Is it a must to have a link from the OEM?

Absolutely. Is the Cobalt site crappy? Absolutely. Will it generate leads that you wouldn’t have received without the link?

Absolutely.

At least it’s not a Ford site.

Alex

You might see all your SEO points disappear from your primary site, only to see your “basic template” Cobalt site start showing in the search results.

This is mostly true, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Say your OEM site is #4 and your primary site is #6. A customer who clicks on the OEM site will either turn into a lead or they’ll move on. There’s a chance that they’ll stop at #5 and leave a lead, but they probably would have done that anyway before they made it to your primary. If they do leave, you get a second chance with your more attractive site at #6.

There is a slight chance that the taste they got at your OEM site will discourage them from clicking on the better site, but again, that is a slight chance.

Ryan

Since the OEM site drives so much traffic, I would advise that you use that web presence for targeting new vehicle buyers that go there, but then set up sister sites elsewhere for other shoppers, including other new vehicle shoppers.

I’ve always been a big fan of having all of the inventory everywhere that a customer’s eyes can see.

umer

Kevin, we have few GM dealers and none have bothered purchasing this link… it is so tiny on that page… why do it… plus you get the link to your site from the regional OEM sites…

Why do it? It’s not terribly expensive and it provides leads. Take down a billboard, cut back on radio, take a smaller size newspaper ad, or better yet, just invest more into the internet marketing. The ROI on that link will be better than most conventional marketing spends.

Shi

The growth of the “Blog Phenomena” is another example.

Agreed, but carefully. There will be more and more companies out there selling blogs to dealers. Some will be ultra cheap, filled with RSS and stale content. Others will be higher, and may be good, but still overpriced.

Before dealers jump on and pay companies for a blog, they should look into the ease in creating a blog, the maintenance, and the potential costs.

They may find that the receptionist or a salesperson can put it together and maintain it for cheap.

Brian

Personally I like the plain vanilla dealership websites. I am on dealer websites every day so get to see the spectrum.

You’re on dealer websites every day. Two years ago, I would say that most consumers would have agreed. Today, I believe they want it to be functional and easy to navigate first, but they also want it to be attractive. The tremendous increase in high-speed connections has made the more simple sites, while appealing to some, still convert less. That’s an opinion. I have no data to back it up other than watching a single dealer website go through the simple-to-attractive transition in March of this year. The numbers were dramatically different.

Tom

For me, the value of having the link on the OEM listing comes from driving more potential customers to our site earlier in their research.

That’s a great, great point. People at the top of the funnel might get sucked down unexpectedly. Even if they don’t, the branding and subtle subliminal name infusion is still a benefit.

Joe
That’s terrible. I hate hearing when GMs don’t understand that money wisely spent on internet marketing never fails. Yes, wisely is the keyword here, but still, I think having two sites, especially if you keep the main site at the high PR url, is a good way to spend.

PR 5 is rare, but not unique. I actually have a PR4 dealer that Future PageRank Predictor says will be PR6. It’s never right, but one can only hope.

Have your GM call Jeff.

Are you going to keep the same URL with the new Cobalt website? If so…your PR should not be effected to much and bring your tags over to the new site as well. I’m sure you know all of this already!

Don’t let it get you down Joe. Look at it as a whole new opportunity to prove yourself over again.

-Jeff

Is having a direct link at the OEM level for GM brands a must-have?

I would say absolutely yes.

For SEO purposes, I think we’ve already established that it would have no real benefit. Most of the manufacturer websites are not set up properly for allowing any search engine ranking benefits to your OEM branded website.

When I did a search for a Cadillac on GM.com and used your zip code, I was given 4 other dealers to choose from, 3 of them with a link to their Cobalt GM branded website. I took notice that if you do NOT have a link to your website, the consumer can still search your inventory and contact you from with-in the GM website.

