Includes Consumer and Dealer Campaign to Emphasize How AutoTrader.com is the Best Place to Find New Vehicles. ATLANTA, April 28 /PRNewswire/

“Big Guy,” the star of a new advertising campaign from AutoTrader.com, the ultimate automotive marketplace, will show how new-car shoppers can get in the driver’s seat of the perfect new car. The new, fully-integrated campaign will emphasize that AutoTrader.com, long recognized as the best place to search for and locate the perfect used vehicle, is also the best place for consumers to research and find the perfect new automobile.

The consumer campaign, which features the voice of Christian Slater, centers around a new 30-second television spot that introduces “Big Guy,” a larger-than-life character empowered by AutoTrader.com’s new car shopping tools to make the best new car purchasing decision. The spot, which begins airing May 5, will be featured on 19 of the hottest networks, including Adult Swim, A&E, Comedy Central, Discovery, Discovery HD, E!, FX, HGTV, History Channel, MTV, Sci-Fi, Speed TV, Spike!, Style, TBS, TLC, TNT, USA and VH1.

In addition, AutoTrader.com’s new car messaging will be integrated into the popular TV shows “Friday Night Stand-up” on Comedy Central and “PowerBlock” on Spike TV. For “PowerBlock,” show host Courtney Hanson will use AutoTrader.com to shop for a new 2008 Ford Mustang, which will then be tricked out on the show and donated to the International Children’s Heart Foundation. E! is also creating a series of AutoTrader.com-branded features entitled “Celebs and Cars” that will feature some of today’s hottest stars from movies, music, sports and television talking about their favorite
rides.

“The larger-than-life stature of ‘Big Guy’ translates directly to the empowerment of our customers,” said AutoTrader.com President and CEO Chip Perry. “The new campaign shows shoppers can compare local dealers’ actual new car inventories and find the right vehicle for them at the best price.”

The Big Guy character also will be integrated into all of AutoTrader.com’s online and trade media advertising, as well as on AutoTrader.com’s homepage. The national television and online campaign will be supported by a parallel radio campaign. The radio spots, which will debut in over 20 markets, will further highlight the message of empowerment delivered by the television ads.

AutoTrader.com also will use its sponsorship of NBA basketball on TNT to highlight the over 1.6 million new car listings featured on the site, with a fantasy league contest that will award the winner $25,000 towards the purchase of any new vehicle on AutoTrader.com. AutoTrader.com’s
messaging will appear on NBA mobile alerts and NBA.com promotions, and AutoTrader.com will continue in its role as a feature sponsor of the Top Off Show on TNT, NBA TV, and NBA.com broadband.

In parallel to the “Big Guy” campaign, AutoTrader.com’s new car messaging will be brought to dealerships through the “We Do What Works” campaign. A series of new ads, which began appearing April 28th in various print and online trade media outlets, explains to dealers how AutoTrader.com delivers new car shoppers into showrooms. These ads focus on how AutoTrader.com’s people deliver a personal touch that empowers the dealership to better serve customer needs.

“With most car buyers doing online research before even stepping into a dealership, it’s important to provide dealers with an easy, cost-effective way to advertise and showcase their new car inventory,” said AutoTrader.com’s Perry. “In this challenging new-car-sales environment, AutoTrader.com offers the most efficient way for in-market car buyers to find the perfect car, allowing dealers to make the most efficient use of their marketing dollars.”

New Car Messaging Integrated Into Other Marketing Disciplines

AutoTrader.com will continue its new car messaging online via Turn2, which uses a partnership with Major League Baseball’s web site, MLB.com, to give consumers the chance to win a new 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe. The interactive Turn2 game features 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Richard “Goose” Gossage serving as the emcee.

Gossage also serves as the spokesperson for the recently launched “Drive to a New Start” campaign, a multi-city road trip aimed at promoting AutoTrader.com’s new car focus, as well as helping to give kids in underserved areas a new start. AutoTrader.com will be collecting baseball celebrity signatures on a customized 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe identical to the one featured in Turn2, and will donate $1,000 per signature to youth baseball programs across the country. The signed vehicle will be auctioned in early 2009, with all additional proceeds benefiting youth baseball
programs.

About AutoTrader.com

AutoTrader.com, the Internet’s leading auto classifieds marketplace and consumer information Web site, aggregates more than three-million vehicle listings from 40,000 dealers and 250,000 private owners in a single location. AutoTrader.com provides the largest selection of vehicles that
attracts more than 13 million qualified buyers each month. Through innovative merchandising products such as multiple photos and comprehensive search functionality, AutoTrader.com unites buyer and seller online — dramatically improving the way people research, locate and advertise vehicles. AutoTrader.com, created in 1997 and based in Atlanta, Ga., is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is also an investor. For more information, visit http://www.autotrader.com.

