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The Digital Dealer Conference - a week later
- Automotive News, Press Releases, and Events
- 19 Replies
Nice recap gents!
Jeff, I appreciate the high marks on my preso. It means a lot coming from you and I'm glad you were finally able to see me present in person.
Alex, I can't believe you created a DGI graphic! Man, you are hilarious! Truly made me laugh out loud. It was a pleasure finally meeting you face to face and I'm glad your boss was able to make the trip with you. BTW, kudos to you and Dealer.com on the re-design of www.checkeredflag.com. I look forward to seeing you at the next DD/AAISP or whatever it's called.
Extra Notes From a Non-Exhibiting Speaker (me):
This may sound a bit egotistical, but I was very disappointed to find that my session was not being video taped. When I arrived in the room before my presentation, there was no technical person to be found. Fortunately, I knew how to set up my own computer, brought my own wireless remote to click through my slides and was also able to mic myself so folks could hear me. I received a ton of positive feedback while at the conference and it has continued since returning home. Unfortunately, that session will now only live in the minds of those that were there. If you were there, please don't forget about the "silver bullet."
Final highlights were seeing old friends like Aaron Bickart, Ralph Paglia, Gilbert Chavez, Brian Hoecht, Jesse Biter, Cary Smith and many more. I of course have to give a shout out to Jamie and Seth over at ReachLocal. Their support of me is invaluable and much appreciated. DGI was truly brought to life by these two who regularly think of AMAZING opportunities.
New friends and contacts also make the DD/AAISP event worthwhile. A big "nice to meet you" goes to:
Kevin Frye at Jeff Wyler
Bill Hayden at Carl's Buick Pontiac GMC
Jeff and Ken at Skoots
Tony Taylor at Reynolds
Patrick Workman at Dealer.com
Robin Beebe-Moussaoui at Giant Recreation World (thanks for the unforgettable Jack Black moment)
Dick Clipp at Chrysler
Ralph Ebersole at Cars.com
I might share more later, but for now, I'm going back to bed.
Shaun
Jeff, I appreciate the high marks on my preso. It means a lot coming from you and I'm glad you were finally able to see me present in person.
Alex, I can't believe you created a DGI graphic! Man, you are hilarious! Truly made me laugh out loud. It was a pleasure finally meeting you face to face and I'm glad your boss was able to make the trip with you. BTW, kudos to you and Dealer.com on the re-design of www.checkeredflag.com. I look forward to seeing you at the next DD/AAISP or whatever it's called.
Extra Notes From a Non-Exhibiting Speaker (me):
This may sound a bit egotistical, but I was very disappointed to find that my session was not being video taped. When I arrived in the room before my presentation, there was no technical person to be found. Fortunately, I knew how to set up my own computer, brought my own wireless remote to click through my slides and was also able to mic myself so folks could hear me. I received a ton of positive feedback while at the conference and it has continued since returning home. Unfortunately, that session will now only live in the minds of those that were there. If you were there, please don't forget about the "silver bullet."
Final highlights were seeing old friends like Aaron Bickart, Ralph Paglia, Gilbert Chavez, Brian Hoecht, Jesse Biter, Cary Smith and many more. I of course have to give a shout out to Jamie and Seth over at ReachLocal. Their support of me is invaluable and much appreciated. DGI was truly brought to life by these two who regularly think of AMAZING opportunities.
New friends and contacts also make the DD/AAISP event worthwhile. A big "nice to meet you" goes to:
Kevin Frye at Jeff Wyler
Bill Hayden at Carl's Buick Pontiac GMC
Jeff and Ken at Skoots
Tony Taylor at Reynolds
Patrick Workman at Dealer.com
Robin Beebe-Moussaoui at Giant Recreation World (thanks for the unforgettable Jack Black moment)
Dick Clipp at Chrysler
Ralph Ebersole at Cars.com
I might share more later, but for now, I'm going back to bed.
Shaun
AutoTrader.com Launches First-Ever Ad Campaign Focused on Its New Car Offerings
- By bpulseadmin
Includes Consumer and Dealer Campaign to Emphasize How AutoTrader.com is the Best Place to Find New Vehicles. ATLANTA, April 28 /PRNewswire/
"Big Guy," the star of a new advertising campaign from AutoTrader.com, the ultimate automotive marketplace, will show how new-car shoppers can get in the driver's seat of the perfect new car. The new, fully-integrated campaign will emphasize that AutoTrader.com, long recognized as the best place to search for and locate the perfect used vehicle, is also the best place for consumers to research and find the perfect new automobile.
