This summary is not a full review of the SEO architecture and search strengths of the new platform. A full review will come when PCG Digital Marketing presents the 2010 ASMA Awards and Study Report on October 13, 2010 in Las Vegas.

It is hard to improve on a product that has so many strengths but Rick Gibbs, CEO of Dealer.com, has managed to inspire his team to greatness. One of the highlights of the presentation was the demonstration given by Eric Mayhew who is the chief architect behind their TCD Platform (Total Control Dominator). The Dealer.com TCD platform is truly one of the most important automotive advertising tools that car dealers can utilize for digital marketing success.

TCD is best described as a car dealer’s personalized digital advertising dashboard. TCD directly communicates with Google, Yahoo and Bing paid advertising networks so car dealers can adjust Pay-Per-Click budgets and targets without being a Digital Marketing Geek.

TCD is Google Adwords on steroids!

(If I had to rename the product I would call it Total Competitor Domination.)

Dealer.com TCD digital advertising platform takes business operating rules and translates them into actionable tasks in Google, Yahoo and Bing’s paid advertising network. One rule could be to advertise all off-make used cars as soon as they come into stock.

Another rule could be to start a weekend advertising campaign which offers a $2,000 reduction off of MSRP on select new models starting at 5:00 PM on Friday. Google Adwords out of the box is not designed for the average Internet Sales Manager to operate proficiently and in many cases, self-managed Adwords campaigns can be very costly to dealers.

In the screen shot above, a dealership executive or Internet Sales Manager can easily see their current cost per lead and current balance. Need to make a change? Slide the $ button to increase or decrease spending. The Marketing Focus panel allows high level adjustments of spending by marketing focus. Do you want to increase the distribution of spending in your current budget to include “Used Vehicles”? Simply click on stars 1 – 5 to activate those keyword goals.

Innovative Phone Number Tracking

Dealer.com has integrated phone number tracking with all Pay-Per-Click campaigns. You may not be impressed by that fact since other companies offer similar services. However, Dealer.com takes it to the next level by scraping all pages on the dealer’s website that has a phone number and replacing it with the PPC tracking number. This includes all custom text content pages created by the dealership staff or advertising agency that may have embedded different phone numbers.

This creates more accurate PPC campaign metrics so more calls can be attributed to their true source of visitor engagement.

What is brilliant with TCD is that once campaigns are setup, these high level executive controls can really keep the dealer engaged with digital advertising success. I could write a 20-page report on the unique benefits of TCD but that is not the focus of this overview. Suffice to say that Dealer.com clients have a distinct advantage in automotive digital advertising if they choose to leverage the power of TCD.

Automated Integration of Dealer Inventory

TCD is the leader in integrated car inventory management that is seamlessly connected to Google Adwords as well as Yahoo and Bing PPC services. Pay Per Click advertisements can utilize information in the dealers DMS about any new or used car in stock. (See graphic below) Dealers who use PPC campaigns for used cars will save significant setup time if they compare the time it takes to create campaigns for individual used cars.

Behind these well-designed executive level controls is an amazing drill down user interface that can control every detail of a Google Adwords campaign from inside TCD. In the graphic above, dealers can decide what time slots to allocate their paid advertising dollars.

This panel also provides check boxes to turn on or off their powerful integrated inventory advertising features. Other automotive website providers can operate Google Adwords from inside their administrative panel but offer little in terms of user interface and integrated business intelligence rules.

Dealer.com has even enhanced the Google Adwords platform by adding new geo-targeting functionality that even Adwords does not provide. Dealer’s ability to create custom advertising “bands” could not be easier with the custom interface provided by TCD. What this means to potential critics is that TCD does not “dummy-down” Adwords so proficient PPC experts will not be held back.

It is hard to capture my excitement for the TCD platform because there is nothing on the market more perfectly designed for car dealers who believe in paid digital advertising, aka Pay-Per-Click (PPC). I tip my hat to Eric Mayhew, TCD’s chief architect, because not too many people can claim that they reinvested Adwords functionality for the automotive industry.

One more kicker that Eric added to TCD put a smile on my face. Dealer.com looks at the top organic search phrases that bring consumers to a dealer’s website and that produce leads. If these keywords are not in the current Adwords campaigns, they can be automatically added. Slick!

Those that don’t believe in the benefits of PPC will be out of business shortly. Why? Because Automotive SEO strategies cannot place a car dealer on Google Page One for broad search terms like “Toyota Camry,” “Used Cars,” or “BMW Dealer.” As long as consumers continue to use broad search phrases, dealers will need to invest in Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns to stay on Google Page One.

