Websites, SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Marketing

A dealer criticizes a local dealership's email newsletter for mixing irrelevant lifestyle content (Justin Bieber facts, useless trivia) with promotional messages, questioning whether this unfocused approach actually drives results. The debate splits between practitioners who defend this "air cover" strategy as proven effective for engagement and skeptics who argue it wastes the limited attention of prospects and dilutes the core sales message with noise. The key insight: there's a fundamental disagreement about email marketing strategy—whether providing varied lifestyle content alongside deals builds genuine customer relationships and drives sales, or whether it's lazy marketing that annoys recipients and damages brand credibility.

Automotive dealers debate optimal vehicle pricing strategies, with disagreement over whether to use psychological pricing ($19,995), rounded numbers ($20,000), or coded prices ($20,367). The consensus leans toward rounded or "charm" pricing at psychological thresholds (under $20K, $15K, etc.) because customers search in whole-dollar ranges on sites like Craigslist and interpret prices by their whole-number bracket, not marginal cents; overly specific prices like $19,582 create customer skepticism about dealer markup.

A dealer asks for best practices and checklists for photographing new and used vehicles, seeking guidance on photo order, must-have shots, and angles. Community members recommend thinking from the consumer perspective (front-to-back walk-around approach), emphasize that quantity of photos improves SEO when properly tagged, and point to two comprehensive resources: the eCarList photography guide (detailed on lighting) and the LiquidMotors guide (comprehensive on angles and shots). The key takeaway is that dealers should use multiple photo resources to develop a systematic approach while maximizing SEO value through properly cataloged images.

A dealer's first five-star Yelp review was filtered out by Yelp's automated spam-detection system with no clear way to appeal it. The discussion reveals that Yelp's filtering algorithm is unpredictable and overly aggressive—removing both positive and negative reviews seemingly at random—while the platform offers poor customer support and appears to prioritize its paid advertising program over legitimate review management.

Alex Snyder challenges the automotive industry's obsession with Facebook, arguing that while dealers are burning out on the platform, most are using it wrong — building personal friend profiles instead of Fan pages and posting hard sales pitches. The thread reaches a clear consensus: Facebook works best as a casual communication and relationship-building tool, Fan pages are essential, and dealers who won't commit fully should skip it entirely rather than do it poorly.

Eley Duke asks the DealerRefresh community for best practices on Google Places optimization, including questions about detail fields, geographic targeting, specialties, and phone number consistency across listings. The consensus that emerges from industry experts like Ryan Leslie and Joe Pistell is that maintaining consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) data across all third-party listings should take priority over using multiple tracking numbers, as Google's algorithm rewards consistency even if it means sacrificing granular call tracking. The thread also highlights that most dealers haven't even claimed their Google Places pages yet, making it a significant opportunity for competitive advantage.

The thread discusses whether auto dealers can legally sue customers for negative online reviews, prompted by a dentist's attempt to silence a patient's Yelp review. Participants conclude that attempting to suppress reviews backfires due to the "Streisand Effect"—where censorship attempts generate more attention and damage—and that the better strategy is simply delivering excellent service and addressing complaints directly. The discussion illustrates that legal threats and gag orders are counterproductive and likely to amplify negative publicity rather than contain it.

A new marketing hire at a Buy Here Pay Here dealership asks for advice on expanding beyond Facebook to increase visibility without an advertising budget, creating accounts on Yelp, Google Places, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms. Experienced forum members advise focusing on online inventory merchandising and leveraging review sites (Yelp, Google Places) rather than spreading efforts thin, with suggestions to use Craigslist posting tools and avoid SEO pitfalls like poor site structure. The key insight is that for a no-budget operation, quality inventory listings and reviews on high-authority sites matter more than maintaining multiple social media accounts, and the dealer should concentrate on driving traffic through search rather than expecting customers to discover them across many platforms.

A new online marketing associate at a Buy Here Pay Here dealership shares their effort to diversify the dealership's digital presence beyond Facebook by establishing accounts on multiple platforms including Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, Google+, Twitter, and a blog. The post appears to be an introduction seeking advice or discussion about expanding social media strategy for a small 5-person dealership that currently relies primarily on Facebook for customer interaction.

Mitch Gallant solicits feedback on a monthly video series featuring employee spotlights and new hire welcomes, asking how employees and dealerships can leverage these videos for competitive advantage. A respondent highlights an unexpected benefit: the videos could serve as powerful HR recruitment tools while also encouraging customers to specifically request featured salespeople, suggesting that personality-driven content makes the dealership feel like an attractive, fun place to work.

Dealers and vendors react to news that Google is entering automotive lead generation directly, a move first previewed at NADA 2010 but only recently covered by Automotive News. The thread reveals the program was already running as a beta in Southern California for Lexus and Toyota, raising concerns about conflicts with existing PPC strategies, OEM relationships, and competition with third-party lead providers like Cars.com and Edmunds. The key takeaway is that Google's direct entry into auto leads represents a significant power shift that could force dealers to rethink their entire paid search strategy.

