring a lot of GM dealers into the “modern era”, as there were still LOTS of GM dealers that had not grasped the importance of the Internet yet”. There are no doubt MANY dealers that are still trucking 20-15 years behind and STILL do not have an internet presence.

How does a large company like GM get their antiquated dealers onboard? They leverage a vendor to do it for them while placing all their dealers in one basket. You bring the lost dealers up to speed while pissing off your aggressive dealers. However, it’s MUCH easier to manage and have a relationship with one vendor rather 3-6. One point of contact, one enterprise report, one company to praise or one company to blame. Unfortunately “one” doesn’t work. You’d think GM would have that figured out by now.

As for wasting money on PPC by buying your dealers name. No doubt a huge waste, unless the dealer didn’t have a website to begin with and they were supplementing with PPC until the site was indexed in the SERPS. Of course we all know this is not the case. It would be interesting to know what Cobalt was/is charging GM (I mean the dealers) for these dealer name keyword clicks.
The money GM spent on these unnecessary clicks could have been spent on specific dealer internet sales and marketing training for the dealers that needed to get up to speed.

 

[Brian in Etown]

Hmmm....I wonder why G.M. has more then one brand if one size fits all.

 

[Frank Davis]

Thank you for the posts. Understanding GM had to many dealers not paying attention to internet marketing. They did have to do something I agree. Having one website company on board to lower costs, I agree, but to trick everyone into a free website and actually charge for it? Please lets give it up for "free" if you are going to use that term, not charge it to the advertising funds on the invoice. Also when you have aggresive dealers do not redirect them to a website they are not advertising for, do not steal from a dealer doing everything they can to market on the internet. But most of all do not lie to the dealers that are making it work. It was a good idea I believe they just got off track and imposed rules where they didnt need to be. Also they needed onsite training. an experienced trainer should have visited every dealer to evaluate and discuss the marketing on the internet. One size does not fit all as a matter of fact if its to tight you might just kick it off.

Frank