Managing OEM Incentives

Dealer.com announced a new integrated Incentives Manager package after the 2009 ASMA Study was completed. This month we had the opportunity to drill down into the features of this add-on product. Car dealer websites are notorious for having “specials” pages blank and clumsy integration of manufacturer incentives. Normally, these incentives are not listed on inventory pages where consumers spend the majority of their time on a car dealer website. Go figure!

With Dealer.com Incentives Manager, dealers can leverage direct incentives data streams to their dealership website. These incentives can be controlled to integrate with car inventory listing pages as well as car detail pages. Attempting to integrate incentives manually is impossible and that is why this feature is a great value to Dealer.com customers. Since consumers “shop price” as part of their online purchasing decision, having the lowest price in real-time can make a big difference in lead volume.

Not to dwell on the TCD platform again, but Dealer.com can also take the real-time OEM incentives and create PPC campaigns that advertise their current programs. This is another innovation that is ground-breaking and a time saver for dealers who like to advertise OEM incentive programs and be first to market.

Automotive SEO Architecture

Once again, the Dealer.com administrative management tools show careful consideration to the skill levels of car dealer employees. The user interface to change SEO Page Titles and META tags continues to be a breeze.

One of the nicer elements of editing pages in Dealer.com is that once you are in editing mode, you can navigate through the website using the same menus that visitors use. This may not seem important but it is a time saver. Try matching website pages to cryptic back-end file naming conventions and before you know it, you can waste hours of your time.

The Dealer.com Page Builder tools continues to grow with more widgets (see graphic on right) to create pages on the fly.

The Page Builder tool is intuitive and customers do not need to call technical support to create a blank page to edit.

One limitation in the current version of the software is that custom pages cannot be placed more than two levels down in the navigation tree.

Content is King

Consumers search for answers and recommendations for the questions that are top of mind and car dealers need to build content on their websites to meet this need. Dealer.com has a multi-pronged approach to adding content; video blogging, integrated car reviews, and consumer reviews.

The video blogging feature creates optimized blog pages for each car in stock with unique text and META tags based on the audio script for the vehicle. This feature creates a large number of content pages that are indexed by Google which has many benefits from an SEO perspective.

Consumers who purchase a car from a Dealer.com dealer can add their comments on the car that they purchased. Dealer.com will compile and leverage these positive consumer comments on similar cars in stock. Over time, this feature will allow car inventory pages to have more content and targeted keywords to increase the authority of their website pages. This is another example of Dealer.com’s leadership in applying proven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies.

Dealer.com offers a blog with their base platform which is a customized WordPress installation. This was also added after last year’s ASMA Awards. This move further reinforces the automotive industry’s growing love affair with content building tools. I’ve been preaching that all dealers need to have content writers as part of their advertising budget. Dealer.com’s latest platform offers many ways to leverage content writers and third party SEO companies.

Fixed Operations Marketing

Lastly, Dealer.com and DriverSide made an announcement in April 2010 which an excerpt has been included below:

The two companies are partnering in an exclusive agreement to launch a series of products for new and used car franchises, the first of which will add robust fixed-ops content to Dealer.com’s industry leading platform. A full line up of further Fixed Operations and service marketing products will follow in coming months.

We agree with Dealer.com that the next area of opportunity for car dealers is in Fixed Operations SEO and digital marketing. Dealer.com has tightly integrated customer data into their product offering for targeted direct marketing. The Fixed Operations package can also be integrated into TCD to drive more service revenue via PPC.

Summary

We look forward to testing the new content management features in the latest Dealer.com platform as part of the 2010 ASMA Study. The product development team at Dealer.com should be recognized for not resting on the laurels and delivering a cutting edge product. Bravo!

Dealers searching for a well integrated digital advertising platform that masters Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing and integrates a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) infrastructure should get a demo of this stellar performer.

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Tonight I decided to to read what other industry professionals have said about the the 34 website providers that I am reviewing.

What I found was odd from an Automotive IRM perspective.

The IRM Buzz

Car industry consultants and software providers have been quick to claim the benefits of posting positive customer reviews online, also known as IRM.

Articles are coming out each week stating the importance of Internet Reputation Management (IRM).

When you look at www.DrivingSales.com  Vendor Reviews, one of the few places that post automotive industry vendor reviews, the numbers are telling.