Dealers discuss Google's "At a Glance" feature that displays keywords and details on search results when someone searches a dealership's exact name, noting that Google pulls these keywords automatically from various sources (reviews, web content, inbound links) rather than allowing direct control through Google Places. The thread identifies that these descriptor snippets can sometimes display irrelevant or misleading information—with one example showing "bait & switch" language traced back to a negative Google review—and concludes that while the algorithm's exact mechanics remain unclear, dealers have limited ability to influence which keywords appear in this section.

A Ford dealership owner asks for help resolving Google Ads restrictions on using the Ford trademark, and receives practical guidance pointing to TeamDetroit.com (Ford's contracted agency) as the solution for obtaining whitelist permission. After successfully getting his ads approved, the owner then pivots to asking about blocking competitor click fraud, with forum members explaining that IP blocking isn't possible but suggesting alternative fraud-detection tools instead. The key insight is that Ford dealerships facing trademark limitations should contact TeamDetroit directly with their AdWords account ID to get whitelisted, a process described as straightforward by those who've completed it.

Chris Cachor asks for real-world examples and ROI data on promotional landing pages and microsites driven by PPC for dealer campaigns (events, manufacturer promotions, customer segments), with responses covering two main strategies: john.quinn advocates inventory-fed PPC driving to VDPs with coordinated messaging, while yagoparamo recommends organic-optimized microsites built with RSS feeds that provide long-term lead generation value. The key insight is that successful landing pages require message alignment with the destination page and clear next-step calls-to-action, though respondents diverge on whether PPC or organic SEO is the better long-term investment.

Priceonomics pitched a startup tool that analyzes Craigslist pricing data to provide market price insights for used cars by make, model, and year. Industry professionals raised a critical limitation: Craigslist's varying listing durations across markets (7 to 45 days) create stale pricing data that may not reflect current market conditions, which the startup acknowledged and committed to addressing through time-series analysis and location-based filtering. The feedback suggests the tool could be valuable as a simplified competitive benchmarking alternative to existing market analytics platforms, provided it accounts for regional market timing differences.

Automotive dealers discuss Google+'s newly launched business pages feature and debate whether it's worth their time to set up profiles, given the platform's minimal user adoption and uncertain impact on search rankings. While some participants are cautiously optimistic about potential SEO benefits through circles and +1s, others express skepticism, noting that Google+ lacks meaningful user engagement compared to Facebook and Twitter, and that most activity comes from vendors rather than actual customers. The consensus leans toward creating a presence "just to be safe" regarding search visibility, but with low expectations for real business value.

The thread debates whether dealerships should reclassify their advertising approach from "traditional vs. non-traditional" to "impression-based vs. lead-generating," or alternatively to "branding vs. traffic efforts." While john.quinn advocates for balancing brand awareness with direct response marketing, ddavis argues forcefully for ROI-driven budgeting focused solely on measurable results (website traffic and sales), rejecting "brand building" expenditures like billboards and radio spots that can't be directly tied to revenue. The fundamental disagreement reflects ongoing tension in dealership marketing between proving immediate ROI and building longer-term brand perception.

The thread covers an exclusive DealerRefresh interview with Cars.com Product Manager Nick Hummer ahead of their March 15th dealer ratings and reviews launch, exploring why the platform is entering the review space. Dealers in the comments raised concerns about being enrolled without consent and the burden of managing yet another review site, while Jeff Kershner pushed back by arguing transparency and proactive reputation management are the better path forward. The key tension is between dealers who feel Cars.com prioritizes its own interests over theirs and those who see reviews as an inevitable reality worth embracing.

This thread debates whether dealers should email pricing information to online car shoppers, with the core disagreement reflecting broader industry philosophy: traditionalists argue that withholding prices forces phone conversations and engagement, while modernists contend that transparency and giving customers what they request (prices) builds trust and actually generates better conversations. The consensus that emerges favors providing pricing upfront, with successful dealers arguing that transparency doesn't prevent follow-up contact—it actually initiates it—and that the real divide is between dealerships that have fully embraced internet-first sales versus those stuck between old and new school approaches.

Dealers debate the prevalence of deceptive pricing practices—such as advertising vehicles far below actual selling price, then adding hidden fees like "pre-prep" and "dealer-installed adds" to inflate the final bill—and whether these "old school" tactics remain effective or ultimately damage dealer reputation. Contributors agree that while these practices are unethical and generate negative online reviews, they persist across multiple states despite regulatory enforcement efforts. The consensus is that transparency in internet pricing is the modern standard, yet dishonest dealerships continue to employ bait-and-switch strategies that initially boost sales but ultimately harm their reputation and the industry's credibility.

Dealers and vendors debate the best approach to vendor-dealer interactions, with the core complaint being that many vendors now try to conduct entire sales pitches over the phone rather than scheduling in-person meetings. While dealers cite time constraints and demand better qualification, vendors counter that cold calling is necessary and that webinars or video demos can be effective alternatives to in-person visits. The consensus recommendation is that vendors should focus on quality over quantity—using referrals when possible, delivering concise value propositions upfront, and respecting dealers' time through prepared pitches and alternatives like email follow-ups with video content.