May 2013 – DealerRefresh | DealerRefresh Automotive Dealer Forums

Facebook Testing Ads, Reviews, Drilling Down Search

Facebook has been very busy lately– figuring out how to monetize Graph Search, while improving its functionality. The process of monetizing Graph Search comes as a welcome addition for Facebook investors. Facebook currently has a limited monetization focus with search ads, which are not targeted to the user’s search criteria. Instead, standard targeting and retargeting …

Best Practices

How to Get More Of Your Dealers Mobile Emails Opened

Emails opened on mobile devices are now surpassing webmail and desktops Here are some recent stats from Litmus for March of 2013: 25% of emails were opened through Webmail (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) 32% through Desktop (Outlook, etc.) 43% with Smartphones (iPhone, etc.) Coding tips for optimizing your emails for mobile are beyond the scope of …

Industry News & Trends

AutoCheck Vehicle History Reports to Appear on AutoTrader Starting September 2013

With the current turmoil around CarFax, major challenges it faces, and being sued by dealers, it’s quite possible they could be loosing some of their exclusivity on popular vehicle classified websites. AutoTrader.com announced their partnership to start including CarFax’s competitor AutoCheck Vehicle History Reports. This is great news for dealers using AutoCheck and Experian, the company behind …

Spray’n Pray Direct Mail Marketing – DealerRefresh Cartoon

Best Practices

The Beauty of Surprise

My first gig out of college was selling for a major alcohol distributor in Dallas. I hustled wine to convenience and grocery stores across the city. Lots and lots and lots of wine. Imagine cutting deals in the back of a Wal-Mart with an angry store manager who preached the Wal-Mart Gospel religiously. I …

Best Practices Opinions & Advice

Are You Seeing a Decline in Dealership Website Lead Conversions?

Latest HOT Discussion in the Forum What Percentage Did Your Website Leads Drop Comapred to This Month Last Year? From various discussions with various people from various locations, leads in general appear to be on the decline. However, I’m looking for some specific metrics on just how bad this is. Some of the stores I’m …

Best Practices Dealership Marketing

Brand Transition Notes: A Google Timeline

As you might have heard, we’ve been busy here in the land of Oz. On April 1st, 2013, Suzuki of Wichita became Subaru of Wichita, which meant we had a lot of switching to do. In the digital realm, I was most concerned about our listings across Google properties, and I’ll be the first to admit–I didn’t do …

Ten Imminent Google SEO Changes

Stop what you’re doing and watch this video from Google’s Matt Cutts. It isn’t often we’re given the opportunity to hear about what changes are coming in updates. Google’s Ten SEO Changes Are Coming: Major Penguin Update Advertorial Spam Spammy Queries Being Looked At Going Upstream At Link Spammers More Sophisticated Link Analysis Improvements On …

Industry News & Trends

Digital Dealer 14 Review with Kevin Frye

Our Annual Digital Dealer 14 Review with Kevin Frye That’s right – I’m one Tough Mudder! Well, maybe tired is a better word. I ran my first Tough Mudder the weekend before Digital Dealer, and for one day, I beat Father Time – though he took revenge on me that night as I nursed multiple bruises, scratches, …

Best Practices

The Best Leads Your Store Will Get Tomorrow

Damn you 2008! Real change is happening out there. It’s subtle and it’s taking years to play out so it’s hard to see, but it’s very real and it all traces back to 2008. Let’s go for a walk, turn over some stones and let’s find some ROI out here! The financial crisis of 2008 …