What I would want to know from GM is; how many people on average are clicking on “Search Inventory” vs “Dealer Website”. And, could having a link to your website build validity for your dealer. Could a customer say “geesh, Wyler Cadillac doesn’t even have a website, so what type of service can I expect?” Could this decrease the chance of the consumer searching your inventory on the GM site?

I also took notice that none of your Certified Pre-Owned vehicles on GMBuyPower have any photos. I’m not sure about GM, but usually unless you are signed up with the Manufacturer website programs, you are limited on what features you receive. This might be an example. By not having a manufacturer branded website with Cobalt, do you not have a way of getting your inventory photos over to GMBuyPower?

Is it worth the price of paying for a basic template website with Cobalt just to get that live link and have that additional site complement our primary site?

I think you need to look at the over value of having another website. Could you sell more cars if you had 2 showrooms? No if they were beside each other right!! This is why you use your Cobalt site to target a different audience or different demographic. I use our Mercedes branded website to target different regions throughout the tri-state area and our 3rd party site to cover all of Maryland and even some national exposure.

Last year I had received more leads (counting email leads and tracked phone calls) from our Mercedes branded website then our 3rd Party site and any other source of internet marketing. From what I could measure, Mercedes corporate website made up over 60% of the traffic sent to our Mercedes branded website. The closing ratio yielded one of the highest and my cost per sale finished up at 61.76 a sale.

I don’t know what GM charges for a Cobalt website but having another site can be very beneficial. If possible, do a little research to be sure your ROI will make sense. Take into consideration the time and effort to maintain the site as well. I know for me, my OEM branded site sometimes falls behind with updates.

Hope this helps AND kudos to everyone jumping on this question to help you out. It’s amazing when I see so many people offering feedback on this little website!

My pet project: http://www.breseechevrolet.com got the ax last week, to be replaced by Cobalt. New General Manger finds the value of the Cobalt/GM connection to be more important than current results:

Google PageRank = 5 (The highest Dealer PR site in the nation?!)
Top 3 Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) for long tail requests like:

used chevy avalanche upstate ny
GM EQUINOX NEW YORK
used chevy silverado 2500hd in buffalo ny
Top 1,2,3 Google result for 98% of the COMPETITORS within 100 miles!

More Tangible Examples:
==> 30% of all site traffic was from Search Engine Connections.
==In last 24 months, 18% of all sales were to buyers greater than 45 minutes away (little eBay participation).
==F&I Post Sale Survey Says: 40-45% of all sales were visitors to http://www.breseechevrolet.com
==Constant deluge of “your site is very nice…”
from customers and Industry players.

It’s a single point store in a rather small market, but we’re #1 in Sales with NO NEWPAPER SPENDING.

Maybe it’s time to move into MicroSites….
Shaking head in Syracuse,
Joe
p.s. Webmaster Brains for sale or lease!!
p.p.s. Google is the NEW yellow pages. To improve the message, we have callbright.com phone numbers on ALL of our Internet Properties. Phone traffic from http://www.breseechevrolet.com out numbers AutoTrader AND Cars.com by > 100:1. Calls for Svc. dept. are > 10% of site phone calls (very nice).

While the considerations over SEO, page rankings, etc. are all important, to me the most important question remains unanswered:

Does anyone have experience of how much more they made by having the GM/Cobalt site link vs. not having it?

If don’t have that info, how about the following say for 3 months:

1) # leads dealership received from GM/OEM site
2) # delivered vehicles from those leads
3) Total front & back end gross on those sales
4) Cost of Cobalt site

In the above, duplicate leads + subsequent sales are attribued to the first source from which they are received.

Is the answer positive or negative?

It needs to be positive since other overhead factors need to be covered (sales compensation, CRM, BDC, etc.).

And not to be unfair to the GM/Cobalt structure, this should be done to all Internet efforts as any unprofitable efforts could be from things that could be fixed + have nothing to do with the Cobalt website.

I speak to Internet Managers all day long on such things. Here are some benchmarks:

1) Prospect : Sales ratio = 15-20%…. that’s right for your own website leads & those from your OEM, the benchmark should be on par with what you are doing in the showroom. 3rd party leads will be 1/2 of that.

