Dealership News 36643

TO

P

M A G A Z I N E ISSUE 01/ OCT 2019

introducing: DealershipNews.com’s VENDOR REVIEWS!!! interview with social experts/

dealerleads.com:

performance-based

web traffic that delivers/

S

ixteen thousand cold calls and a Heaping Helping of industry praise later, and LotLinx has become a car dealer’s best friend. It hasn’t been an overnight success, though. As Advertising Veteran/Angel Investor turned Founder of LotLinx Len Short explains, it all started in the early 2000’s with his search for investment opportunities.

He found that, although the majority of vehicle research takes place online, inventory search in automotive was antiquated and “broken.” Seizing the opportunity, he partnered with Co-Founders Jason Knight and Rob Vucic in 2012 to start an inventory marketing company that would bridge the gap between auto retailers and consumers - and just so happen to be on the forefront of the next major technological revolution.

and using technology to accomplish real dealer inventory sales objectives. They have developed a patented artificial intelligence (AI) technology that pinpoints the most influential shopping moments in the vehicle buying process to deliver in-market consumer demand to specific vehicle pages on the dealer site.

Unlike most other automotive marketing solutions today that focus on audience, LotLinx flips things by focusing on VINs

While markdowns are an easy lever to pull, they should not be considered a best practice by any means. Marking down slow-

14

Their solutions help dealerships become more efficient and resilient to the impacts of bloated inventory stocks or aged units by moving vehicles when it’s most profitable. Currently, as vehicles age, dealers turn to price reductions as a means of boosting sales. Without LotLinx, most dealers move less than 35% of inventory at or around listing price.

Automotive News You Can Use

lotlinx: using inventory intelligence to boost dealer margins/ by kelly kleinman/ content director/

moving inventory not only sacrifices profit on those units, but also degrades the value of other similar vehicles on the lot. (Why would someone buy a vehicle at list price if there is a similar unit on the lot that is cheaper?)

For additional credibility, a major portion (if not all) of most dealerships’ LotLinx budget can be covered by co-op dollars.

Right now, LotLinx is considered “co-op approved” by the following OEMs: Alfa Romeo, Audi, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, GMC, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Kia, Land Rover, Maserati, Mazda, Ram, and Subaru.

LotLinx is essentially saying, “Don’t drop prices until the vehicles have been adequately promoted! Price vehicles at reasonable market prices, use smarter marketing strategies to drive consumer demand to those vehicles, and sell cars at a higher profit. You can make a choice to LOSE gross by dropping price, or USE strategic promotional dollars to retain higher margins.”

What’s it going to cost a dealer? To put AI-vetted consumer demand on a specific car, you pay on average $50 per VIN.

THE CRED TEST: At Dealership News, we have access to the Google Analytics of hundreds of car dealers. We can see which vendors deliver, and which vendors do not. Google Analytics, love them or hate them, are agnostic. We can see that LotLinx traffic to VDPs is higher-quality than any vendor in the industry. Their traffic arrives with purpose, does their research, and is considered “sticky,” suggesting they stick around on the VDP for more than a few minutes and engages with the vehicle’s photos, chats, etc.

Their team of strategy experts offer free dealer inventory consultations that go in-depth to look at vehicles that make the most impact on margins. You can request yours today by visiting their website: www.lotlinx.com/topcloser.

Automotive News You Can Use

/AI/ can’t close the sale for you. It comes down to the personnel and lead converting skills within each dealership.

But they can get your closers closer to a conversion than anyone else when it comes to your inventory.

www.dealershipnews.com 15

2018 DEALER SATISFACTION

DealerLeads wishes to thank Driving Sales and all of our treasured clients for this prestigious honor.

Call For a Demo 877.629.2469

Our clients are royalty and we are committed to going above and beyond for them in all we do.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!

#NEXTSALE #GAMECHANGER

CALL US NOW! Jason Geras: 1.800.208.1609 ext 711 El Patronn: 631.432.3718

increasing fixed ops

revenue for 2019/20

Start By Being More Visible To Your Potential Customers Online.

A

s each and every car dealership is building budgets and planning for the remainder of 2019 and continuing on into 2020, the challenges that face our industry today are the same challenges that we have faced in previous years. Slowly declining vehicle sales, profit pressure on multiple fronts like Carvana and lastly the difficult question on how to grow our businesses year over year. It certainly helps that we are seeing more and more vendors and tools; however, when looking at Fixed Operations Marketing it is more challenging and the options are fewer and further between.

Today – let’s talk specifically on how your dealership can build greater visibility on search engines like Google in order to drive more fixed operations revenue.