Priority Honda ad campaign on Accords and Civics.

Micro-sites have been a hot fad amongst many dealers and vendors, and after attending the Digital Dealer Conference I can tell you they’re going to get even hotter.  But are they worth doing?

Before I get started, I should clarify this is Alex writing – not Jeff – so if you have any issues with my opinions see me.

I’m not convinced Micro-sites are the way to go.  Maybe I haven’t spent enough time talking to Ralph Paglia (whom I respect very much), maybe I just don’t want to throw another set of responsibilities on my already loaded plate, or maybe I think there is another way to do them without the extra hassles, customer confusion, and expense.

Micro-sites make sense! No doubt about it, they are a fantastic way to funnel precise information to a customer.  They are awesome for campaign tracking, and they absolutely rock for SEO!  However, I think they add confusion for a customer and more things to watch to your Internet department’s to-do list…..as if we don’t have enough websites to keep an eye on already.

I know I’m speaking to the more advanced eCommerce crowd here, so I’m going to assume you guys are putting a lot of time and effort into your main dealer website.  You’ve got your value-added programs on your site, all your new & used inventory there, the right phone numbers, all kinds of forms, and maybe some other things that set you apart.  Why build more sites that only convey one message when you can build a single page, under your own domain, that can do the exact same thing?  Let’s call it a “landing page” and direct our campaigning efforts to that page.  If you know how to use your site metrics, you can watch to see how effective the campaign is.  On top of that, the people who come to your main site can also see your “landing page” ….win-win!   Yes, you’re going to lose out on phone call tracking (if you’re assigning a special 1-800 number to the campaign), but you’re not confusing your customers with 500 different phone numbers (this is another beef I have).  Speaking of customer confusion, what happens when all your micro-sites are indexed – how do they know which site is the one they should be clicking on when they’re coming through the organic side?  Is precise tracking worth more than customer frustration?

The part of micro-sites I absolutely love is the SEO benefits of having multiple, relevant, sites pointing back at you.  I can’t come up with a decent argument on this part, but I can tell you I’d rather spend my money on press releases instead of micro-sites.  They’re relatively inexpensive and don’t have to be managed.  If your customers find the release, then it just makes you look better (if written well), and it can be somewhat timeless (again, if written well).

Now you know my take on dealer micro-sites, and I’m interested to hear what you think – GET TO COMMENTING!!!

Hello Jeff,

eBay Motors has announced its three millionth vehicle has sold on the site since its launch as a formal category in 2000. This milestone demonstrates the strength of the eBay Motors platform and the ever-increasing interest in buying and selling vehicles online.

A full press release is below for your review.

If interested to learn more, I would be able to connect you with Rob Chesney, vice president of eBay Motors.

Let me know if I can be of assistance.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

Allen Arnold
Airfoil Public Relations
P: (248) 304-1423

**Sorry for the quick post, I’m in FL for the Digital Dealer Conference but wanted to get this out encase anyone was interested on knowing about it.  If you have some comments or feedback…post it and I will do my best to get Rob Chesney on answer any questions.

What do you want from your 3rd Party Lead Vendors?

A.  ROI
B.  Conversion
C.  Marketing
D.  All of the above

Here is another Blueprint Series to discuss those exact things.  Tell your third party lead provider exactly what you want! Tell your third party lead provider what they’re doing wrong.  Yes, this includes anyone who sends you a lead, except your own website or direct ventures.

This one is for, but not limited to:  AAA, AOL, Adtel, AutoExtra, AutoMart, AutoUSA, AutoTrader.com, Jumpstart, CarFax, Cars.com, CarsDirect, Dealix, Edmunds, KBB, NewLeadsPlus, OEM’s, Vehix, Yahoo, USAA, ZAG, etc.

Jeff asked that I revisit my “Conversion Ratio Myth” argument here on DR, and this time I’ve got pretty graphs to back myself up. I know, you’re hooked already.

The reason I’m always on my high horse about conversion ratios is simply because it’s an unreliable metric for our industry, and I’ve always felt that it’s our job as front-runners of the Internet revolution to prevent dealers from falling back into the old thinking of “Internet = email inquiry”. It ain’t that simple, and it’s detrimental for your store to think that way.

The problem with conversion ratios in our industry is that conversion measurements are best-suited for e-commerce sites, and we’re not e-commerce in any way, shape or form (yet). There are so many things that can happen on a dealer’s web site that could be viewed as a successful visit, yet most of these would never be flagged as a conversion…it’s wrong for us to assume that our site fails if it doesn’t turn a visitor into an email lead.

Now, you could use conversion ratios to measure changes you’ve made to your site functionality, although there’s still plenty of opportunity there for misinterpretation. But most dealers focus harder on marketing their sites to bring in traffic than they do on maximizing user experience once the traffic gets there… and that’s where the conversion ratio ceases to make any sense as a gauge of success, because as a regional business, the more ground your advertising covers, the less effective it gets.

