“If” I was very good at using Adwords and Google analytics, why would a need TCD?
Peter

Add in things like phone tracking, lead tracking, dynamic inventory ad creation, automated profit center ad creation and you get the best of all worlds. That is really the concept here…to allow dealers to do everything they can do with adwords only do more faster and with better reporting and automation whenever possible and whenever needed to drive the lowest cost sales possible.

Isn’t that the focus? Shouldn’t we be focusing on what sells more cars faster and cheaper? What sells more parts and service? That’s really the point of this whole discussion so if anyone wants to see how these “5 stages” are blended together to make advertising in search engines easier and more effective.

We believe that this is how all search with evolve. Every industry will need highly effective tools to help business owners use previous results/intelligence to make better decisions with automated tools and processes to assist them with their advertising strategies.

In the next 2-3 years you will see more tools like this start to emerge in all different vertical markets. Lets just hope that dealers recognize that trackable results and low cost sales are essential in making advertising decisions moving ahead.

Feel free to contact me direct with any questions.

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com, Inc
Mark@dealer.com

I’m not turning the light switch on advertising plugs, but saying that anyone is welcome to speak as they wish toward what Dealer.com has done to raise the bar – in this thread. I’ll talk to Jeff later about things for the future in this regard.

I am not upset at all regarding the promotions. I really do like the dialogue this post has created. I am sure it has helped some improve their operation. Only think I was tired of was the “spin”. I see it enough on cable news.

I will call you though.

I think that was uncalled for. I can tell you’re upset about this thread – I’m sorry if that is the case. If you want to talk about it, I can be reached at 757 687-3537.

Thanks for the stunning article Alex. You’re right, we are the first to pioneer this type of ad buying in force. It really is a revolution in paid advertising and we thank you for the kind words.

To billy’s point: “Will address Total Control first. IMO, there is no software that can accurately predict what you’ll receive. To define this, accurately means a quality click addressing a specific search. All any software can predict is predetermined by the information search engines like Google supply them. ”

This statement isn’t entirely true although I can see your point and understand where you would get that information. Most companies do rely on what Google tells them a campaign will expect. We’re different. We’re using data that is based on the thousands of campaigns we have run for our clients and based on actual results of paid searches coupled with our websites. It’s based on years of real world actual usage cases not on what Google tells us we should expect. Very different.

Also, this is a great place to point out that as far as I know we’re the only company in the space that actually has Google’s teams visiting us up in VT on a regular basis because they feel our technology platform is so advanced. It’s pretty exciting to be part of something that!

Thanks again for the great post Alex and your comments billy.

Search is still a hot topic and with dealers continuing to spend the vast majority of ad dollars in media that is statistically proven to be ineffective, its impact will only continue to grow!

Thanks,

Mike DeCecco
Posted by: Mike DeCecco | August 01, 2008 at 06:25 PM

Tom: Great points in your post. If you want to do PPC yourself and be able to accurately measure your results, you should check out TCD. I know…. shameless product pitch… Sorry Jeff. ha!

Posted by: Mike DeCecco | August 05, 2008 at 11:57 AM

Joe:

TCD does both the things you mentioned in your earlier post and much more. In the interest of the spirit of this site, and not to turn this into too much of a sales pitch, let’s take this discussion offine. My e-mail is miked@dealer.com

Thanks!

Posted by: Mike DeCecco | August 05, 2008 at 09:38 PM

Hey guys:

All great stuff! This is why these sites are so fantastic because we can all learn all the time from eachother.

Mike, thanks for the insight you bring to the table. We all appreciate it.

To speak to this point…”I can tell you with a high level of confidence that a manually managed program simply cannot compete with these sophisticated systems. The number of calculations and adjustments that they are capable of making in a day are inconceivable for a manually operated platform to undertake. ”

The beauty about this statement is it’s truth. That’s why I must point out that TCD is surely a solution to that exact problem. It is a super simple, easy to use inteface for the novice internet user, that allows them to quickly and easily control the direction of exactly the complex algorythyms an calculations you speak of.

That’s the beauty and simplicity of the interface which Google has been raving about during our many meetings in VT.

As always, it’s a pleasure to be a part of the information sharing here.

Mike DeCecco

Posted by: Mike DeCecco | August 12, 2008 at 07:46 PM

Billy:

Great question. Our very successful last generation Dominator platform which we are still supporting and have hundreds of dealers using does use technology in partnership with Reach Local.

Total Control Dominator is not affiliated with Reach Local in any way.

Reach Local is a strong search company and our relationship has been and will continue to be a strong one, but TCD is 100% Dealer.com.

TCD is the culmination of years of very hard work from some very talented folks working in our headquarters.

Thanks for the post Billy

Posted by: Mike DeCecco | August 12, 2008 at 10:14 PM

I think there have been many good points here. In response to the above posts regarding Dealer.com and TCD, I think once someone goes through TCD they realize that it is far more than they thought it would be and far more simple too…

I may have missed some comments due to my quick read of all the posts but I wanted to point out that the TCD system does automate the bidding process and very much like artificial intelligence it gets smarter and smarter over time. It actually learns what works for your market and bids at better times and watches what keywords generate more phone calls and leads and focuses on those rather than just simple clicks. Every TCD solutions comes with built in phone tracking so we are actually basing the results off of true lead generating by watching the customer path all the way through the website and phone lines. This also makes it easy for a dealer to judge the true quality of the lead since they can see and hear the calls generated. And yes we do deploy very advanced algorithms to calculate the estimated results and bid and re-bid on behalf of dealers.

The other VERY important aspect is that the TCD system actually dynamically creates ads based on inventory in stock, removes ads as the vehicles sell and reposts new ads as they arrive into inventory. Think about this for a second….. your ads are generated for what you can sell therefor raising your conversion rates and closing rates dramatically!!! You can attempt to do this but at the end of the day you will need 12 people in a room watching hundreds of vehicles, thousands of keywords and measuring the effectiveness of every ad, daytime, nighttime, weekends and more for every dollar spent. A human just cant do it as well. With many dealers achieving 5 dollar leads on TCD and launching highly customized campaigns for specifics vehicles, parts, service and more it would be nearly nearly impossible to think it could be cost effective to go out a learn how to do this instead of taking advantage of such a proven solution that has 6 years of R&D and millions of dollars behind it.

I would love to take this offline and try to avoid the shameless sales pitch (such as above) but I am just as excited as Mike D since this truly is the holy-grail of automotive advertising.

Mark Bonfigli
President, CEO
Dealer.com, Inc

Posted by: Mark Bonfigli | August 12, 2008 at 11:10 PM

Anyone that does want an offline discussion of TCD, feel free to contact either myself of Mark directly.

Mike DeCecco
Dir. Industry Relations / Spokesperson
Dealer.com

Wow. I completely overlooked #4. Looks like there should be alot of deleting here. Either that or change the rules. I recommend the latter as its hard to get quality dialogue without a little promotion going on.