I didn’t get much time on the floor this year as I have in the past. The crew over at MileOne kept me busy at NADA 2008. There were several people that I was supposed to stop by and shake hands with but I just never got around to it, so I do apologize to everyone that I was not able to connect with.

Being my first time there, I thought San Fransisco was wonderful. The weather was fantastic and the city provides an atmosphere like no other. However, in my opinion, this was not the best location for NADA. Having to travel outside between the West, North and South halls of the Moscone Center was a pain in the a$$. Thankfully the weather was nice and the AutoMotion girls were always out side to greet you with their sexy smiles and great attitude between buildings.

Compared to last years NADA Review this one will be a quickie. I only had the chance to visit a hand full of vendor booths this year;

I’ll start of with onecommand (formally know as callcommand). The demo was impressive and they seem to really know their product. Having one program that can take care of your sales/service email, voicemail and text campaigns is strong. I also like the fact that they have aligned themselves with some great companies like ExactTarget to help guarantee email delivery.

I sat through a demo with Autobase CRM to review the new features (features that should have been apart of the CRM years ago). That’s all I’ll say about that.

Once I actually FOUND the Dealer.com booth (hidden in the corner of the West room) I was able to get a taste of their new TotalControl Dominator, allowing dealers to control their own SEM campaigns. If this works as well as it demo’s, it’s a homerun.

I made a quick stop at the Polk booth where they were touting their Polk Lead Scoring.

TimeHighway has added a few improvements and a new look to their online service scheduler.

I stopped by the ClickMotive booth to check out their new Flashy Websites. The sites look good, but I’m still a leary about all the flash and stuffed HTML in the background.

vAuto continues to build upon their product and continues to impress. Their tool is so clean, it has one of the best looking interfaces for any software program in the dealer industry. I have never used it but if it applies everything that Dale Pollack teaches, then I would think this is one program worth taking a look at.

Last year the eBay booth was PACKED as they touted their eBay Local program. This year..dead. At least every time I walked by. I have to wonder how many dealers signed up for eBay Local last year but are singing a different tune this year.

Some of your more aggressive CRM’s are learning how to tie in personalized video responses in their systems and are building action plans according to whether or not the customer actually watches the video email. NICE!

After attending NADA for the last 4 years, there really isn’t a lot of new stuff to see. Yeah, some vendors will add new features to their products and every now and then you might find something that peeks your interest but overall it’s the same stuff year after year.

I overheard several discussions where dealers are searching for quality SEO vendors. Does this mean dealers are catching on to the snake oil SEO vendors in the past and are now fed up with it?

WHERE ARE THE HISPANIC MARKETEERS? by 2050, Latinos will be 29% of the entire American population but yet I only ran across one Hispanic marketing vendor. Props to Larry John Wright Morales, Inc.

Of course the best part of any NADA is the networking and the PARTIES!

The Chase Bank tequila tasting party pulled a nice crowd. Getting to taste 1,2 or 8 different tequilas was intoxicating to say the least. I stopped by the DealerTrack party for a few minutes then ended up at a small restaurant and bar called Annabelle’s while catching up Jesse and the Homenet crew.

Blue Flame6, DealerSocket and Century Interactive threw a way cool party calling it the “The 3 at the 4“. Each invitee had to arrive in a group of three and they were serving these tasty drinks called a “Threesome”. Very Nice!

The last party I attended was the ADP Reynolds & Reynolds party at City Hall. It was OK, the lack of Bombay Sapphire left me a little disappointed. The party had me feeling quite young, if you know what I mean.

A quick thanks to Joe Vraneza and the KBB crew for dinner Sunday night and Lance over at CarFax for a wonderful dinner at Mccormicks and Kuleto’s Monday night.

So what did I take away from NADA this year?

Dealers are STILL LOST! Seriously. Sitting through some of the presentations and over hearing conversations from other dealers, it’s crazy how much they still don’t get it. They still don’t get technology, they still don’t understand today’s consumer, they still don’t train their sales people how to be effective on the phone and how to answer internet leads in a timely manor. The list goes on and it amazes me. How has this industry survived?

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Here are a few of the cars.com commercials aired during the superbowl. Advertisers paid around 2.6 million for 30 seconds of air time during the Super Bowl XLI.

I thought they were average at best. What did you all think?

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AOL Autos dropped AutoTrader and has selected Vast to power AOL Autos’ used car marketplace. The changes are scheduled to launch on AOL Autos in the first quarter of 2008.

Apparently AOL Autos and Vast.com are setting out to offer something a little different for the consumer and dealers.

"A rich set of search and filter tools that will make it easy for consumers to search for and find the used car they are looking for. Vast.com’s robust optimization technology will ensure that consumers are presented with the cars most likely to convert to sales, resulting in higher quality leads for dealers."

Something else I found interesting; dealers have several options in the way they pay and promote their inventory on AOL Autos.
It’s something a little different then what we are used to.

I had the opportunity to speak with Doug Eddy, Director of business development for AOL Autos and Kevin Laws, CEO Vast.com about their joint venture.

Jeff: Dealers depend in part on portal traffic.  The portals have traditionally been powered by either AutoTrader or Cars.com. Do AOL Autos and Vast bring something different?

