Who else is doing Online Display advertising and Pay-Per-Click?

[Jeff Kershner]

I would like to hear some thoughts and/or comments on Online Display advertising and Pay-Per-Click (SEM).  Who is doing this currently?

Who uses what company, and who is doing it themselves. At my dealer I have done some research on both PPC and Online Display Advertising. I currently have BZ Results managing my PPC Campaigns on Google and Yahoo.  I am very pleased with the results and the amount of leads I am getting directly from these campaigns. I recently have built up these campaigns to the point I am no longer relying on third-party lead providers, i.e. Dealix, Automotive.com, etc. Is this really a good idea, or should I still be buying those third-party leads?  Typically an internet lead from your dealer website will close at a higher rate than third-party leads.

Also, I’m looking to take this one step further and add some display advertising in conjunction with my PPC Campaigns. I’m told both work good separately but the impact of combining the two is greater than the sum of the effects of search and display individually. In other words the synergistic effect; add two and two and you get five.  What are your thoughts?

Richard Klepach
Business Development Director

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Richard,

I'm using Total Control Dominator by Dealer.com. I've been through quite a few different SEM companies and am extremely impressed with the capabilities TCD has! I haven't gotten to a point where I'm ready to kill all third-party lead providers, but I have definitely dwindled that list down to a very small number.

Here's an article I wrote for Dealer.com's latest newsletter:

http://newsletter.dealer.com/e_article001180207.cfm?x=bdkvWBn,b8QPHCdy

It doesn't talk about TCD directly, but more about why using SEM to get away from third-party lead providers can be a good thing.

 

[Jerome Jerenovich]

Leads are Weak!!!!!!!! Buy as little as you can get away with...... And remember that there are 'free' ways (Content on YouTube, social networking, blogging, inventory distribution, etc) to accelerate your search rankings without having to run PPC campaigns. At the end of the day, regardless of how/who you use.... DO IT. You're way better off having a digital budget that earmarks PPC campaigns than relying on print ads. Good thread, looking forward to what folks have to say.

 

[Alex Jefferson]

I'm using ReachLocal. I believe their customer support is excellent and will bend over backwards to try to satisfy you. I must say I am pleased with the traffic that has been generated. However, it has been hard to quantify. It seems I get a TON of service and parts related traffic. I keep asking myself would these people have found me anyway? This is after removing all parts and service related search phrases...which means people are just typing in some basic search term to find our dealership.
I think paid search effectiveness will always be debatable because you can argue both sides of the coin. The funny thing is the third party companies do it to steal our customers by creating portal/landing pages like "buycarsforcheap.com" or something like that. You guys know what I'm talking about.

 

[Matt Starnes]

I'm a firm believer of staying away from any and all third-party lead sources and I do just fine with units, but even better with CPL and CPS.

 

[Frank Davis]

We have not purchased third party leads in two years, we generate between 800 and 1200 leads per month. We also cut out autotrader 4 months ago. We do no SEM. All of our advertising is aimed at name branding and it works very well for us. I have to say it is a giant leap but there really is a better way to spend the money.

 

[Alex Jefferson]

Let's do a poll. What companies are you all using for SEM or are you all going the route of having only a strong SEO platform?

 

[Brian in Etown]

S.E.O. only here with Dealer.com handling the campaign.

 

[Alex Jefferson]

Thanks for your reponse Brian. I guess everyone else is holding their strategy tight to the vest. LOL.

 

[Richard Klepach (blog)]

This is awesome, thanks for all your comments. I personally am using BZ Results. Maybe we can carry this forum a bit further. What are the current industry benchmarks? Specifically what should I be looking for in a conversion ratio from clicks to landing pages to actual leads? What is the benchmark for closing ratios? With a typical ad budget (hypothetically let's use $10K a month), how many leads should I receive from these campaigns?