The children of the shoemaker have holes in their shoes!

Let’s see why.

Automotive Website Vendor Reviews

• Dealer.com has 14,000 dealers using their software and has the most customer reviews and the best scores in this category but a measly 44 dealers posted their comments. That’s less than 1%. (36 Positive / 8 Negative)
• BZ/ADP have over 2,000 dealers using their platforms and only 15 review, less than 1%. (5 positive / 10 negative)
• Dealerskins – 11 Reviews (5 positive/ 6 negative)
• Reynolds & Reynolds – 9 Reviews (5 positive / 4 negative)
• eBizAutos has zero reviews.

www.DrivingSales.com and www.DealerRefresh.com  are two places where dealer website platforms and vendors can be reviewed. On both websites, the representation is the same, very few customers have posted positive reviews.

eBizAutos also has no reviews on DealerRefresh.com nor any I could find doing and Internet search.

As DrivingSales.com grows, I believe it will become to premier place for automotive vendors to be evaluated and scored by the automotive community.

If IRM is good for car dealers, then IRM is good for car dealer vendors and suppliers.

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The ASMA study will identify automotive website providers that offer SEO compliant platforms using Google’s guidelines as well as best practices in the search marketing industry. All automotive website providers are invited to participate in our study.

The PCG Digital Marketing’s 2009 ASMA white paper will be released in time for the 2009 Digital Dealer Conference in Nashville which takes place November 1-3.   The Digital Dealer Conference is the automotive industry’s premier tradeshow which focuses on the latest trends in automotive digital marketing.

The 2009 ASMA study will evaluate and assign rankings to car dealer website platforms based on key components that represent the best in search engine optimization (SEO) architecture and consumer search experience.  These study parameters are established by Brian Pasch, CEO of the PCG Digital Marketing.

For many car retailers, their inventory pages make up over 85% of the total content pages on their website.  Organic search optimization and search ranking are heavily skewed to reward good content and good SEO architecture.  The report is designed to provide car dealers with an independent view of website platform technology as it relates to organic search marketing.

Last year, the 2008 ASMA report reviewed over 16 automotive platforms with only 2 providers receiving a perfect score for SEO compliance. In the past year car dealer website providers have released or announced many changes to their platforms which should make this year’s report even more interesting.

2009 ASMA Logo

A new element to this year’s study will be an official ASMA logo which will be awarded to automotive website providers that rank at the top of their peer group.  The ASMA logo will allow leaders in the field of automotive website design to proudly display their award on their marketing materials and on their websites. The ASMA logo will represent the best in SEO architecture for the automotive industry.

Automotive website providers who would like to participate in the review must submit three working websites which utilize their latest technology to the PCG Digital Marketing by 9-30-09.  Dealer software providers who do not submit examples of their technology may still be included in the report.  However, the website PCG reviews will be based on those found randomly on the Internet or referenced on their company websites.

Dealer software providers can contact Brian Pasch at info@paschconsulting.com for more information.

About the Digital Dealer Conference

The annual Digital Dealer Conference attracts hundreds of dealership attendees that are looking to learn more about Internet and technology-related issues.  Speakers who are experts in the field of Automotive Digital Marketing present seminars which help forward thinking dealerships stay ahead of the ever changing technology curve.   For registration or sponsorship opportunities, visit http://www.digitaldealerconference.com/

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Over the last six months I have been testing the value of publishing car inventory listings to a group of free websites. The idea behind this test was to measure the effectiveness of the efforts needed to post cars based on the increase of:

1. Car Sales
2. Web Traffic
3. Inbound Links

This is Part One of a series of articles that I plan to write tracking the success of various free listing services.  This is the introductory article and some initial results for our testing which is showing a clear front runner.

We were also interested in this project because it would give us some data on consumer interest and behavior on social networking websites and stand alone car marketing portals.   To keep automotive marketing budgets as effective as possible, we want to know where to invest time and resources.

Dealer Owned Car Marketing Portals

As a side note, we see a growing trend for car dealer groups to create their own regional car sales portals, to compete with sites like Cars.com and Autotrader.com.   Specifically, larger dealer groups that have multiple brands under their management in any given state can build very effective direct car marketing website at a reasonable cost.  There is a debate out there that questions why any dealer would create their own used car site even if they had multiple locations.