Doug: AOL’s new used car experience is really focused on bringing something better to both the consumer and the dealer. For the consumer, we want to provide the most complete set of listings to search, along with the best search tools. This is very different than just providing cars to our users from a restricted set of dealers. For the dealer, we want to make sure the money spent goes directly towards creating car sales, not just towards paying to appear on AOL.  That’s why we call it the open marketplace.

Jeff: What do you mean by “open” marketplace?

Doug:  It’s “open” in the sense that everybody can participate. Rather than displaying the inventory of just one marketing partner, AOL will now show any car – even if we aren’t paid to show it. This means AOL Autos will offer a highly user-friendly experience, allowing users to search across the broadest set of used car inventory in a single destination – over 3 million used cars. It’s still a marketplace in the sense that dealers can absolutely “pay for performance” through their existing marketing partners – but they don’t need to pay to just be included in the experience.

Jeff: Describe “pay for performance pricing” – you mean paying for clicks?

Kevin: "Pay for performance" just means that you set the price you want to pay, but you don’t actually pay it unless you get the result you were looking for. Depending on the deal you have with your marketing partner – that could be a click, a lead, a call, or even a sold car.  The bigger issue is that you can choose on what basis to pay. For example, you don’t need lots of leads on a Ford Escape Hybrid on the lot – it’s going to move anyway. Why not pay nothing for that, and instead pay a lot more for that car that’s been on the lot for more than 30 days?

The open marketplace supports all of that. You should only pay for what is valuable to you.

Jeff: How does a dealer go about figuring out how to promote at a granular level?

Kevin:  With Vast.com, the dealer doesn’t have to.   In a sense, the open marketplace will do this automatically – it doesn’t just put the cars with the highest paying leads at the top. The system automatically takes into account the likelihood that car will appeal to a customer. A car that costs $10,000 over blue book is not likely to generate a lead. No matter how much the lead is worth, Vast won’t put that car at the top. The dealer doesn’t need to do anything to take advantage of that capability – the system will automatically take into account both payment and the likelihood that the car will actually generate a sale.

The other capability – the ability to set the price per lead (or even sale) – is one of the main reasons we are working through existing marketing partners. They can optimize for you, rather than having each dealer try to go down to that granular level.

Jeff: So the search results are based on an algorithm that returns the customer the best “value” for what they are searching for?

Kevin:  Basically, yes.  It tracks what customers are most likely looking for given their behavior so far.  Sometimes that is best value and sometimes it is some other aspect, like right color.  The algorithms automatically match what the customer is looking for to the car most likely to actually become a lead and a sale.

Jeff: What do you need the auto marketing partners and Internet service providers for?  Why not go direct to dealers?

Kevin:  This is actually very related to the last 2 questions. We don’t want to make a new system that the dealers must learn. Instead, Vast’s mission is to “innovate from within” – working with existing channels to make the buying and selling process more efficient.  This way many dealers will participate automatically without having to do anything but choose the right marketing partners.

Additionally, Vast is focused on deep technology to make automotive buying for used cars work better on the Internet. We don’t have a sales force or account managers to contact dealers directly. Instead we have the technology that can execute promotions in an innovative way, which gives the service providers better capabilities to market to their dealers.

Jeff: Who are the current marketing providers? My readers would like a list of partners they can work with.

Establishing a relationship with Vast.com / AOL Autos is fast and easy for your marketing partner, so any partner you work with today will be able to manage your listings on AOL Autos.  Vast.com and AOL Autos already have relationships with many Automotive Service Providers such as AutoByTel, Zag.com, Dealix, and AutoMart.  To find out if your service provider is a current partner, please email us at dealers@vast.com.

Jeff: Is there set pricing or are the marketing partners establishing this? And, will some marketing partners be able to offer higher placed listings?

There is not a fixed price that will be charged for promotion through your marketing partner. Many existing marketing partners are including it as part of the program they already offer (either fixed fee or cost-per-call/lead). You may not need to do anything if you already use one of the existing partners. 

Some marketing partners will be able to get higher placed listings based on what they pay to participate in the open marketplace.

Jeff: How does this compare with how AOL currently promotes dealers?  How will the relationship with Vast.com change the current way dealers work with AOL?

Doug:  Today, used car searches are sent to AutoTrader.  With this change, dealers just want to make sure their current service provider is putting their inventory in Vast.com, or they can put it in themselves: http://www.vast.com/info/automotivedealers.

For those who are interested in broader packages, we absolutely have the capability to sell those as well. Please contact us at AOL.

Jeff: When will the AOL autos used car marketplace be available?

Doug:  Mid-to-end Q1, 2008

Jeff: What should interested dealers do next?

Kevin:  Two things:

1. Immediately talk to your dealer service provider (CDM Data, Dealer Specialties, eBizAutos, Homenet etc.) and ask to have your feed sent to Vast.
2. Talk to your marketing partner to make sure they are marketing your
   inventory on AOL Autos and understand what promotion and positioning
   you get from their program.

You can also contact Vast.com directly:  dealers@vast.com or visit http://www.vast.com/info/automotivedealers.

Share the wealth!