See, all this fancy new marketing you’re doing – SEO/SEM, blogging, social media marketing, etc. – negatively affects your conversion ratio. The visitor most likely to convert to a lead is the one who sought out your dealership specifically: either someone who typed your store’s URL directly, or ran a search query for “Joe Smith Toyota”. But neither of those things require significant marketing savvy on your part … those are your core customers who want to buy from you and just happen to be using the Internet. Anything you do beyond that is hypothetically hurting your conversion ratio, especially in the case of blogs and social media, where you may be hooking users into your site from hundreds of miles away.

So all this leading-edge Internet marketing is decreasing your conversion ratio… should you give it all up and stick to your cake customers for the sake of a 9% conversion? Well, last time I checked, no one in this business got paid on conversion ratios. The more robust your marketing strategy, the broader your presence, the more traffic you’ll pick up, the more units you’ll roll. That’s what it’s all about.

Guest posting by Mitchell Turck
Internet Consultant with WebNet Services

I reported on this a few weeks ago “AOL Autos and Vast partner – something a little different?“. After AOL Autos dropping AutoTrader.com and selecting Vast to power their used car marketplace, the changes have finally happened.

I don’t usually post announcements but since I had been following this from the beginning and even interviewing Doug Eddy, Director of business development for AOL Autos and Kevin Laws, CEO Vast.com about their joint venture, I thought I would share the actual PR announcement.

DULLES, VA – April 2, 2008 – AOL Autos,http://autos.aol.com, today announced an open marketplace for used cars, providing car buyers with access to more than 2.5 million vehicles for sale in the United States and a new set of search and filter tools to more easily find a car that fits their needs.

The AOL Autos used car marketplace features a new intuitive search function that enables users to search for used, certified pre-owned, and private-seller listed cars using natural language queries (e.g., “black Honda Civic”). Users can filter results based on make, model, price, body style and more, resulting in more relevant listings. In the coming months, additional enhancements to the site will include Spanish language listings, video listings and more posting services for sellers.

“For the first time, consumers will have completely unrestricted access to the biggest U.S. inventory of used cars on the Web, coupled with user-friendly search tools, enabling buyers to find the exact car they’re looking for,” said Rudi Thun, general manager of AOL Autos. “The development of an open marketplace signifies our commitment to creating an environment in which everyone can participate, resulting in a better experience for both buyers and sellers.”

The AOL Autos used car site now operates on a flexible platform, powered in-part by Vast.com, that allows sellers to post cars for sale, and include details such as photos, comments and even a car’s history.  Buyers can contact the sellers directly through the site by email or phone.  In addition, dealers and service providers have the option to participate in a pay-for-performance program for the used cars they list.

“AOL is the first major portal to shift to an open marketplace model for buying and selling cars via the Web,” said Kevin Laws, CEO of Vast.com.  “AOL is able to design their experience around helping the consumer find the best vehicle easily and helping dealers sell more cars in the process.”

AOL Autos, http://autos.aol.com,
offers car shoppers a multitude of resources to research and compare prices, features, specifications and photos of new and used cars.  The site also features the latest automotive news, including reviews and advice from industry experts on topics such as car buying, ownership and repair, hybrid trends and more.

Dealers interested in putting their inventory into the new AOL Autos used car marketplace can contact their marketing partner or provide a feed directly to Vast (http://www.vast.com/info/submitcontent).

# # #

Contact:
Chris Savarese
AOL Corporate Communications
chris.savarese@corp.aol.com
212-206-4589

April 1, 2008 – We are pleased to announce today Google has agreed to acquire DealerRefresh.com, the choice of blogs for Automotive Internet Sales Professionals across the United States, for $1.2 million in cold hard cash.  Following the acquisition, DealerRefresh.com will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

Kershner seemed too excited about the acquisition "I never thought it would ever come to this. DealerRefresh was just a quick idea 3 years ago. Having the opportunity to grow a small blog into one of the most respectful communities in the automotive industry has been truly exhilarating!. I only hope is that we can continue on with the success. DealerRefresh would not be what is has turned out to be if it were not for the readers, the contributors, the whole community. ..WERD!"

"Id love to give a shout out to EVERYONE that helps make this community what it is. A big thanks to Alex Snyder for all of his help and contribution – you bring a balance to DR that we all appreciate!"

When the acquisition is complete, DealerRefresh will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google’s own fast-growing business. DealerRefresh will continue to be based in the basement office of Jeff Kershner’s house. With Google’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, DealerRefresh will continue to build on its success as one of the most popular blogs for todays Automotive Dealers and Internet Sales Professionals.

Oh yea…APRIL FOOLS!!