First, moving the needle for your Service and Parts Departments requires more content to increase visibility. Modern automotive dealership websites have little to no content for service, parts and or collision marketing. What content is there is sometimes canned for every like manufacturer dealer on a particular website platform. Pages for service(s) like oil change and tire rotation are common, however, pages like the following are non-existent: • Brake Pad Replacement • Transmission Fluid Replacement Service • Windshield Wiper Replacement • AWD Alignment Services • Cabin Air Filter Service 4

by owen moon/

ceo/ fixed ops digital/

When combining the domain authority of your OEM + the city that your dealer resides in, It is very easy to start seeing huge gains in visibility on Google. By starting to build a solid foundation of fixed ops related content and using sound SEO strategy, we have created huge gains in website impression share on Google.

You can source this information inside Google Analytics by following the steps below or you can contact us at Fixed Ops 1. Digital to help guide you through this process.

2. Under Acquisition Tab – Click on Search Console 3. Under the Search Console Tab – Click on Queries 4. Be sure to choose Impressions and filter by “Service” Within 90 days we have most dealers at an almost 400-500% increase in impressions based on “service” related searches.

Building service-related content that is optimized around your dealership brands in addition to building content revolving around services that the dealership offers has shown to bring great rewards. This is not uncommon either – in fact, this is more of the norm as it relates to the 200+ Dealers, Fixed Ops Digital works with today.

To recap – building content and creating a sound technical SEO strategy each and every month for each and every profit center inside fixed operations not only will provide results, but those benefits and rewards will come quickly as your competition is most likely not taking advantage of this marketing strategy. In fact – they are asleep at the wheel.

Automotive News You Can Use

more than meets the eye/ by lisa gener/

ceo/sales engineuity

I

n comparison to those who dread going to their annual eye check-up, I happen to be the one who happily marks it on my calendar. Why, you ask? My eye doctor happens to be a friend and fellow female entrepreneur, and we always have a great time searching for my new, stylish pair of frames. This year’s check-up was like any other, until we reached the topic of my severe dry eye condition. To which I thought…how did I end up with such dry eyes?

We concluded that my extended open eye aka ‘Deer in the Headlights’ stare, was the cause. It’s a look I’m passionately working to eliminate and, in my opinion, can only be cured by helping automotive dealers gain a useful understanding of today’s digital marketing landscape. This haunting look appears when my new dealer friend tells me they’re spending an arbitrary $28,000 in search engine marketing, without any tie to the dealer’s Google Analytics account.

My poor eye condition worsens when I hear “they provide their own reporting”, knowing that a majority of those proprietary ad agency reports hide key metrics that dealers should be aware of today.

With 86% of automotive consumers actively shopping online, a dealer’s online traffic report from Google Analytics now holds just as much importance as an aging inventory report or a financial statement. These metrics are quantifiable. Here are some basic tips that may help significantly reduce the effect of chronic dry eye: • Dealers should know how their digital provider is getting to the dollar amount of the proposed budget. Agencies should be requesting specific information about the

(832) 377.2977 dealer’s market, operations (i.e. closing percentages by lead type), inventory-turn goals, pre-owned supply, new vehicle sales efficiency, and cross-sell by competition.

• Agencies should have no problem providing a transparent monthly review of the Google MCC account - the paid ads management dashboard that shows where your dollars are being spent. Pro-tip: know what the provider’s policy is for the unspent budget. Are they putting it in their own pocket, rolling it over to the following month or cutting a reimbursement check?

• If the dealer is leveraging an OEM-appointed tool, dig in to find out which companies focus on technological advancements (i.e., Machine learning, AI-based data analysis, etc.). Lean away from programs with complete automation (that is rarely monitored) and find a company that values the power of cutting-edge technology and human interaction (dialed-in dealer communication) to leverage marketing efficiencies.

• Dealerships should also discuss dynamic inventory campaigns with their agencies and know what their daily-bid strategy will be for those units. Not every unit needs an ad – though you should strongly consider having a budget that allows for it, but your core models should at least be achieving a dominant position on page 1 of SERP and receiving a better impression share than your competitors. Dealers should also be aware of agencies that promote spending 30-40% of the ad

Can you spot the cars that are most impacting your margins?

Our CRM is...

Simple Engagement Focused Increased Visibility

We can.

And we’ll help you move them.

SELL CARS SMARTER ™

Go to lotlinx.com/TopCloser to book your free inventory marketing consultation!

LotLinx Inc., 200 West Madison Street, 13th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 | 800.625.5469 © 2002, 2009, 2012, 2016-2019 LotLinx, Inc. All rights reserved.

Get the #LiveWithDrive Experience Today!! sales@drivecentric.com

more than meets the eye/ (Continued from Page 6)

budget on a dealership name, which can contribute to wasted spend on third-party inventory aggregators.

• Dealers should know how frequently their data strategist is monitoring their campaigns. With factors like incentives, inventory, weather and holidays, so many changes can occur before the 30 days sales close. Your campaign manager should be monitoring – at minimum – twice per week with optimizations.