 Each dealer project has to be evaluated on a case by case basis.  Our experience has demonstrated that a strong domain name and a good inventory platform can be an effective in-state lead generation tool for a larger dealer organization or a friendly group of dealers.

Car Websites Included in Testing

Our testing has included a number of websites, listed below:

1. Vast.com
2. Google Base
3. Craigslist
4. BackPage.com
5. AOL Autos
6. MyRide.com

We have created a tool that can post automobiles from existing car dealer inventory feeds to these sites.  To date we have some clear winners and some clear losers but testing will continue.   To see the impact of this added traffic on PageRank and Inbound links is not something that can be immediately measured and the initial data is somewhat vague so I will have to create a second update.

Craigslist is the clear front runner by a mile for generating web referral traffic.  The effectiveness of Craigslist for generating inquires is undeniable but some of our clients feel that the quality of the leads is not great.  I have also noticed that the bounce rate is higher for Craigslist that other web referrers.

 Internet lead quality is often a reflection of the clarity of your ad and the information you provide.  We suggest that your Craigslist ad be as specific as possible so as to minimize the chatter between consumers and your Internet sales staff for basic things that should be included in your free listing.

Second in traceable traffic is Google Base, but this is not consistent across the country.  Traffic from Google Base comes into Google Analytics as a “Google.com referral”.  This is not a clean measure since there are a few other referring sites that can come in under this category.  We will be doing some better tracking on this matter.

The traffic from Backpage.com has been insignificant and disappointing.   The VAST.COM network of listings is looking promising and may in fact be better than Google Base, but more testing is needed.  There will be a second part to this article as more data is collected.

Craigslist.com is the clear winning for generating extra calls and traffic to your dealer website to date. If car dealers need help posting their cars to Craigslist, please give us a call.

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Automotive advertising agencies

Unfortunately, the ad agencies are not telling automotive sales managers that these graphical contribute practically NOTHING to attractive car shoppers via Google and Yahoo search. Most traditional automotive advertising agencies don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO).  They didn’t grow up with SEO.  Their job is to produce auto ads every month, on schedule, and they are happy for the business.

Well, if I was the owner of a car dealership, I would not be happy how these ads are being used on the web. You see, these ads have text that Google cannot index.  Google cannot read the text on a photo.  They are in effect a blank page to the search engine spiders.  If car dealers expect for consumers to find their monthly specials online, they have to take the time to type the details in plain text.

You may think this is a simple task and one that should be commonplace on dealer websites.  But take a look at 20 car dealer websites by clicking on their “Specials” page and you’ll find that most are graphical ads with the pertinent information on an image. 

So should dealers login into their website administrative panel and add their car specials in text?  This is where things get interesting.  Creating a good looking text page on most automotive website platforms is not easy.  Yes, most platforms claim that they have easy to use HTML editors but in common practice, they are not easy to use.

I have worked with a number of HTML editors on car dealer websites and they all are tricky at best.  The skills to create “tables” or aligned text requires skills that are beyond the average Internet sales manager. Copying preformatted text into these embedded editors can cause more trouble that it’s worth.

So, Sales Managers take the least path of resistance and drop in a graphic advertisement on their specials page so it’s not blank.   Just keep in mind that these graphical ads do ZERO for drawing new customer via search. Even worse, pages that only contain one image will most likely never even get indexed by Google.

If car dealers take the time to create car specials and incentives, they should also take the time to publicize them on the web.  In an ideal world, you would have a dedicated web page for each car you have on special that month.  This way the HTML Title, META Description and content can be optimized for the offer. In addition to their own websites, specials can be posted on free services like Craigslist, MerchantCircle and social networking sites.  The dealers, who make the effort to give Google what they expect, will be rewarded with better search visibility.

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When we were first informed of this change we were first concerned about all the indexed pages on the DataOne website that could be lost in the cutover.  We were comforted by the fact that ALL of the microsites designed by PCG, that are owned by BWM of Peabody, would not be damaged in this cutover.  The only things we would have to do is “re-skin” the websites to look more like the new hosting platform.  The good news is that 100% of the pages that are in Google indexes would not be changed.

This is not the normal case when car dealers change website platforms.  When car dealers do a cut from one website platform to another there is no guarnatee that you’ll be able to use the exact page names that were indexed in Google for the new website.  This is NOT a small matter to ignore.

If you are a BMW dealer that is considering changing to a new website platform, be very careful.  If you want the bottom line, give us a call to discuss your cutover.  We can help you avoid big mistakes and costly drops in search engine indexes.

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