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Is Edmunds STEALING from you?

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#21
Alex,

I think there's an alternative view on this. When I first started in automotive I accidentally did very much the same-- although in that case it was [city name] Honda, which also happened to be a dealership name.

What may be happening is they've generated a huge list of keywords and are using Dynamic Keyword Insertion... so it may simply be the case of a separation/lack of communication between sales and accounts with the technical SEM teams.

While it may be (unlikely), it's still something to consider. Obviously I don't know the real answer.
 
#23
Yeah Brian - you are so right! I just drafted a little email, based off of what you're saying, to my third-party lead rep (I'm only down to 1 company these days anyway) asking why I should continue to put money toward their venture when a lot of what they represent is just using our name to sell us customers who were already looking for us.

This can of worms is WAAAAAY DEEP!
 
#24
Welcome to my world Alex... It is natural to respond as if you just caught your accountant with their hand in the cookie jar, but it is far more effective to use these same strategies to:

1) Move edmunds off of page 1

2) Put YOUR brand on your competitor's page one listings.

Thats how I roll anyway...

I would argue (to the vendor's chagrin) that PPC has very little value to the dealer -- IF you own page 1. I do zero PPC and we still saw 25,259 visitors to our sites last month. A bullet proof SEO strategy trumps a PPC strategy every time.

Combine that with the fact that consumer habits are trending away from PPC on large ticket items that are more research oriented (Like automotive). Great if you want the best price on a blue ray movie - not so much for a car.

We just axed our last pay-per-lead provider. Amazing what you can do when you generate your own leads.

With a network of dealerships like Alex's one could REALLY dominate their PMA and well beyond. I've done it with a single point store. Now I'm taking it further by leveraging 3 strong brands.

Herb Chambers has 45 franchises. His site does virtually zero SEO and is one of if not the highest trafficked dealer website in the country. All due to the high number of brands he naturally appears for. My single point Nissan store get's approx 25% of HerbChambers.com's total traffic volume.

Use SEO to take back the incremental business thats out there...

OK I'm off my soap box...
 
#26
Alex, Jeff, and the DR Community,

This new Internet marketing era is a complicated one, isn’t it?

We appreciate your concerns and have taken immediate action. We reviewed all of our thousands of SEM campaigns and we have made the decision to no longer bid on search terms that consist of proper dealer names. It was never our intention to divert consumers from dealer websites, but we can see how our activities could be construed as doing that; I will explain this more below.

We will, however, continue to buy search terms that are combinations of geographic names with franchise names -- so as to respond to consumer searches like “Seattle BMW.” That is because we have inventory and research information that is relevant to consumers looking for BMWs in Seattle. If there happens to be a dealership with the name “Seattle BMW,” it is merely a coincidence. Unfortunately that is what is happening to Proctor Acura because of the city Proctor in Texas. We are still going to show up in searches where the dealer’s name is the name of a geographic location plus a franchise name, but “Checkered Flag Mini,” “Bob Smith BMW” and others with such names should now be removed.

If, for whatever reason, any dealership name is more than just a geographic area and it seems we are still bidding on the name, please let us know, at http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx, and we will respond as quickly as possible.

Why did we bid on these terms? We are offering a research path for consumers who seek more information about vehicles. To that end, the page that the ad sends people to contains in-depth information about the vehicle in question. For example in the case of “Checkered Flag Mini,” the ad linked to: www.edmunds.com/mini/index.html -- which is a Mini vehicle research page, not a “lead generation” page.

We are not attempting to fool the Google user into thinking that we are a dealer. Our advertisements are quite clear that we are an information resource – not a competitor. Our URL displayed to consumers on Google is our name, not a variant on a dealership name – so no consumers will think that they are linking to a dealer and find themselves unexpectedly on Edmunds.com.

Should you ever want to get in touch with us again: we have really great leads partners who support our Leads and Premier Dealer Programs, and you can always reach out to your representative that sells our products. However, the quickest way to get a response from Edmunds.com is by submitting a request through http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx.

Those of you who know me personally, as always, feel free to contact me directly at any time.

Good selling.

John Giamalvo
Director, Dealer Initiatives
Edmunds.com
 
#28
John,

Thank you for responding. Yes, the Internet is definitely the Wild West today. I can understand a mistake, and appreciate an apology.

Whether or not you're writing this off as a mistake is still unclear. I still have not received the phone call I asked for, but we may be beyond saving at this point. I am currently looking for other ways to spend the ad dollars you get from us.

Brian Pasch is 100% correct - your site leaks. It may be good business practice for you, but I'm not a fan. I'm actually very ticked off at myself for not getting upset with your SEO practices, sooner, in using our name. I know you're far from the only ones doing this, but I'm definitely going to do something about it.

Again, thank you for responding. And I have to thank you for creating a situation that is furthering my education.

-Alex

P.S. the Proctor Auto Group is in Florida.
 
#29
In John's response "Why did we bid on these terms? We are offering a research path for consumers who seek more information about vehicles."

More likely is because dealers have spent millions of dollars to establish that a MINi dealership is in that town. This is not a random event.

I am confident that the keyword phrases Edmunds are buying highly correlate to the dealer brands and the city name the dealership is located in.

So if there is no Suburu dealer in Hutchinson Kansas they are not buying "Hutchinson Subaru".

So, in effect they are leveraging consumer awareness built by dealer marketing dollars.

I make this point, just to be clear on what is happening and these patterns of keywords are NOT random. As I stated before, Edmunds is not the only ones doing this.

As Alex points out, dealers have to decide if they want their marketing partner (Edmunds) drawing leads away from their website.

They have to decide if it "ok" to have your marketing partner buy their OEM brand name and the town they are located in.
 
#30
“We are not attempting to fool the Google user into thinking that we are a dealer. Our advertisements are quite clear that we are an information resource – not a competitor.”

Information pages do not make money. Names, emails, phone numbers, address and interest of product does. So your “GET A FREE PRICE QUOTE” on your information page makes you a competitor.

What a dummy not having two data bases merging into your site, One for partners like Alex, one for dealers who don’t do biz with you. Oh, did I just give you a tip?

In my opinion CarFax is no better, that’s another post…

Grass Roots, Grass Roots lets give 3rd party leads the boots.

By the way the last laugh is on us. How long has this been going on?
 

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