It’s no secret that the digital landscape is rapidly evolving right before our eyes, and the powerhouse that is Amazon is creeping in. For dealerships, the importance of holding a digital ad agency accountable is vital to keeping insight on their allocated spend towards the consumer buying process. The transparency of Google Analytics can provide dealers with valuable insight and further education on understanding their marketing efforts in the digital space.

As I reflect on the stressors that lead to my ‘Deer in the Headlights’ stare, I’m hopeful that this piece will shed light on the need for dealer and agency transparency. To my digital marketing automotive dealers out there, stay alert and get involved when it comes to your digital marketing campaigns and goals!

Automotive News You Can Use

www.dealershipnews.com

7

interview with

social experts/

q a

SOCIALDEALER has been at the forefront of Social Media for a long time, in fact you’re the standard bearer in the industry. Because of that, you have a unique relationship with Facebook, please explain the depth of that relationship and how do you leverage that into success for the dealerships you partner with?

Since our beginning, we have had the privilege of being a beta and alpha partner of Facebook/Instagram for automotive. This means that we are among the first to learn of any advertising changes or key updates before they are implemented in the market. Because our founder is a dealer principal for several successful dealerships, we are able to pilot new social strategies or updates with our own dealerships before we roll out anything new with other clients. We take our partnership very seriously, so much so that we made the investment for all of our account managers to be Facebook Blueprint Certified and will continue to do so. This makes us to be among the first agencies to have an entire certified team to serve our clients.

The first Facebook Business automotive success story features our company, products and clients as we are constantly testing and setting the standard for automotive social advertising. We are very excited to have an expert from Facebook cohost on our upcoming podcast, “But, Does it Sell Cars?”. Together we are going to discuss how social can affect a dealership’s bottom line, selling more cars. The podcast is slated to release this upcoming summer.

q

I’ve long been a fan of strategically sound retargeting, something that SOCIALDEALER seems to have taken to another level with Facebook. Please explain the RT dynamic and why it’s so effective?

a

www.socialdealer.com info@socialdealer.com 866-673-7887

At SOCIALDEALER, we love retargeting customers through social because it works! Formerly known as Dynamic Auto Ads (DAA), Facebook recently changed the name to Automotive Inventory Ads (AIA). Using Automotive Inventory Ads is one of the most effective ways to retarget customers because it allows you to retarget the lowest funnel customers possible. AIA leverages cross-device intent signals to automatically promote relevant vehicles from a dealership’s inventory.

Our team has tested Automotive Inventory Ads for broad audiences to help generate new leads for dealerships. Dealers can now reach people who are shopping on and off their website, and as a result, helps them reach more prospective customers.

The results of our retargeting strategy are featured on Facebook Business and our team of social advertising experts have set best practices in automotive for social retargeting.

q a

Regarding Facebook ad campaigns, I’m a dealer wanting to throw some budget at FB, what are the most effective ad formats for automotive - video, single image, or even carousel, and what’s the average CPA compared to other advertising platforms?

This is one question that we get pretty often from dealers that are new to social advertising. It really isn’t a single ad type, or a one campaign fits all strategy. A lot of factors go into determining the right ad mix depending on the dealership’s goals. However, if an ad format had to be chosen, from a 10,000 foot view, we would be inclined to say video.

According to a 2019 study, more than 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook each day (Brandwatch).

a lot of factors go into determining the right ad mix depending on the dealership’s goals 8

Automotive News You Can Use

facebook marketplace has been an undeniable force since its beginning.

q a

Video has become the most engaging content type and incorporating video into your Facebook marketing strategy for retargeting purposes is a good move. Video has the best capability, when done right, to captivate an audience into what we call a “thumb-stopping” moment better than a static or GIF creative.

I noticed that when Craigslist stopped allowing personal ads

Additionally, on the Facebook ad platform, we can re-engage users who watched 95 percent of a specific video with a hyper-targeted ad, helping to tie back actual ROI to dealers.

Retargeting video viewers with a strong call to action helps convert them from viewers to buyers.

Facebook Marketplace has been an undeniable force since its

Let’s discuss your reputation management program from a value proposition standpoint and why it dovetails so well with your social media platform.

goal to make Marketplace a solution for dealers who may

q a

pretty much dried up, and then along came FB marketplace.

Has FB filled that vacuum?

beginning. With any technological disruption, there has to be a source from which attention, viewership, and business is taken from. It’s fair to say that Marketplace has taken quite a bit of the success that was once enjoyed by Craigslist. It was Facebook’s not have engaged with social prior. We’ve seen Marketplace become a stepping-stone to a much larger investment in their

q

In order for a person to be healthy it really depends on the whole person, their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The same goes for a dealership’s reputation, it depends on multiple factors and a wholistic view of their social, business listings, and customer reviews.

A recent study found that 84 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation (BrightLocal). If a dealership’s online reputation is a terrible two stars, it doesn’t matter how awesome their social, SEO, or digital marketing is.

