Have you been blitzed by team ATC yet?

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Steven,

You're absolutely right. It is about what works and what doesn't, and that is a very personal equation. We've been at it since the mid-90's and have done all sorts of experimentation. There was a time when ATC was something that did work, but that is not the case today. Cars.com works very well for us. ATC does a fantastic job of ticking us off - the inspiration for all the ATC threads on Dealer Refresh I've started.

Alan,

Yes, you are there to sell the cars that don't "automatically" sell just because we have them in stock. Your job is to present those vehicles to a broader audience, and that is all there is to it.

 

[Alec Murray]

"Searches for used cars were down across all of AutoTrader.com, with significant double-digit dips despite strong overall site traffic"

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www.marketwatch.com

I guess Chip Perry neglects to inform the blitz sales people this little factoid before they ran thru our area this Spring. I've never seen a company with a faster revolving door of sales reps than with Autotrader.com, we cancelled last year and we must've had 5 sales reps w/them in 4 years.

 

[Cars.com Believer]

Amy wrote:
of all of the "vendors" you want to compare autotrader.com to....which one can say to you they are spending 70 plus million to drive traffic?

Cars.com is spending $200 Million Dollars on their 2008 ad campaign to drive traffic to their dealers. They are also providing comparable value to the dealers at 1/3 of AT's monthly cost.

DON'T get me wrong I never bash AT because at the end of the day even at their higher prices they are still providing a great deal of value to their dealers. However based on Amy's comment I felt compelled to set the record straight. According to the latest ad sheets they have delivered to me they are advertising on the following:

Comedy Central, Discovery, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNnews, ESPNU, FOX sports, TBS, TNT, USA

3 commercials on each FOX MLB game
Major spots in NASCAR races including sponsorship
Major college football game sponsorships
Major NFL football sponsorships
CONFIRMED spots in the upcoming Super Bowl (the BIGGEST stage in advertising)

$200 MILLION Spent to drive traffic to their dealers in 2008 and they are still providing tons of value for 1/3 of the cost.

 

[Lightnup (blog)]

"$200 million in 2008." Yawn. So what...ATC spent $100 million in just the past 3 months.

The "bounce" from cars.com Superbowl commercials (the commercials that insult their clients' ethics and integrity by implying that it takes witch doctors and voodoo dancers to get fair treatment from a car dealer) was over almost before it began.

 

[Cars 3.0]

Cox most recently cancelled the construction of a 28 story new headquarters building to house autotrader and as recently as last week announced they are putting 29 newspapers on the block for sale in addition to Valpak. They are circiling the wagons to divest of revenue draining sectors of their business, they should really think twice about pissing off anymore dealers with autotrader rates if they're seriously looking to maintain or grow their $15 billion in overall revenue the next couple years.

 

[Cars.com Believer]

Amy wrote:
of all of the "vendors" you want to compare autotrader.com to....which one can say to you they are spending 70 plus million to drive traffic?

Lightnup wrote:
ATC spent $100 million in just the past 3 months.

Contradiction n. The act of contradicting. The state of being contradicted. A denial. Inconsistency; discrepancy.

The above possibly could be considered a contradiction...

I'm curious if there are any dealers that would like to comment on the results the 100 million spent in the last 3 months have generated...

Cars.com avg monthly visitors were 300,000 in 2007
Cars.com avg monthly visitors are over 800,000 in 2008

That's what the 200 million in advertising has generated. (in case you were wondering)

 

[Ryan]

@ Lightnup

You "cleared up" the superbowl ad issue for us on July 1st. Scroll up a bit and you'll find my reply, I guess you missed it.

Nothing new from you on this? I'm really kinda disappointed. I hate to call you out, especially after you nailed Jeff on exposing "his furry" to vendors, that was classic, but let me ask you, if the bounce on the ads was shortlived, how long are you planning on spinning the creative to look like something it wasn't?

 

[Lightnup (blog)]

@Ryan
Sorry you're disappointed. I'll try to do better next time.
Your ads are still running and they still convey the "Mr. Dealer, you're not trustworthy" message, so why would I change my opinion of them? You're insulting your own clients.

@cars 3.0
Deciding not to proceed on a major capital project in a lousy economy and selling off newspapers both seem like pretty astute moves, wouldn't you agree? Perhaps good management is how they got to $15 Billion in the first place?

@cars believer
$70+ and $100 are not contradictions. The + means "plus" or "more than" and $100 is more than $70. Nice try though.

Since you're into quoting numbers, perhaps you noticed that compete.com shows ATC up 22% in unique visitors this year while cars.com is up 4.1%.

I haven't posted since early July and was content to let this thread die, but since cars believer felt compelled to "set the record straight," so did I.

 

[Ryan]

I had one GM out of 30 that was not happy about the creative, I've never seen an effective campaign that everybody likes. That said, he hasn't complained at all about the uptick in contacts and sales off the site. As far as insulting the client base goes, I think we can gather quite a bit of info on that just by looking at the number of posts this topic has received relative to the one discussing our ad creative. The "clients" seem to be much more insulted by your sales tactics.

I'm going to throw in for the other rebuttals too. Compete is a great tool, but you've misapplied it. You've got out the 8lb sledge to put the boat in the glass bottle...

Until ATC deals with the spiders and bots that necessitate the "small text" in admanager, it's hard to definitively say what kind of traffic or uniques you are driving. I think the better stat from compete to look at is velocity over the last 45 days. Look at page visits monthly too...Yikes! not a good trend.

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siteanalytics.compete.com

The other thing that you already know is that partnership sites play a giant role in this kind of measurement. Add yahoo to the mix and the total searches picture changes pretty quickly.

Not making a sales pitch here, but it's way more than what you've presented.

 

[Billy]

While I do agree with alot of the comments regarding vendors in this thread I do have to give kudos to cars.com for the ads.

As a dealer, you can continue to try to hide from the reputation you have or take advantage of it. Cars.com does a great job in these spots embracing the idea of customers expecting to fight for the perceived deal then brushing that idea aside with humor.

I know of 2 dealers in our DMA that are at less than 30% of units sold as same time last year. They spend most every day trying to hide from their reputation.

While some of us if not most might initially feel slighted by the stereotyping, seeing it as a whole provides better insight.

After all, the customer is already thinking this way. Why not let it work for you.