That's awesome Tim - lol

OEM - if you can pull that off, without a lawsuit, I'm all for that! These are all OUR trademarked names right?

This is why I agree with Alex about focusing on 1st party leads. What I need to do is get on the phone with Google and find out how to enforce the trademark of the brand name. If this could be done, only the OEM and the dealers could use the brand name in their PPC campaigns. Lead Arbitrage sites would have to come up with generic text and thus experience a lower CTR, thus increasing their keywords bids. Once we get the dealers to engage in SEM, we will find ourselves owning the 1st page for sponsored links.

On that topic, how does a search for “Lexus” result in dealer ads vs. a search for “ford” which results in lead arbitrage? Below are some of the sites stealing our names and leads from the "ford" example.
NewJerseyFord.SmartAutoSavings.com
Ford.DealersClearingLots.com
Cheap.2009Ford.net/Clearance

Long live GPOM

I was fine last month for Google page one "Tom Sparks Buick". This month, 3 new worms came out of their holes on Google. So, 3 hours yesterday bloging. This G.P.O.M. (Google Page, One, Management.) has and will become like changing oil in our cars. Some will do it 2000, 3000, 4000 miles some lease and will never change their oil So, how important is GPOM? The test is how much time we spend on it. Add it you your already full plate. Someone tell me, When do I have time to sell cars? By the way, did I just coin; G.P.O.M.? It should become as-known-as SEO, SEM, ISM all the M’S

I was fine last month for page Google page one, this month. 3 new worms came out of their holes on Google page one this month. So, 3 hours yesterday bloging. This G.P.O.M. (Google Page, One, Management.) has and will become like changing oil in our cars. Some will do it 2000, 3000, 4000 miles some lease and will never change their oil So, how important is GPOM? The test is how much time we spend on it. Add it you your already full plate. Someone tell me, When do I have time to sell cars? By the way, did I just coin; G.P.O.M.? It should become as-known-as SEO, SEM, ISM all the M’S

@OEM
Dealers need the combination of SEO and SEM to best capture leads from their local market. The SEM is needed when consumers type short, broad phrases like "Jeep Dealer" or "Jeep Sale".

SEO is best used for three or more word searches that include any city in their PMA, and beyond as well as they state or their name. Example: "Used BMW X5 Boston" or "NJ BMW Service"

In addition to SEO/SEM they need to have a strategy to clear off Google Page One and Two, any competitive listings and lead arbitrage sites, as you suggest.

Pushing off sites that leach off dealer brand names will increase the leads that come to their website directly.

It's the simplest of concepts but the most misunderstood. Dealers really can own the entire first page of Google results for their name.

It's one of the most satisfying things I do for my clients because their "brand" is what has used the most money to build.

Also, by owning page one, dealers have less immediate impact when a negative review is written about their dealership. Internet Reputation Management (IRM)strategies have a proactive element and owning Page One also assists with IRM.

So, if dealers joined together to achieve a national awareness about owning page one for their brand name, third party lead collectors would most likely see their lead volume drop 25%.

That would send a financial signal to NOT mess with a dealer's brand name.

Has everyone checked their own brand name?
How many spots of the 10 organic listings on Google Page One do you own?

P.S. I practice what I preach. I own my pages for "Brian Pasch" and "Pasch Consulting".

Collectively we can limit lead arbitrage.

1.OEM’s need to enforce trade mark name usage. Google keeps giving me pushback on this. They don’t want to kill their advertisers.
2.Dealers need to engage in SEM. Lead arbitrage sites are preying on you via Adwords, Adcenter etc.

@john c - I think you will find that most contracts with any third party provider will grant them the right to use your name in promotional material and that right is even transferred to affiliates.

What does that mean? Aggressive affiliate marketers can and will optimize pages for your brand name. Good examples of sites that do this now are www.dealerdex.com and www.dealerrater.com. Basically affiliate sites that have a paid component for dealers.

Many well known third party sites that dealers pay to be on rely on third party affiliates to drive them traffic, which benefits the dealer.

www.ebay.com, www.edmunds.com, www.cars.com, www.automotive.com, and www.vehix.com just to name a handful.

They in turn to look to monetize the traffic that that does not convert on their site via the very prevalent leaks found on all of these "resources". I first wrote about this over two years ago http://www.ismintraining.com/providers/online-classifieds/online-auto-leaks/ and was deemed a heretic. :P

Does your contract express that Edmunds.com is allowed to do use your tradename? If not there's a definite trademark infringement legal issue here.

There's a line we'd expect 3rd party lead providers never to cross and its crossed too often for short term profits jeopardizing the vendor-dealer relationship. Edmunds and those like them, are supposed to offer services to dealers which compliment dealers existent organic measures, to fill the "gap" but not capitalize on dealer's holistic online visibility efforts and hold dealers hostage to 3rd party paid services by stealing leads. It's a betrayal of the dealer with the intention of benefiting of the car buyer and their short term profitability.

