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Has anyone used BZ Results Digitial Marketing Package

Rick Buffkin

Sausage King of Chicago
Oct 29, 2009
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I'm trying to get some good feed back about BZ Results Digital Marketing package. Has anyone used this package. Excluding the BZ websites which I'm not a fan of at all. To me it seems like a glorified PPC. Just a quick rundown on what I know about it is, Once the customer visits a BZ website they place a cookie on the customers computer and if the customer visits one of their partner websites they will place a banner ad for your dealership on the partners website to keep your dealership name in front of the customer to push the customer back to your main website. They use this form of behavioral marketing along with the PPC to generate first party leads. Sounds pretty good in theory but we all know how theory's work out. Someone is always left holding the bag. I just don't want to be the person holding the bag. Any tips or experience you guys have had with with this please let me know the good, the bad and the ugly! :)
 
I'm sorry I have no experience with their product, and it sounds as if you're not very convinced of it anyway.

So if I'm understanding what you're saying. You want to know if it's ok to put a cookie on someones computer if they've come to your site, that will put a banner on their computer so that they will come back?

You may get them back to the site, but at what cost?

The only way to get people to come back to your site is to offer them something they want.

If you are tracking who is coming to your site now, then you typically know where they came from. Search, Facebook, Autotrader, etc.

You'll also know whether they return because you look at Google analytics to tell you whether they are return visitors.

If this product promises you return visitors that for some reason will come back because of a banner, I'd sure like to know what that bounce rate is or conversion rate might be.

There's plenty you can do to find out whether you're being effective in converting your new visitors to leads, AND converting your new visitors who aren't becoming leads into return visitors.

Hope that helps, sorry if it wasn't a direct response to your question, but I felt the reply was perhaps somewhat useful.
 
The thing is we acquired a dealership in a buy sell and ADP/BZ was their DMS provider, website provider, ILM / CRM Provider. Everything was set up with ADP/BZ. I was brand new to this company (BZ). I quickly found out that I'm not a fan because of a couple of different reasons.

1) The website that they had the dealership set up with was/is horrible. I can't get rid of them. The store is locked into a contract. The overall layout of the site was bad with duplicate page titles and meta data, framed inventory and framed custom pages, pages didn't display properly, ect. All the right things to make a website perform very poorly. You would think that the account rep or account mgr. would have acted on this to help get this corrected. At least that's what I would expect.

2) Customer service process. When you call the main phone number you get a customer service rep and they ask you about your problem, then they issue a ticket number for you, BTW they make it pretty clear on their recording when your being prompted to select which dept you want to talk to, that the next time you call you better make sure you have your ticket number. It takes forever to speak to someone that actually knows how the websites work and knows what the term SEO stands for.

Anyway, to a capable do it yourselfer like myself, I'd rather go and have a couple of root canals done at the dentist office that have to call these guys on the phone. There is no flexibility with their product right now. At least that's my experience. They have total control of everything.

I was wondering if their Digital Marketing Package is any better and if someone out there has had a good experience using it. Keep in mind that the website, ILM and PPC that the store had before we acquired it was outrageously expensive and the website and all the campaigns helping it was receiving about 800-900 unique visitors a month. Now since the buy sell, we have a pretty large credit with ADP/BZ and they want to do a Digital Marketing Package for our Automotive Group which leads me to ask the question, if they can't help a small single point ford dealer that has no other ford dealers around them for a 30-40 mile radius, how in the world are they going to help our entire automotive group?
 
Rick, what you are talking about is site re-targerting / re-marketing Display Advertising. This is not exclusive to BZ and you do NOT need a BZ site to get this done. Many many companies offer this including (do-it-yourself) Google.

If you do a search here in the forums for "Display Advertising" or "Behavioral Marketing" you will come across several threads that will give you some great information where others have asked this same question. I did the searches for you, here are the links to the thread...