Our unique reputation program includes review generation, which means we are pro- actively surveying customers to find the positives & negatives before they are posted. We will respond to reviews with customized responses written in your dealership’s voice all through one platform.

At SOCIALDEALER, we realize how important it is to provide a dealership with a complete view of their social and reputation health, because they truly go hand-in-hand. We aren’t just a high-quality social advertising agency, but we are a full-service one-stop shop for all social and reputation services.

Automotive News You Can Use

on their site that their automotive lead generation machine

dealerships via paid social.

Where do you see the future of social media going in the next couple years and how will it affect the auto industry?

Prospecting a couple of years in the future for a tech-based marketing solution is like forecasting 50 years ahead in traditional marketing. We are looking forward to quite a few

a

upcoming advancements on the social advertising side by the end of this year and into 2020.

As Facebook continues to increase its volume of advertisers, and subsequently, the ad budgets dedicated, Facebook will need to increase the relevancy and value in ad delivery. What that means is that, today, the average customer typically understands why they’re being served a certain ad 70 to 75 percent of the time.

With ad delivery becoming more sophisticated in the near future, and advertisers becoming savvier, soon users can expect a truly personalized experience on Facebook – Not just from their friends and family, but from their advertisers as well. www.dealershipnews.com

9

vendor face-off

cars.com vs. car gurus/ by kelly kleinman/ content director/

T

here are hundreds of vendors looking to do business with your car dealership. They come in all shapes and sizes. They all come with good intentions but quite frankly, some perform better than others. At Dealership News, we are fortunate to have access to the Google Analytics of hundreds of dealership websites and it’s by studying those analytics that we can measure certain metrics that provide us with an idea of how some vendors are performing.

In this installment, we will compare Cars.com with Car Gurus.

Both have deep market penetration, are well financed and advertised. As you all know, it’s not up to the vendor to sell your inventory, but some tee the traffic up better than others. Staying strictly agnostic, and looking at real actions on a website, Lotlinx and DealerLeads seem to perform consistently serving convertible traffic better than most 3rd party traffic and lead aggregators. Google organic, PPC, and direct traffic converts better than any 3rd party traffic with Facebook traffic coming in a close 4th. The numbers are plain to see in the analytics and in the conversations with dealers.

The question today is; which of these two vendors provides higher quality traffic (not lead forms) to your dealership’s website? We only studied dealersites that had both Cars.com and CarGurus in their vendor suite. Budgets varied, some favored one or the other but there was enough of a sample to take that into consideration.

several others as well. In this face off, we use 6 KPIs: • VDP VIEW % (VDP views as well) • Bounce Rate • New Users per session • Duration of time spent on site • Pages viewed • Clicks to call Although these two vendors are similar in many ways, the UX on each site is different. It takes the average new user just under 2.5 minutes to find a direct website link to the dealership who has a car they like on Cars.com, while it took under 1 minute to find a dealer link on Cargurus.

Granted, after the traffic leaves Car Gurus or Cars.com, it’s up to the dealer site to respond and keep the buyer engaged. Fact is, quality research time is spent on the front end navigating for a dealer link on Cars.com, so that once the buyer finds the dealersite they were looking for, they spend less time on it.

They’re gassed once they get to the targeted dealer site.

Car Gurus has a much easier architecture, and is more userfriendly on the front end if the user is looking for a dealership link, as opposed to tooling around on the middleman’s site.

Dealership websites need to be compelling and dealer’s should not be satisfied with a cookie cutter template. UX is the whole enchilada when it comes to shopping on any website.

There are several ways to determine high quality traffic.

One big way is to compare VDP views, but there are actually 10

Automotive News You Can Use

site navigation but remember, we only compared behavior on sites that carry both vendors. Car Gurus had 20-30% more page views. Winner is Car Gurus

ff

Site Duration: Folks who stay longer on a site are likely receiving a benefit. If I send someone into a store and they spend 2 minutes in it, it could mean they are bored, aren’t impressed, or weren’t that motivated to begin with. On average, CarGurus traffic was stickier than Cars.com traffic.

CG traffic spent approximately 70 seconds more on the same dealersite than Cars.com traffic did. Winner is CarGurus.com

s. /

New Users Per Session: This quantifies new people to the website. A new user is marked as such based on having never been to the site before. If I go to a site a second time, I’m no longer labelled a new user if I return via the same device. Bottomline; 85% of Cars.com traffic are new users, while 79% of Car Gurus traffic are new users. This metric isn’t necessarily proof of superior performance by either vendor, rather could be symptomatic of an ad campaign driving new users, it’s hard to tell. We just see the numbers and the numbers say: Winner is Cars.com

n/

or/

cars.com vs car gurus google analytics results/ Click to call: Since calls are considered very strong leads, we included those numbers in this research. Starting off with monthly click to call, neither vendor is strong in this category but CarGurus did get 10% more CTCs than did Cars.com. In the time frames we measured, we never saw double figure call volume from either vendor. Winner is Car Gurus.