Excellent post Alex, and Brian has some great recommendations for dealers to fight back.....seems like autotropolis is another culprit in regards to optimized SEO pages for dealer brand names after doing some research. Also, I'd like to echo Alex's sentiments about first page results, looks as if Edmunds' optimized pages appear when searching for dealers outside their PMA's.....again, great topic to post on

Brian - you're getting different first page results, sitting in Jersey, than we're seeing in our own zip codes. But, if that is what you're seeing outside of our market places, then there is definitely still a need to push them off the page.

I just dropped John Giamalvo a line on his ADM page, asking to open a discussion on this matter as well as a resloution. John has always been a solid guy as well as one who can see things from the dealers side.

Thanks Brian,
I am really looking foward to the Boot camp in Orlando this February. I am sure I will come away from it with a ton of good information and practices.

You say this like big company's have morals? Their main job is to get the information before you do so they can charge you for it. But, not many dealers are smart enough or care enough to catch it as you did. I am sure they filter it by searches made in the area and did not catch that it was a company name...at least that will be the story. Good luck and keep up the great information.

@Rob
Excellent job at owning page one for your name. It's almost perfect.

Edmunds.com is still on Google Page One for your name from New Jersey so since you are a stand-up guy and a member of DealerRefresh..

I'll place a Google Page one listing for your dealership that hopefully will push Edmunds.com off page one for you...as a gift.

I decided five years ago that I would break my dealerships dependence on third party lead providers as much as possible. The focus would be on branding our store, and our websites. I would make it on mostly organic leads, and (please don’t take this personally if you work for one of them) happily cancel one contract after.

We have and still do use Auto Trader and Cars.com for used car exposure. I feel that it is valuable; however we only purchase one hundred leads a month from Dealix. Why Dealix, partly customer service and partly because we have a good negotiated price per lead and they just seem to close better for us. I have spent 7-10 times what I am currently spending for third party leads.

We have been successful at breaking the addiction to buying as many leads as we could so that our competition didn't get them. It's easy to call and cancel your contract, but if you’re not yet branded and fully optimized on the search engines it would be "internetmanager-icide" to do so. The internet still is in many ways the Wild West. I think that is why I fell in love with this gig in the first place. (Ever notice how many of us used to be in bands, some kind of comedy or entertainment? Well the really good ones anyway.)

My first line of attack was on my dealerships name(s). I consider that my real estate! So I launched an all out attack to take the hill. I have taken that hill in two different dealerships one a Toyota and currently a Nissan store. I used Video, Press Releases, blogs, paid constant attention to my website content and meta tags, descriptions, titles etc.

Once you conquer your own dealers name SERP, you have to hold it. This takes a constant flow of fresh infantry. You’ll have to consistently add video content and fresh Press Releases (I have never paid a dime for them, but you can.) As I write this there are no other parties sharing my SERP, including the Nissan dealer down the road. He is not so lucky and since he wouldn’t possibly read this, I have no fear of a sneak attack.


This is not meant to sound braggadocios, although I am proud of what we have accomplished. What makes me scratch my head is why everyone isn’t doing it. If you really want to screw with the third party providers, force them to earn their place on your real estate. CHARGE!!!!!

I finally got a call as well from my rep today. Since we only have 2 1/2 stores (Subaru franchise on the way) I guess I'm not important enough for the big dogs to call me...LOL
Anyhow - Those PPC campaigns that were showing for our dealer name have been removed or possibly "paused" until we stop looking. I'm still taking a deeper look into in all.
Brian - Thanks for the insight and you are 100% Correct! I went through almost every dealership in my city and Edmunds has an organic page targeting EVERY SINGLE ONE! I have to pat myself on the back a little because we are the one dealer group that they didn't make the first page..."applause for Alex J"

Alex,

To quote Seth Godin - "Leaders make a ruckus."

I'd say you made a nice one...keep up the fight w/the SEO angle for your brand as well.

I'm shocked Edmunds didn't argue the phrase "Checkered Flag MINI" was just a descriptive term for the model with the checkered flag roof exterior. (maybe it was & I missed it)

Nice job marking your turf.

Eric

‘ISM’S and Car Salesmen’ …………. Be seated.

Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about Internet Sales Managers not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Car salesmen traditionally love to fight. All real dealers love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball player, the toughest boxer. ISM’S love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Car Guy’s play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Internet Savoy Car people have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to men who push IRON

Now, a dealership is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This Edmunds stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who played pay per click on our brand name in Google’s sand box don’t know anything more about real internet advertising than they do about fornicating.

Alright now, you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel. Oh, and I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into the next closing of a sale – anytime, anywhere.