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/behavioral-targeting-campaign-576.html

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/display-advertising-retargeting-276.html

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/major-website-provider-cookie-dropping-service-517.html

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/banner-advertising-campaigns-650.html

I would think there is enough information here to help better explain what this is all about. I have been in display / site-re-targeting for a few years now. The site re-targeting can be a strong component to your online marketing and can yield some impressive results when tracking it down to actions and conversions. Of course there is also a branding element to display advertising that is not always easy to track.

Again, you can do display / site re-targeting with any dealer website (as long as you can track the tracking / re-target code on your pages. You do NOT need BZ to get this done. You can read an older post here about ADP acquiring BZ a few years back http://www.dealerrefresh.com/adp-buys-bz-results/

Be sure to keep an eye open...several manufactures are testing these grounds for dealers through co-op programs.

Let me know if you have any more questions after visiting the links above.

:beer:
 
I started the "...Cookie dropping service" thread back in Nov. I was so intrigued about the service I literally spent the next month following up on info from Jeff Kershner and other forum members. I spent the next 3 weeks or so researching different companies and found one, I believe to be the best in North America, to become a reseller for.

In fact I was so exited about this form of marketing that I found a fellow investor and started an internet marketing company that specializes in re-targeting, (reselling of course). Our website is midwestdigitalmedia.com. I'm not trying to pitch you but our site does explain re-targeting extensively and makes a decent reference. (For marketing reasons we call it our "Traffic Chaser" program and refer to re-targeting as remarketing).

From what I've learned behavioral re-targeting has been around for a while but the ROI hasn't been there for small to medium-sized businesses, like a dealership, until about 11/2 to 2 years ago. The process was refined enough to where a site that receives at least 1000 uniques per month will be happy with the ROI and in fact the few customers we have already are ecstatic about the results.

I could go on and on but the things you want to watch out for are, and for those of you that are better versed in re-targeting please jump in, Limited ad networks. Cobalt is basically a large reseller for another national re-targeting firm but their ad networks are limited, our local car magazine, Wheels For You, also offers this service but they are owned by a local newspaper who in turn is owned by a larger newspaper company. The only ad network they use is their own. So unless someone goes to a site that is on their ad network, they won't see your dealerships ads.

Other things are follow up and analytics. Does the re-targeting company, or BZ, monitor your progress and if things aren't up to par switch your ad networks and make other revisions? If they only use their own ad network they can't.

How comprehensive are the analytics. Our analytics are phenomenal! They show Mouse overs for one!! If someone mouses over your ad, we know! Can they provide Dynamic ads? Can they stage multiple ads i.e. Every time a person sees one of your ads, it's a different ad. Every consecutive ad is designed with a better offer or incentive designed to have clients go back to your site and/or convert. Will the analytics tell you how many ads it took for a customer to return to your site.

To answer your question about BZ. Check into their ad networks. If they won't give you a definitive answer about there ad network(s) and that they use google ad network I wouldn't use them. The other thing is how extensive is their analytics. Call other re-targeting companies to learn about their analytics. At least you'll have a foundation from which to ask questions. Most importantly, honestly ask yourself if your site needs work. In my opinion a company should have a good, properly optimized site with easy navigation, (to a "Contact Us" type form, prior to getting into re-targeting. You don't want to be the guy that brings the 7 series BMW home to a trailer.
 
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Ok guys, I sat through a 2 1/2 hour presentation today with ADP/BZ.

Thank you Jeff K. and Jeff C. for helping me understand behavioral marketing and retargeting. I got alot of information and learned the right questions to ask from right here on dealer refresh.

I must say that that I was impressed with their new website platform and the way they integrate the PPC campaign and behavioral marketing. I'm not sure how to spell the name for the new platform but here's a go at it. Peg-a-sis. With the new platform they are coming up to speed with my dealer.com site as far as flexibility goes. The old BZ sites was/is not flexible at all. With the new ones everything is customizable and you have total control of the site. Everything from the home page, menu layout, banners, static pages,custom urls, meta data, custom page titles, videos, custom page layout, custom RSS feeds and the website blog.

With their digital marketing package they incorporate PPC campaign, banner placement ads and everything is tractable. Social media and online reputation mgmt? They have that covered too. You can manage this yourself or let them manage it. It's your choice.

