The Next Giant Leap For Dealership Websites

I would add to your article that using a search based retargeting program would fit nicely with the features you mentioned.    There are third party providers that can target the keywords that a customer has used to search such as "Ford F150" and then display your ad when they visit partner sites very much like Google's Display Network.  I suspect Google will be adding this feature soon but right now it's rather new.

AutoOne Media has just launched a new vehicle configuraor that can be added to any existing website regardless of the website vendor that will automatically remember the vehicle any customer has built or was in the process of building. If the customer leaves the CarBuilder Vehicle Configurator and later returns it will ask the customer if they would like to return to the car they already built or were building. This will only help the user experience and increase leads through this new tool. carbuilderpro.com

Love the article, as a dealer in montreal, that often needs french services, it is hard to find a website builder that is able to be on top of things when it comes to new trends or technology.

having adaptive marketing for a quebec ford dealer would be a dream come true.

http://concessionnairesford.com

It's crucial for car dealers to embrace technology as most customers do some or all of the buying process online.

http://guymanningham.com

Brian, great article. I believe there is another article simular to this from years ago in the archives somewhere. 

From the dealers perspective:

IMO we are overdue for innovation in regards to dealership websites. Most services have been offering the same tricks for years now. Yes, there have been the addition of mobile sites, some tricky SEO techniques that anymore have a shelf life of 6 months at best. I have yet to have found a website service that really knocks my socks off with true innovation and world class customer experience.

I'm in not saying we don't have some great solutions out there. DealerOn touts their conversion rates and backs it up with a guarantee. DealerFire offers some of the better "custom" solutions I've seen in the industry, ClickMotive has really embraces mobile with some impressive offerings. I'm not intentionally leaving any other service out. Many have their "feature set" BUT again, I'm not seeing anything truly innovative in regards to customer experience around behavior and conversion. 

Lets agree that "similar vehicles" doesn't classify as onsite behavior. 

Side note: Dominion is about to offer Adaptive websites, one of the more innovative features to date. The dealers that I consult with using DealerOn have been testing some different initiatives around conversion in regards to Website to Walk-in conversion and the initial result are impressive. VinSolutions offers their "VINLens" that I know several dealers find this valuable. 

From the Vendor side:

Building out new platforms and integrating a tighter customer experience based on offsite and onsite behavior takes resources, time and effort. Not to mention possible relationships with outside services. 

Most dealers continue to struggle with updating their specials page (I believe I said this 4 years ago). When something isn't working (even though they are only using or placing 50% effort into it), they are quick to move in another direction - seeking out the silver bullett. 

On average, a large portion of dealers still fail to recognize the true importance of their websites and are only happy when they're paying $500-$700 a month for the provided services. 

Is it scalable, is there a profitable margin and will MOST dealers find the value in the service?

Skimmed through this. But it's all on VENDORS to get this going, dealers can only talk about it. They all need to upgrade their inventory display software. I don't understand how these companies can make multi-million dollar incomes, yet they all one way or another struggle to add new features to dealer websites. You have development teams, start working on features that vary prices based on the users ip, etc. What's one thing vendors totally miss out on? I have software that name tags all of my visitors, when they submit a lead I can see their entire search history, computer, location, all of the data on them, etc. So vendors why are you ignoring these things? If someone like me running an in-house Wordpress website can do it, there's a big gap in the amount of concern vendors have for actually working FOR the dealers.

I believe that this technology will provide consumers with what they really want, a more narrow and shorter sales funnel. The shopping process for virtually all products has already been greatly reduced by intelligent sites like Amazon and by mobile capabilities.

Dealers should also embrace technologies that help them to stay in tune with customers preferences after the sale. This enables them to provide consumers with what they are truly interested in as opposed to email blasts about products they have never or would never want.

Hey Brian...I LOVE the idea of personalization - the more the better!  I am always ok sharing my data and I WANT people to cookie me and follow me for that very reason.  HOWEVER, on Friday, I read this article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444873204577535352521092154.html)in the WSJ and it opened my eyes to an alternate option.   Maybe there is a better way than me giving out all of my information with hundreds of companies reinventing the wheel and me having to help them do that over and over .  Doc Searls is very down on Big Data collection (i.e. companies like Datium) and I'm not saying I agree at this point, it's just interesting and worth learning more about.  I love the scenario he lays out in the article with the clothing/espresso machine...think of this in reference to automotive shopping.  Talk about having a QUALIFIED lead!    So, my point is....now I'm not so sure about pushing more and more in the direction of Big Data....and maybe going the way of VRM is a better focus.  Or maybe he's delusional and the big companies will never change and will never allow the customer to be the driving force and while it's a good idea in theory, it will never ever happen...thoughts?  Here is the VRM's website: 

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page