Although Car Gurus bests Cars.com or ties them in 4 of 6 important website KPIs, Cars.com has a higher percentage of it’s traffic finding its way to the all important VDP pages.

With that said, there are many dealerships out there where the opposite is true, and Car Gurus dominates in VDP views.

If we breakdown the competition in terms of a race to the wire, we give the edge to Cars.com but to be honest, it’s by the skin of the tip of a nose. You should always make sure to check your analytics on a regular basis to make sure you are getting performance out of your vendors. Google might not be the best game in town, but it writes the rules of our road.

VDP View %: This is a measurement of what percentage of your site traffic views a VDP. The prevailing data shows that the sooner you get to 30 VDP views on a specific make or model, the sooner that vehicle gets sold. Cars.com traffic made its way to a VDP at a 19% higher clip than did Car Gurus. Winner is Cars.com Bounce Rate: If folks come to your site and they leave right away, you have issues. Having a low bounce rate below 25% is a legitimate goal to shoot for and both Cars.com and Car Gurus do a great job not bouncing traffic. This shows that the traffic they generate has purpose. Winner is Both Page Views: This is important from the standpoint of how interesting a dealersite is to a potential buyer. It’s a tough measurement to quantify, but it may give us a clue as to how specific a person is in their search at the very least. No one can read minds, suffice to say it can even be an artifact of bad Automotive News You Can Use

Automotive Digital Marketing Agency (314) 879-4049

www.dealershipnews.com 11

dealerleads.com performance-based web traffic that delivers/ by kelly kleinman/ content director/

F

or car dealers looking to move used car inventory quickly and profitably, a few next generation vendors are rising above the pack with results that are hard to ignore, and although you may not be using them, maybe you should. Before we deliver “Automotive News You Can Use” on one stand out vendor specifically, let’s review what we’ve learned over the last few years regarding Internet car shoppers:

facts on which web traffic

sells fastest and most effectively/

1. Search engine-based traffic converts at a higher percentage than 3rd-party classified sites .

2. Search-based traffic closes quickest - twice as fast as 3rd-party classifies sites - 30 days on average compared to 60 days.

3. Consumers are 70% more likely to click a classified that matches the keywords they type into a search engine query (i.e.

UsedCarsNearMe.com) and close in 30 days - on average - because it’s a search query/ classified site hybrid.

4. 3rd-party leads are the slowest leads to close 60 days on average (referral, foot traffic, calls, direct/organic/search are fastest).

18

5. Email averages 42 days to close 6. Social Media matches search-based inquiries in closing speed but volume isn’t there- 30 days to close 7. It generally takes 12 interactions per brand for a sale to close (clicks, calls etc.)

One vendor that combines the most effective online elements to increase the speed and efficiency of closing a sale via the web is DealerLeads.com.

DealerLeads.com is a company that bases its value proposition on driving organic, first generation, local traffic to it’s dealers’ websites. It does not have a consumer fill out a lead form on its classified sites, that happens on the car dealers website, hence no lead sharing occurs among competing dealers. It is a search-based operation that absolutely dominates automotive keyword search in Google, Yahoo, and Bing Search engines. It’s also a performancebased vendor. The dealer sets a budget for a certain amount and DealerLeads.com sends them what can be considered premium, organic traffic on a per-click basis based on the traffic quality metrics above.

Because the traffic is organic, DealerLeads.com’s traffic converts at a much higher rate than 3rd-party leads and in half the time. But, there is an attribution challenge. Traffic, once delivered, is attributed to DealerLeads, and leads from that traffic show up in the CRM as “direct” or in some instances “direct.”

Since no lead form exists on their sites and the traffic isn’t dumped directly into a CRM, dealers can’t firmly attribute the sale to DealerLeads.com, which is to the dealer’s detriment as well as DealerLeads.com.

Truth be told that when dealers analyze their site traffic, they discover the cold truth that 25%-30% of the traffic is attributable, 70-75% is more of a mystery or of theoretical origin. It’s hugely flawed, and DealerLeads.com can get lost in the fog with other branding platforms such as TV, radio, and print.

Automotive News You Can Use

dealerleads’ traffic converts at a higher rate than 3rdparty leads and in half the time Accurately tracking Call-to-Web branding campaigns is very difficult unless the advertiser provides a special promotional code. The ultimate measure of a branding campaigns efficacy is in sales. Since DealerLeads.com doesn’t allow other companies to place code on their hundreds of classified sites, traffic from those classified sites is only trackable by DealerLeads.com.

the big DealerLeads.com advantage/ DealerLeads.com basically owns the keyword game as well as some 350 automotive classified sites that frequently pop up during a car shopper’s search queries. Here is a short list of popular search phrases your customers are likely to use when they search for a car, truck, or SUV to buy. Add .com to the end of the search phrase and you have the concept behind a typical DealerLeads.com classified site.