They set you up with a Community site for the local area and you can get it started with the dealership employees and then grow the site with the help of the employees plus you can set it up so it feeds to their Facebook account and then disperses to their friends plus they have a separate social networking dashboard with about 100 different social networking sites including all the main ones youtube, facebook, myspace, ect... No more framed inventory and framed static pages. They can and do set up the PPC campaigns and banner ads for deep linking into the website. Oh, I almost forgot, did I mention that they are doing away with flash base sites. The new platform is set up in HTML.

I must say that before this meeting this morning there was no chance in me ever going with a BZ site and I was well prepared to knock down their presentation and move on with my day.

After the presentation I have a completely different view on this company's foresight. It seems to me that this is basically a one stop shop now. Do you guys think its a good move to put entire internet presence under one roof with a company like this?
 
I had the misfortune of trying to integrate BZ Buzztrak and their other CRM/desking tool last year at a dealer which was enough to make me leave. Ownership bought in heavy to the whole package and did not listen to a thing we had to say.

Despite a great story of customer support, it became quite apparent they were more about the upsell than anything else. I would call Buzztrack to find out why leads were not showing, and be told not their issue someone else, so call the other CRM and they said they were receiving everything they were supposed to so call Buzztrak. Call them, pass the buck to the website. Website side says they are passing all leads the way they are supposed to.....

At any rate, in my humble opinion, BZ is a great way to create a 5 headed monster you cannot control and have no hope of ever reigning in until ownership pulls the plug. Hopefully you are a trusted enough resource to not get flushed with the website when it is finally figured out what has happened.

I'm sorry. Was that out loud?

Good luck.
 
Rick, sounds like BZ knew to be prepared!! wonder how?? :rofl: -

BZ Results - Pegasus - I believe is what they are calling it.

Glad this thread gave you some insight..that's what it's all about.

Sounds like BZ pulled out all the tricks, got you all excited and was serving up some concentrated Kool-aid. Nothing wrong with that as long at they back it all up and you get the sizzle and the steak.

I sat through a demo over 2 years ago and at that time they were just working on integrating their ADP website platform in with the traditional BZ platform. Sounds like they were hard at work and maybe I should had taken a few minutes at NADA to see what all they have been working on.

"After the presentation I have a completely different view on this company's foresight"
- I too went through these emotions after sitting through one of their demos.

"They set you up with a Community site for the local area and you can get it started with the dealership employees" - I hope they are not charging you for this (maybe a small set up fee would be permissible) ..you can do this yourself using Ning | Create and discover Ning Social Networks for your interests and passions. - that's all they're using anyways.

"Do you guys think its a good move to put entire internet presence under one roof with a company like this?" - One vendor to call on, one vendor to work with, one vendor to complain to..I like it. Just be sure it's the right vendor.

At the end of the day you need to decide for yourself which solution is going to make most sense to you. Before jumping the gun too quick with any vendor/solution, take your time, do your research, demo several other solutions, call other dealers using the same product and get their feedback. You are better off taking a little more time picking the right solution then rushing into a nightmare.

If BZ is the right solution and makes the most sense for your dealer, go for it. If they don't live up to their demo/sizzle..we invite you to share your experience here in the forums.
 
Rick,

There are a lot of companies coming out with a lot of tools, dashboards, etc. which supposedly do all your Digital Marketing for you. As with most things usually it's too good to be true.

I haven't looked at this tool/dashboard yet but I will say this...when it comes to the Social Media portion of Digital Marketing there is no easy work around. It takes the hard work of building engagement which cannot be done by aggregating a bunch of RSS feeds into your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I agree with Jeff. Take your time and make the right decision. I also believe using only one vendor puts a lot of power in their hands.

Good Luck and let me know if I can help in any way.
 
when it comes to the Social Media portion of Digital Marketing there is no easy work around. It takes the hard work of building engagement which cannot be done by aggregating a bunch of RSS feeds into your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Exactly.

There are big rewards for that work though, its all going to become relationship based commerce soon so one little offer of advice - listen very closely to who's active in your local area on twitter, facebook, etc. I mean listen VERY closely.