News

PCG Digital Marketing welcomes Keffer Kia of Mooresville, N.C. into its family of automotive dealerships.

Keffer Kia, which also serves Charlotte Kia customers, has partnered with PCG to handle its online marketing initiatives, including managing its activity on Social Media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter and implementing Search Engine Optimization strategies.

Keffer Kia’s online visibility will increase through on-site and off-site SEO strategies, content development and the opportunity to join PCG’s exclusive Automotive Advertising Network (AAN).

The AAN combines PCG Digital Marketing’s proven strategies in Search Engine Optimization, content marketing, social media and blogging to provide dealers with an industry-leading solution for lead generation and direct sales.

Additional PCG services will include: press release writing, link building, video uploads, customer review posting, Google SEO compliance, and maintaining Google Maps and Analytics.

The goal of this new Internet Marketing campaign is to increase the frequency with which Keffer Kia vehicles appear in local and regional search results and to generate additional traffic and leads.

PCG will also work with the Internet sales staff at Keffer Kia to eventually handle these responsibilities on their own, creating an in-house team of Internet Marketing and SEO experts.

For more information on Keffer Kia, one of the top dealers serving Charlotte Kia shoppers, please visit: http://www.kefferkia.net/

About PCG Digital Marketing

PCG Digital Marketing provides comprehensive Internet Marketing and SEO strategies to car dealers across the United States and Canada. For additional information on their services and marketing packages, visit http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com

As 2010 quickly approaches I would like to encourage automotive marketing professionals to carefully review their spending and budgets for the upcoming year.

In the past few months I have received an increase in calls from car dealer internet sales managers asking about how they can wisely increase their online spending. I am getting a feeling that many dealers believe that the worst is over and they want to have a strong Internet presence in 2010.

I agree that dealers who aggressively invest in Automotive SEO, Social Media and carefully designed PPC will have a strategic advantage in 2010. This is not a self-serving statement; it’s where the action is.

Internet Marketing in 2010

So I thought I would offer my 2010 Wish List for Internet Marketing ROI metrics and tools to help dealers. I welcome the dealership community as well as automotive solutions providers to add their own suggestions to help members who want to dominate their local PMA but also want to track the ROI of their online spending.

I hope that one day soon dealers can have near perfect 100% tracking for online lead and sales costs. Dealers will always have the problem with sales being properly accounted for but that is not the topic of this post.

As I speak with Internet sales managers across the country, many still have not even implemented tracking numbers across all of their advertising media. The automotive industry still has a great deal of education to complete at the dealership level in regards to tracking Internet Marketing ROI.

Let’s Get Started

Tracking numbers for all online lead funnels.

If you are not using a call tracking service like “Call Source” or “Who’s Calling” sign up immediately. Depending on the size of your dealership group, I suggest that each brand that you sell has UNIQUE tracking numbers for various online marketing lead funnels. Its easy to do and they provide excellent back-end metrics helping you fully analyze your ROI. These should include one unique tracking number each for:

a. Your Brand Specific Google Maps Listing

b. Review Websites (dealerrater.com, insiderpages.com, yelp.com, etc.)

c. Press Releases that you send out

d. Microsites

e. Blogs

f. Facebook

g. Third Party Lead Providers

h. Local Online Banner Ads / Google AdWords Campaigns

i. Customized Social Communities (ex: Ning.com, Vox)

j. Photos on free distributed inventory feeds

The goal is to track these different audio sources and to evaluate the call and sales volume that come in from each source. The automotive community should also require these call tracking companies to create an industry standardized set of categories for tracking these numbers, as follows:

• Press Releases
• Social Media
• Blogs
• Microsites
• 3^rd Party Leads
• Local TV
• Local Newspaper
• Local Websites

You will see why this is important as you read further.

Capture of the referring URL with all lead forms.

 This gets a bit tricky so stay with me on this. If you have an integrated single vendor solution for your website and CRM/ILM system then you have a shot at success in 2010.

You will want to demand a report of leads by all the sources listed above. It requires the website vendor to capture the exact URL that referred the visitor to your website and strip that down to the base URL and create a tallied report by source.

It would also be nice to require the website vendors to create a standardized set of categories for tracking these leads, as follows:

• Press Releases
• Social Media
• Blogs
• Microsites
• 3^rd Party Leads
• Local TV
• Local Newspaper
• Local Websites

Do you see the pattern? What happens when all leads and calls can be rolled up into one consolidated report?

Resolve Ala-Carte Modules and the ADF Issue

If your website platform sends form leads to a third party CRM/ILM system you may have a problem. This is because the data exchange is normally done using the ADF file format; an XML file.

The current ADF specification does not have a field for the referring URL so one platform cannot pass this information to another without a special data exchange partnership. This is SO IMPORTANT and vital for a dealer’s success in 2010. Somehow the ADF specification has to be revised so that dealers who are actively engaged in social media and offsite SEO can capture the true source of the lead.

 Clear Reports that Show Bounce Rate and Conversion by Keyword

 Dealers who are using Google Adwords to drive traffic to their websites do not have executive level reports that show the waste in the PPC spending. Keywords that have high bounce rates can be an indications that:

1. The landing page is not in line with the value proposition / ad the visitor clicked through from
2. Your call to action is weak / diluted by too many other items on the page
3. You are attracting the wrong visitors
4. Other

Most website platforms don’t make it easy to see the keywords with the highest bounce rates and lowest conversion. Dealers need tools to refine their SEM budgets in terms that a NON-PROGRAMMER can understand.

Clear reports that show the diversity of organic keyword traffic

If dealers took a look at their Google Analytics reports they will probably see the number one source of organic traffic to their website is their brand name. But after that, how many high-value keywords are bringing real traffic to your website?

If the list is very narrow, it is a good sign that your website is not broadly optimized for a larger set of keywords. A broad set of keywords can indicate that your website is actively blogging and adding content on a variety of topics. Keep in mind that service, parts and extended warranty sales have great profit margins and should not be ignored. If your top referring keywords in Google Analytics do NOT include these phrases you are missing a great opportunity for new revenue.

The Benefit

If all Leads submitted by forms could be tracked to a “category” of referring URL’s and if all calls were tracked, then you might be able to get a much closer estimate of your online advertising spending. A simple report could look like this:

Looking Ahead

The Automotive SEO world is rapidly changing and dealerships need to quickly adapt or perish. The newest topics to hit the news feed for SEM in 2010 are two-fold from Google. First, an announcement of integrating Social Media into Live search results and second, the implementation of Google Goggles for mobile devices.

As social media has grown, so has Google’s ability to track it, and in 2010 we’ll start to see Google’s attempt to simplify it all in a new, live search results, way. Just how this will effect the current SEM model is yet to be seen but it one thing is clear, Social Media marketing is here to stay and getting stronger.

Second, with the world of mobile-apps growing more integrated into our daily lives, Google “Goggles” will now start to give devices with cameras an “eye” for search. “Goggles” is reported to have the ability to identify pictures taken by a mobile phone and search throughout the web for price comparisons, reviews and more.

Do you have a FlickR account with pictures of your entire line of vehicles yet? If not, you need get moving, because when customers start snapping, you better be on Google Page One!

If you have questions,   call our staff at 732-450-8200 or you can email Brian Pasch at brian@paschconsulting.com.

The PCG Digital Marketing (PCG) will be publishing our annual white paper report on Automotive Search Marketing Architecture this November.

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/