2) Front and back end grosses… Equal to your showroom grosses. Period. It’s your process + talk tracks if you are not getting this. No difference for 3rd party leads.

Personally I like the plain vanilla dealership websites. I am on dealer websites every day so get to see the spectrum. Here’s why I like them:

A dealer’s website exists to make it convenient for a consumer to find, buy + communicate with you. And as a dealer, I only want you to find + communicate with me so you will buy from me.

So as a dealer, the goal of my website + what I do on the Internet is to get consumers to BUY service, parts & vehciles. The main problem I tend to see with sites that do more than what I call plain vanilla (research, inventory, about us, contact us) is the following:

1) Inquiring is NOT buying.
2) The sales psychology of websites designed to get the consumer to inquire is wrong / ineffective. For example, here’s VIN decoder info on this new vehicle + its MSRP + maybe its price. Call or email. That would be ineffective in the showroom, why is that the implemented strategy on the Internet?
3) The above actually encourages those consumers willing to cough up their info this early to treat you like a commodity. Where is the bonding + rapport? Where is the sizzle to the new vehicle purchase?
4) And I don’t mean add a bunch of gimmicks to the site, although those can be useful if they get the consumer communicating – what’s my trade worth, live chat, etc.

But I digress… If your website is designed to get people to inquire so you can sell them an appointment + get them in to the showroom, then plain vanilla is just fine. Get the cheapest good one you can find (I actually like Cobalt’s base package if that is the objective).

Shameless plug: If you want to add a member’s only section with an eCommerce capability (verify email address to get in, but then get complete consumer facing desking + F+I experience, accurate prices, interest, rebates, etc.), again plain vanilla will do so the calls to action (BUY) don’t get lost in the noise + navigation. Or at least that is what I recommend.

Best of Luck Kevin, and congratulations on asking the right questions.

Media giants that own large groups of diverse businesses like an ADP and others, businesses that need to be marketed. There are many scenarios; Madison Ave. has played this game for how many years?

One thing that rings true is when Mr. Toyota comes in on a date and time stamp and then comes in on our site and then comes in on a KBB and then surfaces again on another 3rd party site so on and so on we will not pay for the duplicates, we will only pay for the first lead.

In most cases the lead to the dealer site will be directed to the dealer from the OEM site. If the dealers are not diligent in watching the tracking and business source they can be paying for leads 2-3-4 times which adds up in annual costs.

The beauty of ecommerce and Internet Marketing is the source can be tracked, tracked as never before. We have not even scratched the surface of what is possible in this area. Just look at what the candidates in the American Political process are doing and you can see the potential for innovation. Every election year we are seeing innovation develop and new ways to use the technology.

The growth of the “Blog Phenomena” is another example. This is an area of tremendous opportunity that the political campaigns are spending more of their ad budgets on because they are able to track right to the moment a contributor comes on board and how much that person contributes thereafter. If this is not possible they would not be increasing their spending in this area.

We will also see the more intelligent OEMs take this to the next level as Toyota is doing for example. The Internet gives the OEM an opportunity to research & study the clients and market their products with greater efficiency. I believe some of the OEMs will continue drifting towards a more centralized model in sales and distribution over the next few years.

As successful as Toyota is the company is not resting on their “Laurels”. They are consistently striving to be better and more efficient and the Internet is one of the tools they will use to achieve this goal.

Most OEM dealer sites are exactly the same across dealerships… do a quick google search for fairway ford… all same… and only the home page indexed… so they have already been penalized.

Lao, I think the lead numbers that you are referring to are bit outdated… as numbers form AIADA june 2006 show number of leads from website to be higher then OEM site. 144 OEM 162 Website… (may be I’m reading that chart wrong).
http://www.aiadalists.org/

Kevin, we have few GM dealers and none have bothered purchasing this link… it is so tiny on that page… why do it… plus you get the link to your site from the regional OEM sites…