According to a recent study today by J.D. Powers and Compete consumers spend more time on third party websites in the 6 months prior to purchase than manufacturer website. According to a press release issued today:

“In each of the discrete six months preceding vehicle purchase, greater proportions of buyers visit third-party websites, compared with manufacturer websites, although this changes during the actual month of purchase. In the month of purchase, visitation to manufacturer websites increases to match visitation of third-party websites, with 31 percent of all new-vehicle buyers visiting each type of website.”

What is not being said in this press release is why third party sites are so strong?  Some answers are obvious like the results of strong traditional advertising campaigns from sites like Cars.com, Autotrader.com, and Edmunds.com.

But the back story is that car dealer websites are being pushed off  Google Page One, in their own towns, by larger inventory and content consolidation websites.  Car dealers have little knowledge and strategy to compete against these powerful website platforms which increases the competition for local shoppers to be matched with their cars directly.

The fact that consumers are using third party websites means that your digital marketing strategy must include them.  The key decision that I see from this report is what are the best third party websites to list your cars that will place your cars in front of active shoppers and generate leads.

The choice of third party websites is critical since many cross sell  and collect leads which are sold to your competitors using your own inventory.  Other third party sites are over burdened with banner advertising which also impact leads that are routed to dealers.  Your cars are a valuable assets so make sure you inspect how they are being presented.

Free Is Not Free

One of the most powerful stories in the automotive industry is the negative impact on car dealer’s business model by participating in “free” inventory advertising on third party websites.  Some dealers I have analyzed have their inventory pushed to over 8 different “free” sites.

When I show these dealers that by participating in mass third party marketing their own website no longer appears on Google Page One for a year, make and model search in their own town, they look puzzled.  Yes, their own decisions are hurts their Internet search visibility and they are not be rewarded my more leads from each site.

Where Is Your Inventory Posted?

I encourage readers to track down all the places where your inventory is being advertised and check your CRM for lead volume from these third parties.  If the lead volume, calls or walk-in traffic cannot identify successful sales from these third party sources, I would terminate their feeds.

Dealers will be surprised to see where their inventory is being pushed and also some will find that their inventory has been scraped and stolen.

To see where your cars are being advertised pick five cars that have been in stock for at least 30 days and search Google for their VIN#.  If you see websites listing your cars that you have never authorized, your inventory may have been scraped or pushed out without your permission.

Another fact from the J.D. Powers / Compete.com study was this:

“Among buyers who visit third-party websites, inventory search is the most popular website tool, with 25 percent of buyers accessing this type of information. Among buyers who visit manufacturer websites, vehicle building tools are used most frequently (29%).”

This result from the study should make all car dealers ask how easy is it for consumers to search or build cars on your website.  Some websites that I have seen make consumers jump through hoops to get a list of cars that they want to purchase.

Manufacturer Websites Still Popular

According to the press release:

“Among the 77 percent of new-vehicle buyers who use the Internet in the shopping process, more than two-thirds (68%) visit at least one manufacturer website in the six months leading up to purchase, while a larger percentage—nearly eight in 10—visit at least one third-party website. “

To read the entire press release visit this link and then share what your reactions are to this study?

I have an easy job for you.  I’m in the market for a new 55″ LED TV and I need your help to find the best one that is local to me.  Sears and Best Buy are right down the street, but I have ordered a TV from B&H Photo Video before – mind checking that one too?  I need:

1. Price
2. Soonest Availability
3. Best Ratings

Did you find one for me yet?   No!  What do you mean you didn’t look?  You just kept reading?  Okay – fine, I’ll tell you who this exercise is really for:  your staff or your HIPPO (HIghest Paid Person with the biggest Opinion).  You’re on DealerRefresh so you already know this stuff.

Critiquing a Live Dealer Chat Transcript

We have word tracks for when were face to face with a potential client.
We have word tracks for becoming a Ninja like phone-up professional, moving the customer to appointment.