That’s all.
General George S. Patton, Jr., the most successful US field commander of any war

UPDATE - I finally got the phone call. John Giamalvo and I just had a pleasant conversation where I got to express my concerns and he was very attentive. He assured me that dealership names (with the exception of regional-specific names) have been completely removed from Edmunds PPC campaigns.

We're now talking about their SEO targeting of our name. I explained to him that Edmunds may be an information service, but if we're paying them money, they should never become our competition. This was not resolved during this call, and I wouldn't expect it to be, but it is certainly on the table being discussed. I still have to look at other options now that my eyes are more open, but I do thank John for reaching out.

If any other dealers want to add to this discussion, please come forward now.

“We are not attempting to fool the Google user into thinking that we are a dealer. Our advertisements are quite clear that we are an information resource – not a competitor.”

Information pages do not make money. Names, emails, phone numbers, address and interest of product does. So your “GET A FREE PRICE QUOTE” on your information page makes you a competitor.

What a dummy not having two data bases merging into your site, One for partners like Alex, one for dealers who don’t do biz with you. Oh, did I just give you a tip?

In my opinion CarFax is no better, that’s another post…

Grass Roots, Grass Roots lets give 3rd party leads the boots.

By the way the last laugh is on us. How long has this been going on?

In John's response "Why did we bid on these terms? We are offering a research path for consumers who seek more information about vehicles."

More likely is because dealers have spent millions of dollars to establish that a MINi dealership is in that town. This is not a random event.

I am confident that the keyword phrases Edmunds are buying highly correlate to the dealer brands and the city name the dealership is located in.

So if there is no Suburu dealer in Hutchinson Kansas they are not buying "Hutchinson Subaru".

So, in effect they are leveraging consumer awareness built by dealer marketing dollars.

I make this point, just to be clear on what is happening and these patterns of keywords are NOT random. As I stated before, Edmunds is not the only ones doing this.

As Alex points out, dealers have to decide if they want their marketing partner (Edmunds) drawing leads away from their website.

They have to decide if it "ok" to have your marketing partner buy their OEM brand name and the town they are located in.

John,

Thank you for responding. Yes, the Internet is definitely the Wild West today. I can understand a mistake, and appreciate an apology.

Whether or not you're writing this off as a mistake is still unclear. I still have not received the phone call I asked for, but we may be beyond saving at this point. I am currently looking for other ways to spend the ad dollars you get from us.

Brian Pasch is 100% correct - your site leaks. It may be good business practice for you, but I'm not a fan. I'm actually very ticked off at myself for not getting upset with your SEO practices, sooner, in using our name. I know you're far from the only ones doing this, but I'm definitely going to do something about it.

Again, thank you for responding. And I have to thank you for creating a situation that is furthering my education.

-Alex

P.S. the Proctor Auto Group is in Florida.

Its about time Edmunds sent back a rebuttal

Alex, Jeff, and the DR Community,

This new Internet marketing era is a complicated one, isn’t it?

We appreciate your concerns and have taken immediate action. We reviewed all of our thousands of SEM campaigns and we have made the decision to no longer bid on search terms that consist of proper dealer names. It was never our intention to divert consumers from dealer websites, but we can see how our activities could be construed as doing that; I will explain this more below.

We will, however, continue to buy search terms that are combinations of geographic names with franchise names -- so as to respond to consumer searches like “Seattle BMW.” That is because we have inventory and research information that is relevant to consumers looking for BMWs in Seattle. If there happens to be a dealership with the name “Seattle BMW,” it is merely a coincidence. Unfortunately that is what is happening to Proctor Acura because of the city Proctor in Texas. We are still going to show up in searches where the dealer’s name is the name of a geographic location plus a franchise name, but “Checkered Flag Mini,” “Bob Smith BMW” and others with such names should now be removed.

If, for whatever reason, any dealership name is more than just a geographic area and it seems we are still bidding on the name, please let us know, at http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx, and we will respond as quickly as possible.

Why did we bid on these terms? We are offering a research path for consumers who seek more information about vehicles. To that end, the page that the ad sends people to contains in-depth information about the vehicle in question. For example in the case of “Checkered Flag Mini,” the ad linked to: www.edmunds.com/mini/index.html -- which is a Mini vehicle research page, not a “lead generation” page.

We are not attempting to fool the Google user into thinking that we are a dealer. Our advertisements are quite clear that we are an information resource – not a competitor. Our URL displayed to consumers on Google is our name, not a variant on a dealership name – so no consumers will think that they are linking to a dealer and find themselves unexpectedly on Edmunds.com.

Should you ever want to get in touch with us again: we have really great leads partners who support our Leads and Premier Dealer Programs, and you can always reach out to your representative that sells our products. However, the quickest way to get a response from Edmunds.com is by submitting a request through http://support.edmunds.com/contactus.aspx.

Those of you who know me personally, as always, feel free to contact me directly at any time.

Good selling.

John Giamalvo
Director, Dealer Initiatives
Edmunds.com