• • • • • • • • • • •

www.UsedCarsForSale.com www. UsedCarsNearMe.com www. AutoSalesClassifieds.com www. AllCarsOnline.com www. AutomotiveSearchEngine.com www. SearchLocalDealers.com www. CarDealershipSales.com www. FindAutosForSale.com www. FindCarsNearMe.com www. BestPriceNewCars.com www. BestPriceOnCars.com

Automotive News You Can Use

All are hyper-local, SEO optimized, ad-free sites that are designed to provide a nice consumer experience.

DealerLeads.com has thousands of redirects that take you to one of their classified sites based on your exact or broad match keyword search and locality.

When keyword phrases that match a consumer’s search engine query appear in a search operation, that consumer is likely to click onto that site 70% of the time, especially if it appears in the organic results vs. the paid results. So, if someone types in UsedCarsNearMe. com, they’re highly likely to visit that site.

DealerLeads.com doesn’t track you across the internet, the way other 3rd-party lead providers such as Lotlinx, Cars.com, CarGurus etc. do. DealerLeads.com-owned classifieds come up in consumer car searches along with their highly-ranked research pages. In addition, Google Analytics data shows that DealerLeads.com’s PPC campaigns outperform Google Adwords and cost less than you would spend with your own PPC campaign. Typically, you would have to pay $5-10 to appear in certain keyword searches, however it only costs $3.75 with DealerLeads.com, regardless of brand.

Direct traffic to your website’s lead form is what this company specializes in. No one does it better. Their Domain Authority Ranking and SEO experience is second to none.

877.629.2469 www.dealershipnews.com 19

Any business with less than a 4.5 star rating gets a B grade.

bad reviews killing you?/ by kelly kleinman/ content director/

A

ccording to six Gallup polls from 2012 to 2017, car dealers are rated just above politicians and just below insurance salesmen when it comes to trustworthiness. Basically, car dealers scrape the bottom of the barrel.

It’s a sad fact but let’s face it, that’s been a reality for quite some time, well before Gallup even came into existence in 1935.

The emergence of countless review sites and the leveraging strategy of these sites has made the Internet a vast wasteland of reputation wreckage that has had a major impact on used car dealers and new car dealers alike. It’s not just restaurants that feel the ire of irritated or pissed off patrons anymore.

Mix historic dissonance against car dealers with a bevy of bad reviews and you have a toxic cocktail that undoubtedly is poisoning countless dealerships across the country.

The fickle finger of fate is pointed in virtually everyone’s direction these days and whether or not the accusations of fiendish folly are true or not, businesses have to respond to all reviews and find a way to filter them pre-emptively. It’s not an and/or proposition.

First and foremost, let’s establish what acceptable review scores are. Any business with less than a 4.5 star rating gets a B grade. Anyone with a 4.5 and above is an A player. If your dealership

20

is getting reviews in the 3 range you are failing as a dealership. For those dealers with a relatively low number of reviews, establishing a reputation management program could do wonders for their online visibility, reputation, and bottom line.

Peer reviews are a major consideration for any car shopper moving forward with what for many will be the second most expensive purchase they may ever make.

For dealers with hundreds of reviews and a relatively low average review score, the reparation may take years to take hold. But you have to start before you’re buried too deep to ever climb out of being perpetually known as a shyster.

Reputation Repair Begins with Any One of a Number of Simple Software Programs or Services Social Ordeals is a reputation management company that’s been building reputations online for for several years now. They use a software program that generates a custom email that’s sent to customers querying them on their experience, and then prompts them to post a one to five star rating. If the response is 5-stars, they are asked to write a review and are then prompted to push those reviews to their social media profiles and review sites they have accounts with. What ensues is a top heavy influx of 5-star reviews across the web that eventually increases the average rating of that particular business. It does wonders for favorable visibility online.

The less than acceptable reviews (4-stars Automotive News You Can Use

or less) are sent to an unpublished page that assuages the consumer’s desire to espouse their discontent and allows the dealer to respond accordingly to any sour grapes or sweet ones for that matter. All reviews need to be addressed, but only good ones need to be published. This system effectively filters out most negative reviews. Essentially it gives the dissonant consumer a platform in which to vent their discontent without independently posting on a site like Yelp where they control what gets posted and what does not.

Another company, Digital Media Nation , works with dealerships and takes reputation management and review generation to a higher and more involved level. This is called Reputation Marketing. On top of review requests, they also suggest staff pass out printed review cards and that dealerships have signage prompting the customer to post a positive review. An aspect of the Digital Media Nation approach that separates them from their competitors is the in-dealership training that they offer and the focus on social marketing through their Reputation Sensei program that turns best social media practices into a measurable ROI for the dealer and its customers. This hyper-awareness of the importance of positive reviews keeps staff on their feet and guards against complacency and the cardinal sin of receiving a bad review.