Have the right words at the right time in your arsenal and move the customer that much closer to the appointment or sale.

But what about word tracks for Chat..”Chat Tracks“.. for when you’re in the introduction or knee deep in a chat with a customer on the other side of your monitor?

If your dealer is using chat to build a relationship and capture more leads from your dealers website or inventory listing site like Cars.com, it’s imperative to obtain ninja like chat skills.

ADP Dealer Services Group is planning to buy Cobalt Group Inc.

According to Dealer Communications – Friday July 9 will be the announcement of ADP Dealer Services plan to purchase Cobalt Group Inc.

Apparently discussions have been ongoing for nearly two years between ADP and Cobalt’s primary investor Warbug Pincus. The acquisition is expected to close sometime in the third quarter.

As of right now, there is no word on the sale price, though Cobalt is generating an estimated $250 – $270 million in revenue. According to Dealer Communications ADP could be paying in the neighborhood of $350 – $400 million.

This will be the second major dealer website provider purchase since 2006, when ADP bought BZ Results. The article also go on to say…

ADP plans to keep both brands separate with Cobalt maintaining its Tier One and Tier Two relationships and BZ Results selling directly to the Tier Three/ dealership level.

Here is a link to the entire article on Dealer Communications website  – Nice Job Cliff Banks on this breaking news!

What do you think of this purchase?

Does it make sense for ADP to make such a purchase and what exactly do you think they will get from this?

Let me introduce you to the rule of equal incompetence.  It applies to many of us.  When a market of competitors all hire the same people and adopt the same practices you end up with equivalency.  When business decisions are not based in fact, you create incompetence.  Thus, the rule of equal incompetence.

If you’ve ever worked in a dealership, located in a competitive market, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Over the years I heard a lot of “we should do this because I feel it is the best way to do it” and “I think we should ____.”  I rarely heard “I looked at the numbers and even though I don’t personally feel it is something I would use, the numbers don’t lie so we are going to do this.”  There are quite a few operators and General Managers who have made careers off of “feelings”.  They did this through a mix of talent, luck, short memories and the rule of equal incompetence.  I can’t say that my own career hasn’t had a few of these elements mixed in.  I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say guilty as charged.

Lately, I have heard “I think” and “I feel” more times than I care to think about.  I’m taking a stand.  No more decisions by gut.  Give me stats and A/B tests.

With so many numbers at our finger tips there is only one reason to ignore the facts:  you don’t understand them.

Since the beginning of car sales, we have tried to find that elusive balance between holding gross and increasing volume.

OEMs would love nothing more than to have an army of sales professionals whose sole focus was moving product- so much so, many of them have decreased profit margin to all time lows in the name of “customer satisfaction”; leaving dealerships with fewer and fewer ways to generate revenue.

So how do we continue to hold gross in a climate that has very little of it to hold? TRADE -IN VALUE!

Date: Friday, July 9th
Time: 12pm to 1 p.m. (Eastern)
Location: Your Computer
Cost: FREE – Register Here

With your online listings, video helps to bring the car to life and lets shoppers take a virtual test drive. Customers can verify the vehicle’s condition and determine if it offers the passenger and cargo capacity they need. This webinar brings together a panel of video experts to share practical tips for developing clips you can leverage with third-party listings, your dealership site, email follow-up and social media campaigns. In this session, the panel will discuss:

• What car buyers want to see in online video.
• How to produce a walk-around demonstration or personal introduction video.
• Where to share your videos to increase exposure and generate traffic.

Will you be attending?

That’s right – BUNK.  As in crap.  Before you start chasing after me with pitch forks, at least read the rest of this article.

What is a value-added program for a dealership?  It is a business to consumer incentive plan that gives a quid quo pro “bonus” when someone purchases something from the dealership.  For example:  customers receive free oil changes for life when they buy a car from your store. This is one of the most common value-added programs.

