- Apr 20, 2009
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Amen.
JQ, in regards to Abandonment - sending highly qualified traffic to a bad website (haven't seen your website, so just saying) is the surest way to high bounce and poor conversions.
Help! - Pay-Per-Click SEM Marketing Best Practices
- Thread starter CARBIZ
- Start date
JQ, in regards to Abandonment - sending highly qualified traffic to a bad website (haven't seen your website, so just saying) is the surest way to high bounce and poor conversions.
- Apr 14, 2009
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- Tom
Damn Joe, sometimes I think you and I share the same Brain. PPC is a MUST DO for every dealership. It is 20% of my Ad Budget and growing! If you want to Dominate (and I mean TRULY Dominate) PPC must be in your arsenal. Take the Adwords Certified Training and do-it-yourself. You will learn much more than how to place well performing ads on google - you will learn how to gain valuable insights into how your prospects behave and what they respond to.
Just sayin'
Just sayin'
- Apr 7, 2009
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Evan,
Crawl, Walk Run!
You're just starting out, your mistakes are waiting for you to arrive. Start small and slowly grow.
You MUST remember that your spend will be almost totally invisible. If (and when) you get challenged on your spend, you're gonna need to defend yourself. Part of your new adventure will be learning how to CYA (Cover Your Ass). Work with your website vendor and insert a unique toll free number that replaces your existing number when a google paid ad visitor's arrives (its not hard). Get very familiar with Google Analytics.
- Apr 7, 2009
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If you want to fund an AGGRESSIVE PPC plan it requires the manager/owner to be very understanding. There is a radical and kind of complex premise that is important to understand.
Rule #1: 90% of all customers were on your website prior to purchase*.
Rule #2: Nearly ALL sales came from stealth shoppers (sent in no lead)
Think about the power of the SILENT MAJORITY.
Question: Why do we obsess on lead counts if our shoppers HATE submitting leads?
Answer: Because we can measure it
Question: Because we can measure it, does that make it "important"
Answer: No.
My $0.02
Lead counts are but one point of measurement. Most managers think these lead counts trump all other measurements. They obsess on the minority and miss the SILENT MAJORITY. That's ok, we're human! We're busy gettin' cars over the curb. Invisible stuff is not easy to deal with.
We are NOT an ecommerce site, we are a catalog site. Yes, lead counts are important, but, they are the minority.
Lets say a pal of yours runs a Real Estate web site, he asked you to shop for some homes and wanted your opinion of his site. While you were looking at all the homes, did you obsess on the lead entry forms? NO! You wanted lots of info and nice pics and maps. How important are the lead entry forms? NOT.
But... if your pal ran a online sneaker store, NOW your all about the shopping cart.
For us car guys, ENGAGEMENT STATS IS WHERE THE MONEY's AT.
*Proof for Rule #1, create your own post sale survey:http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f40/...isms-really-track-success-498-2.html#post3413
http://www.dealerrefresh.com/search...=0&sa.y=0&siteurl=www.dealerrefresh.com/#1016
Rule #1: 90% of all customers were on your website prior to purchase*.
Rule #2: Nearly ALL sales came from stealth shoppers (sent in no lead)
Think about the power of the SILENT MAJORITY.
Question: Why do we obsess on lead counts if our shoppers HATE submitting leads?
Answer: Because we can measure it
Question: Because we can measure it, does that make it "important"
Answer: No.
My $0.02
Lead counts are but one point of measurement. Most managers think these lead counts trump all other measurements. They obsess on the minority and miss the SILENT MAJORITY. That's ok, we're human! We're busy gettin' cars over the curb. Invisible stuff is not easy to deal with.
We are NOT an ecommerce site, we are a catalog site. Yes, lead counts are important, but, they are the minority.
Lets say a pal of yours runs a Real Estate web site, he asked you to shop for some homes and wanted your opinion of his site. While you were looking at all the homes, did you obsess on the lead entry forms? NO! You wanted lots of info and nice pics and maps. How important are the lead entry forms? NOT.
But... if your pal ran a online sneaker store, NOW your all about the shopping cart.
For us car guys, ENGAGEMENT STATS IS WHERE THE MONEY's AT.
- % of visitors that return for more visits
- #of pages viewed
- Time on Site
- Bounce Rate
- etc...
*Proof for Rule #1, create your own post sale survey:http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f40/...isms-really-track-success-498-2.html#post3413
http://www.dealerrefresh.com/search...=0&sa.y=0&siteurl=www.dealerrefresh.com/#1016
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Like mentioned about if you do it right it cant fail. Like most other things ive found in the dealership world, the failure comes when we stop tracking and validating the ROI of it.