If your dealership is a victim of bad reviews, deserved or not, there is a mathematical way of calculating how long it may take you to see tangible uplift in your review score. Here’s a way of looking at that calculation.

If I have 20 reviews and I’m averaging a 4.1 review score, it will take approximately 17 5-star reviews to lift my dealership to an A rating of 4.5. This can literally be achieved in a few weeks. If you have 500 reviews and are averaging 4.1, it will take approximately 500 5-star reviews to lift you to an A-rated dealership. The time frame needed to lift your grade average to respectability is substantially longer when you’ve already built up an impressive amount of reviews. Since reputation management/marketing is

an ongoing practice, the average dealership, both new and used, should look at this favorably. The more 5-star reviews you can generate the healthier your business will become.

In combination with positive social media posts that don’t “sell” gratuitously, an aggressive reputation management strategy, and top-gun lead follow up, any dealer can turn a reputation challenged business around. With every car buyer online, having a great review score is a priority.

the story behind the data why you need real time insights/ Insights are only as valuable as they are actionable. EDGE insights help dealers in the immediate term by identifying trends as they develop, allowing dealers and their agencies to head off problems intra-month before it’s too late to do anything about them. For example, AUTOFLYTE saw that one of their GM client’s competitors was beginning to win more than their fair share of sales in the 25-mile radius around the client’s store and immediately re-appropriated budget to the exact ZIPs where this competitor was encroaching on their sales. AUTOFLYTE helped their client adjust their marketing tactics and messaging across digital and traditional media to affect results as they were happening, which effectively turned the tide for sales in those ZIPs:

W

ith consumers completing the majority of their car-buying journey before they even set foot in a dealership, the need for insights into current market opportunity, as well as the ability to respond in near real time are more important than ever.

Waiting for OEM reports or 60-90 day old registration data to inform dealer marketing isn’t a viable option—they only tell what has happened and do not allow dealers to respond to what is happening right now.

AUTOFLYTE’s CEO, Steve Leh, spent over three decades leading marketing for several OEMs at Tiers I, II and III, but was continually frustrated with the inefficiencies and delayed intelligence that plagued automotive marketing.

So, when he approached Urban Science about using their daily sales statistics to help dealers and their agencies market smarter and faster, it was a no-brainer…the kind that requires a lot of smart people to pull off. After considerable development and refinement, an industry first was born when AUTOFLYTE launched the first and only insights tool to use daily RDR sales data—AUTOFLYTE EDGE. The EDGE platform houses insights for dealers across the U.S. and pinpoints the exact geographies where dealerships and their competitors are gaining and losing market share for specific nameplates down to the ZIP code, allowing dealers to identify where the most opportunity exists for their business right now.

22

AUTOFLYTE GM Client Competing GM Dealer

Oct Nov Dec 20 24 34 25 23 23

In the longer term, consistently targeting areas where the most sales opportunity exists and optimizing tactics throughout each month adds up over time. One of AUTOFLYTE’s Subaru clients was #2 in the market and was consistently losing sales to the #1 dealer. AUTOFLYTE partnered with them to develop and execute a strategy to claw back sales and market share, which produced the following results: • • •

Sales increased by 50% over the previous year The dealer outperformed Subaru’s total brand growth year over year They went from being 500 sales behind the #1 dealer to only one sale behind

The ability to monitor sales and optimize both digital and traditional tactics throughout the month are vital to affecting growth. As the AUTOFLYTE team likes to say, “Sales are the ultimate KPI,” which is why the same tool they use to define opportunity is the one they use to grade their own efforts.

In addition to the EDGE insights tool and managed digital marketing services, AUTOFLYTE is now offering consulting to dealers and agencies. We recommend you give them a look at www.autoflyte.com.

Automotive News You Can Use

get more hooks

in the water/ by kelly kleinman/ content director/

D

ealerLeads.com has a network of 300, self-owned, classified sites. They are one of only 3 true leadgen companies in the industry that own their own real estate, everyone else resells clicks or leads.

Why It Works for You You have 150 cars on your lot. If you are listed on 300 classifieds that’s 45,000 potential VDPs with your specific inventory listed across the Internet at the push of a button.

The SEO backlink benefit is off the charts, not to mention all of that direct traffic aimed at your website, unshared and unconquested.

Get more hooks in the water and Only Pay for the Fish You Catch!

Any fisherman knows that the more well-baited hooks you have in the water, the more likely it is you’ll catch a lot of fish.

The same can be said for exposing your auto inventory to as many likely buyers as possible. Inventory visibility is the key to generating VDP views, which in turn speeds up sales.