My experience with these programs dates back to 1999 when I started selling Volkswagens.  Our competitor gave free oil changes and state inspections for life.  They were one of 3 dealers in town doing anything like this.  At the time, I estimate roughly 40% of all customers mentioned their program and that was mainly due to them buying so much newspaper real estate to push it.  As a salesperson, 40% of the customers saying something about it translated into 100% of my customers asking for it.  It really is amazing how selective our memory can be isn’t it?  I was all about our store offering the same or better.  What we were given was a program that only tackled 5 oil changes and state inspections for life.  It forced me to continue to be a better sales person by finding ways to sell around the other guys oil changes for life.

Our Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools Webinar has come to a close and despite some early technical issues (sorry about that), the feedback was very positive.

LOTS of great information along with many questions were being asked.

Brian was just scraping the surface of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools and how dealers can leverage these 2 awesome tools.

Several topics were covered, including..

We hope everyone gathered with some great information today. Even if you can’t apply everything you learned today, it’s great to have this knowledge so you can hold your website providers and SEO consultants accountable!

Thanks to everyone that supported and attended!

Let us know you thought?

If you are not using Google Webmaster Tools to analyze your website architecture and search data you are missing some very valuable information. Google Webmaster Tools has been significantly enhanced over the past 6 months to provide business owners with KEY marketing data.

If you feel uncomfortable reading Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools reports, the good news is you can join me for a DealerRefresh webinar on Tuesday June 22, 2010 on this very topic.

You can get more information on the webinar on this link: Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools Webinar

Webmaster Tools Tip #1

If you can’t make it, here is a great starting point to see how Google Webmaster Tools can help your digital marketing success.

Now of course, I am sure that you will clear your schedule if I told you that by attending the DealerRefresh webinar you will have more knowledge and data to improve your digital marketing success.

So, Tip #1 from the upcoming webinar will see if your website complies with one of the basic rules of Automotive SEO:

Create website pages with unique  page titles and META descriptions.

Some people have dismissed this scoring as important for car dealer search results. I think this is because their website technology is flawed.

My argument is simple. If Google includes the tracking of duplicate page titles and META descriptions in their HTML diagnostic tools, it is important.

Here is Google’s exact wording in their diagnostic page on duplicate titles and META descriptions:

When Googlebot crawled your site, it found some issues with your content. These issues won’t prevent your site from appearing in Google search results, but addressing them may help your site’s user experience and performance.

This is an interesting choice of words but the reality is more harsh. If you have dozens or hundreds of duplicate Page Titles and META descriptions, it will hurt your ability to appear on Google Page One for searches on the content found on the page.

If you don’t believe that statement, congratulations. You make an excellent competitor for online marketing; you’ll be the easiest to roll-over when someone works for your competitors.

Google Webmaster Tools Screens

When you login to Webmaster Tools, you would click on the website you want to see and then you will come to a dashboard screen. On the left hand side you will see the diagnostic link, as shown below in red:

Click on the “Diagnostics” links and you will see the menu expand. Click on the “HTML Suggestions” link and you will be greeted with a screen that will look one of two ways.

The first way will show you just how many errors are on your website or you will find Google Webmaster Tools “Nirvana”.

Do you know where you are at?

Here is what the error screen will show. You should try to reduce the number of duplicate  or missing Titles and META descriptions on your website. You may be shocked to see that many car dealer website platforms ignore Google’s advice.

Google Nirvana

If your website has no errors, you will get this message:

The text reads:

We didn’t detect any content issues with your site. As we crawl your site, we check it to detect any potential issues with content on your pages, including duplicate, missing, or problematic title tags or meta descriptions. These issues won’t prevent your site from appearing in Google search results, but paying attention to them can provide Google with more information and even help drive traffic to your site. For example, title and meta description text can appear in search results, and useful, descriptive text is more likely to be clicked on by users.

So, please check your Webmaster Tools Account or setup it up and if you wants TONS of great marketing data, make sure you setup Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools Webinar.

The webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, June 22, 2010 from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon. Cost is $25 per dealership.

Sign-up Here