My last dealership worked with DDC's program and to me that was a huge waste of money since most of the keywords we were buying were based of no human interaction and simple based on make / model from a Database pull. Example: We were an Acura store and we were bidding on "Toyota Camry" because we had 1 used on in inventory and it was pulled out of the DB to buy. To me that isn't an effective use of the budget because we only had 1, couldnt replace it, and if it wasnt the right car for them then it was wasted $. Some will argue that any traffic to your site is worth it but my argument would be that budget is better spent on other keywords.
We then went with ReachLocal for a bit and realized their tracking on incoming and on spend just wasnt setup well or available. SEM is interesting, its something you can do for yourself on a very small scale but if you are going to do it then ReachLocal, NetSertive, etc are worth the cost in my opinion but know what you are doing before you go into it.
One question id like to ask the group here is your thoughts on buying your own dealer name... "ABD Dealership" Is it worth it? I found a lot of internal people clicking the paid link, as well as a lot of service and parts customers clicking. To me if you are ranking well for your own name which you should be, those are customers specifically looking for your dealership, its not worth paying for the click. But id love to hear some other peoples opinions on that.
Do you pay for your company name?
Would you buy keywords for 1 off inventory?
Do you try to compete with the big fish or sneak in with the less used but less competitive keywords?
-Lou
My last dealership worked with DDC's program and to me that was a huge waste of money since most of the keywords we were buying were based of no human interaction and simple based on make / model from a Database pull. Example: We were an Acura store and we were bidding on "Toyota Camry" because we had 1 used on in inventory and it was pulled out of the DB to buy. To me that isn't an effective use of the budget because we only had 1, couldnt replace it, and if it wasnt the right car for them then it was wasted $. Some will argue that any traffic to your site is worth it but my argument would be that budget is better spent on other keywords.
We then went with ReachLocal for a bit and realized their tracking on incoming and on spend just wasnt setup well or available. SEM is interesting, its something you can do for yourself on a very small scale but if you are going to do it then ReachLocal, NetSertive, etc are worth the cost in my opinion but know what you are doing before you go into it.
One question id like to ask the group here is your thoughts on buying your own dealer name... "ABD Dealership" Is it worth it? I found a lot of internal people clicking the paid link, as well as a lot of service and parts customers clicking. To me if you are ranking well for your own name which you should be, those are customers specifically looking for your dealership, its not worth paying for the click. But id love to hear some other peoples opinions on that.
Do you pay for your company name?
Would you buy keywords for 1 off inventory?
Do you try to compete with the big fish or sneak in with the less used but less competitive keywords?
-Lou
- Apr 20, 2009
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- Terrence
I tell my clients, "if you're not bidding on your own name, someone else is". We devote approximately 5-10% of the dealer's SEM budget towards "Trademarks and Competition". They are the cheapest clicks (by far) and the highest converting. Research has also shown Branding, CTR and Conversions all increase when you show up in both the Paid and the Organic listings.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
I find lots of dealers with nobody bidding for their name, so why do it?
If another dealer gets after your name then spend the money but no before that happens.
- Apr 20, 2009
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- Terrence
Must be nice not to have competition
The dealers we work with don't seem to have that luxury. Another reason (apart from the one above regarding increase in branding, traffic and conversions) is that even if you think no other dealers are actively bidding on your name, and your store has a National Brand name in it (i.e. "Magic Johnson Toyota") there are companies (most likely the OEM and 3rd party lead aggregators) showing up for your name by bidding the keyword, "Toyota" on a broad match basis.
I suppose if you are an independent dealer, live in a Tier 3 market, and/or don't have a Trademark in your name, you could get by without bidding on your name...assuming you are showing up #1 Organically of course.
- Dec 30, 2009
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No PPC under their name. No national searches. And they own their Google 10.
clyde revord - Google Search
I can show you lots like this across the US.
I understand what you do and it is great for when dealers go head to head against eachother.
clyde revord - Google Search
I can show you lots like this across the US.
I understand what you do and it is great for when dealers go head to head against eachother.
- Apr 7, 2009
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Yag,
"clyde revord" owns the top10? Really tough task that is [/sarcasm]. C'mon lets own Google page one for... say... "clyde smakly" Nuthin' too it
Now, add a franchise name into the mix (like TG said), say clyde revord buick, and here they come!
Bidding on your own name is dirt cheap. You have low competition and perfect quality score. Where as bidding on your competitors name is far more expensive.