Automotive News You Can Use

it’s all performance based/ Shoppers are 70% more likely to click on a domain that matches their exact or broad matched search queries via any of the search engines. With this system, the dealer only pays for the shoppers that take the hook and click through to their specific site, and not redirects from AutoTrader or Cars.com.

The DealerLeads.com’s sites are all based on popular search phrase queries that attract hundreds of thousands of search queries (i.e. car shoppers) per month.

Dominate search, get more hooks in the water, and be 300x more visible online. See what happens when the odds are all on your side.

and Only Pay for the Fish You Catch!

877.629.2469 www.dealershipnews.com 23

24

IS YOUR VENDOR PRETENDING TO BE A SHARK WHEN HE’S REALLY A GUPPY? Our Real-Time Vendor Review Section Is On the Build!

D

ealershipNews.com is constantly reaching out to car dealers to get insight into what does and doesn’t work for them as dealers. Our real-time review section covers a wide spectrum of services and solutions for automotive professionals to rate and leave a comment on. Our rating scale slides from 1-10 with 10 being the best possible score. The new section aggregates reviews in real-time much like the standings in any major sport. You may be at the top one day, but a day later you may be #2 in your category. Vendors are best advised to check back frequently.

Our vendor ratings are all verified authentic. All vendors aren’t perfect and some provide a better match with certain dealerships and brands for a number of reasons.

Not all software integrates well with all platforms, and not all companies provide the same level of service. Some employees are unfairly harsh in their vendor assessments and some unabashedly complimentary. The truth lies somewhere in-between. The key is in the consistency of a vendor’s performance.

Although there are many consistently high performers, many vendors will vary in the overall ratings, largely reflecting the automotive retail landscape in general.

We invite car dealer personnel to frequently visit our review section and post as many vendor reviews as possible, the more we have, the more valuable it becomes to the auto dealership collective. Consider DealershipNews.com an intellectual resource to help you make the best decisions for your car dealership or automotive-related business.

Automotive News You Can Use

www.dealershipnews.com

25

E

TO

04

P

increasing fixed ops revenue/

BY OWEN MOON

M A G A Z I N E Kelly Kleinman content editor

W

e are dedicated to those people and companies who put their best foot forward and represent themselves and the Automotive Industry in the brightest possible light, both ethically and professionally. We highlight best practices, best vendors and proven technologies all dealerships should consider to add to their formula for success.

Our tagline is “Automotive News You Can Use”, and we have a unique way of presenting information that car dealers and vendors alike can definitely use and identify with.

DealershipNews.com is home to the National Dealership Standings, whereby the calendar month sales of every car dealer except for Ford dealerships are aggregated much like MLB standings by region and city. We also provide the humorous Midday Report, brought to you by Hudson Ford, that mixes some of the oddest footage available online with factual news and information that car dealers should find useful in their day to day practice.

06

more than meets the eye/

BY LISA GENER

08

interview with social experts/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

10

www.dealershipnews.com info@dealershipnews.com

published by/ DealershipNews.com 5320 Derry Ave, Ste A Agoura Hills, CA 91301 818-817-6343 © DealershipNews.com 2019 All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of DealershipNews.com is strictly forbidden.

08

vendor face-off cars.com v. car gurus/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

14

inventory intelligence to boost dealer margins/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

18

dealerleads.com: performance-based web traffic that delivers/

10

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

20

bad reviews killing you?/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

website & feedback/

04

22

the story behind the data/

BY AUTOFLYTE

23

get more hooks in the water/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

25

18

is your vendor pretending to be a shark when he’s really a guppy/

BY KELLY KLEINMAN

23 25

n/

al/

Automotive News You Can Use

www.dealershipnews.com

5

Dealer Pay provides dealer-specific payment solutions, that include

card, check/ACH processing, Rewards/Loyalty, Communications and more! We specialize in streamlining operations and increasing customer retention (CSI). Dealer Pay has enhanced our offering above the industry competition and developed our very own point-of-sale solution, offering 3 times as many ways to pay, 25% faster processing speeds, improved reporting/reconciliation and reduced/flat rate pricing. With 20 years’ experience of strategic dealer industry experience and our love for dealers, we have truly fine-tuned several features and functions to strengthen reliability, security and the dealer user and customer experiences.

FAST. ORGANIZED. SECURE

Dealer Pay is offering FLAT RATE EVERYTHING and changing the

commoditized payments game for dealers. No more hidden or confusing rates and fees. We will provide ONE RATE, to specifically eliminate worries of overpaying.

Contact Julie Douglas directly at julie@dealer-pay.com Also, find out how your other software providers (DMS, CRM, ILM, F&I, OEM, Warranty, Scheduling, etc.) can leverage Dealer Pay for payment acceptance, with one centralized transaction management and reporting platform.

Dealer Pay‌how all dealers get paid.

Automotive News You Can Use

www.dealershipnews.com

26