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Google Advisor For New Car Sales

Stefan

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Apr 15, 2009
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Stefan
Google Advisor For New Car Sales Is An Online Paid Search Game Changer - Internet Sales Managers Community

While exploring the site i came across "We protect your information. This stuff matters. Learn more" section.

SPAM.jpg

How we protect you from spam



You can contact dealers three different ways - by sending them an email, requesting a call, or calling them directly.
Sending an email to or requesting a call from a dealer

When you choose to contact a dealer, we send the following information only to the dealer(s) you specify: your first name, your anonymized email address or anonymized phone number(depending on how you’re choosing to contact them), an optional message to the dealer(s), as well as the geographic area you searched in. We also share your search criteria, including car year, make, model, trim, color, body style, drive, transmission, engine, number of seats, packages, and options, only the dealer(s) you specify. Giving detailed information to the dealer helps them locate or order a car that matches your criteria so that they can better serve you.
We never share your phone number or email address with dealers, unless you enter it into the optional message to the dealer. Instead, we provide the dealer with a special number they can call to be connected to your phone (ie: a phone number proxy), or a special email address they can use which forwards to your actual email address (ie: an email proxy).

  • A phone number proxy is turned off after 6 attempts to call you, regardless of whether or not you pick up. After that, phone calls from the dealer will not be forwarded to you.
  • An email proxy works for as long as you continue to respond to the emails. The email proxy is turned off after 6 emails from the dealer with no response from you - after that, emails from the dealer will not be forwarded to you.
Calling a dealer directly using a number displayed on one of our pages

When you call the number listed for a dealer, you're actually calling a special phone number that instantly forwards your call to the dealer, keeping your phone number confidential. The dealer doesn’t know your phone number unless you choose to share it with the dealer during the call. We may share with the dealer the model of car you’re calling about, as well as the the distance from the dealer to the center of the zip code in the geographic area you chose to search.
Your Google Account information is never shared with the dealer, even if you're signed in while browsing our service. Learn more about Google Accounts
If you feel that a dealer misused your personal information or misrepresented their offer to you in our service, please file a report using the “Report a bug” link at the bottom of each page.

Since CRM = Garbage in <> Garbage Out, how will no Phone or eMail work?

To Quote BP
This is taking lead generation to another level
 
Even if this ever moves out of Beta, I'm not convinced it's a "Game Changer". Google's own data shows search engine influence on the automotive shopping decision peaking 2-3 months out from purchase and dropping precipitously at about a month out. My sense is they've used the search engines to find their preferred research sources and are continuing to narrow their choices, both in terms of vehicle and dealership.

It remains to be seen if customers will 'backtrack' to the search engine and utilize Google Advisor in any numbers.
 
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Google's own data shows search engine influence on the automotive shopping decision peaking 2-3 months out from purchase and dropping precipitously at about a month out.

I think that is EXACTLY why Google wants to get in to this as a new profit center. A lot of what they've done as of late has been geared at revenue creation outside of their SEM model, right? As long as Google has the uninterrupted ability to put their own products in a SERP wherever they want they will find ways to get traffic to their properties. I'll offer the recent, albeit ridiculous, conversion of Place pages to Google+ Local as an example. + wasn't organically getting adopted, so they found a way to force it's use.

As for this new lead gen model, I agree with Jerry,the anonymity they are offering through proxy for email and phone is what I find most interesting here. Time to start really working with your sales team and front line to dial in their personal "Why buy from me" message. Not to be too dramatic, but I think the ability to consistently win business is going to be tied to the ability of your team to deliver that first impression compelling USP. I'm excited to see some of my dealers that have been really concentrating on this knock it out of the park... What do you think?
 
I think that is EXACTLY why Google wants to get in to this as a new profit center. A lot of what they've done as of late has been geared at revenue creation outside of their SEM model, right? As long as Google has the uninterrupted ability to put their own products in a SERP wherever they want they will find ways to get traffic to their properties. I'll offer the recent, albeit ridiculous, conversion of Place pages to Google+ Local as an example. + wasn't organically getting adopted, so they found a way to force it's use.
Ryan, I agree with you on so much, I'll admit, I thought long and hard about disagreeing with you on this. They have forced businesses and marketers to pay attention to G+ for it's SEO value. They are forcing businesses and marketers to channel customers to the site for a single, very specific purpose; to write a review. That's very different than getting consumers to adapt the site as a viable social entity.

That said, it's been reported that Google has sunk a half a billion into G+ already - it's not going away anytime soon.
 
Even if this ever moves out of Beta, I'm not convinced it's a "Game Changer". Google's own data shows search engine influence on the automotive shopping decision peaking 2-3 months out from purchase and dropping precipitously at about a month out. My sense is they've used the search engines to find their preferred research sources and are continuing to narrow their choices, both in terms of vehicle and dealership.

It remains to be seen if customers will 'backtrack' to the search engine and utilize Google Advisor in any numbers.

Regardless of many of the things that we can guess will work or not, the 6 contact unanimous policy is great for the customer and a pain for the dealer.

It hurts your tracking ability because even if customers find a vehicle price in a newspaper using G+ contact is just flat out better. It is a pain for the CRM systems too.
 
I like it only because it will generate leads, but I don't want that on my brand name keyword.. I want them to go to my website and submit the lead, not search for my dealership's name, and now have the option to contact 6 other dealers.. How much more will this cost as well, price will play a big factor in this.. Also the whole hidden customer info part is going to be a nightmare for dealerships to work with.. I'm up for the challenge though.
 
Google's business model: dealers will provide their inventory to get back anonymous leads WHILE these same anonymous "buyers" are invited to click more dealers (diluting quality) SO Google can charge each "clicked" dealer AND they can put this "service" on top of years of earned SEO efforts. Brilliant! (if dealers are willing to go along with it) Anyone else see the similarity to AutoTrader? How is that business model working for you?

Noted is Brian Pasch's video posted today that mentioned average pricing coming from California's motor vehicle data services. I have not seen the pricing to see how accurate it is, but, isn't that one of the "sources" TrueCar hid their bell curve pricing structure behind?

 
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Just posted on Search Engine Watch: Google Cars: New Sponsored Results Not Yet Generating Many Car Leads

"Google hasn’t officially announced Google Cars, so to find out how (or if) it’s working, I reached out to Jared Steika at Piercey Toyota, one of the participating dealerships. Steika referred to the new program as "Google Comparison Ads" a pay-per-lead product where Google is trying to compete with a Cars.com or another similar service.

"Everyone goes through Google at some point, we'll see if they embrace Google as a lead source for car leads,” Steika said. “It's been less than a week since we've been live and we haven't seen many leads come in yet. Too early to tell if it's going to work or not."

"Steika and the whole Piercey Toyota team are very hopeful for the product. They didn't know off hand what the price of leads was but they mentioned it was affordable and comparable to other auto lead sources that they use."
 
Google's business model: dealers will provide their inventory to get back anonymous leads WHILE these same anonymous "buyers" are invited to click more dealers (diluting quality) SO Google can charge each "clicked" dealer AND they can put this "service" on top of years of earned SEO efforts. Brilliant! (if dealers are willing to go along with it) Anyone else see the similarity to AutoTrader? How is that business model working for you?

Noted is Brian Pasch's video posted today that mentioned average pricing coming from California's motor vehicle data services. I have not seen the pricing to see how accurate it is, but, isn't that one of the "sources" TrueCar hid their bell curve pricing structure behind?


Agreed, great post.