The consumer campaign, which features the voice of Christian Slater, centers around a new 30-second television spot that introduces "Big Guy," a larger-than-life character empowered by AutoTrader.com's new car shopping tools to make the best new car purchasing decision. The spot, which begins airing May 5, will be featured on 19 of the hottest networks, including Adult Swim, A&E, Comedy Central, Discovery, Discovery HD, E!, FX, HGTV, History Channel, MTV, Sci-Fi, Speed TV, Spike!, Style, TBS, TLC, TNT, USA and VH1.
In addition, AutoTrader.com's new car messaging will be integrated into the popular TV shows "Friday Night Stand-up" on Comedy Central and "PowerBlock" on Spike TV. For "PowerBlock," show host Courtney Hanson will use AutoTrader.com to shop for a new 2008 Ford Mustang, which will then be tricked out on the show and donated to the International Children's Heart Foundation. E! is also creating a series of AutoTrader.com-branded features entitled "Celebs and Cars" that will feature some of today's hottest stars from movies, music, sports and television talking about their favorite
rides.
The Big Guy character also will be integrated into all of AutoTrader.com's online and trade media advertising, as well as on AutoTrader.com's homepage. The national television and online campaign will be supported by a parallel radio campaign. The radio spots, which will debut in over 20 markets, will further highlight the message of empowerment delivered by the television ads.
AutoTrader.com also will use its sponsorship of NBA basketball on TNT to highlight the over 1.6 million new car listings featured on the site, with a fantasy league contest that will award the winner $25,000 towards the purchase of any new vehicle on AutoTrader.com. AutoTrader.com's
messaging will appear on NBA mobile alerts and NBA.com promotions, and AutoTrader.com will continue in its role as a feature sponsor of the Top Off Show on TNT, NBA TV, and NBA.com broadband.
In parallel to the "Big Guy" campaign, AutoTrader.com's new car messaging will be brought to dealerships through the "We Do What Works" campaign. A series of new ads, which began appearing April 28th in various print and online trade media outlets, explains to dealers how AutoTrader.com delivers new car shoppers into showrooms. These ads focus on how AutoTrader.com's people deliver a personal touch that empowers the dealership to better serve customer needs.
New Car Messaging Integrated Into Other Marketing Disciplines
AutoTrader.com will continue its new car messaging online via Turn2, which uses a partnership with Major League Baseball's web site, MLB.com, to give consumers the chance to win a new 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe. The interactive Turn2 game features 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Richard "Goose" Gossage serving as the emcee.
Gossage also serves as the spokesperson for the recently launched "Drive to a New Start" campaign, a multi-city road trip aimed at promoting AutoTrader.com's new car focus, as well as helping to give kids in underserved areas a new start. AutoTrader.com will be collecting baseball celebrity signatures on a customized 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe identical to the one featured in Turn2, and will donate $1,000 per signature to youth baseball programs across the country. The signed vehicle will be auctioned in early 2009, with all additional proceeds benefiting youth baseball
programs.
About AutoTrader.com
AutoTrader.com, the Internet's leading auto classifieds marketplace and consumer information Web site, aggregates more than three-million vehicle listings from 40,000 dealers and 250,000 private owners in a single location. AutoTrader.com provides the largest selection of vehicles that
attracts more than 13 million qualified buyers each month. Through innovative merchandising products such as multiple photos and comprehensive search functionality, AutoTrader.com unites buyer and seller online -- dramatically improving the way people research, locate and advertise vehicles. AutoTrader.com, created in 1997 and based in Atlanta, Ga., is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is also an investor. For more information, visit http://www.autotrader.com.
Priority Honda ad campaign on Accords and Civics.
To Micro-site or not to Micro-site?
Joe,
First, I do not claim that Ralphs success is due to us, why would I? I merely claim that Ralph is not the only reason OUR efforts are successful. Like I said, RP asked for a particular site, and it was up to us to design, build, optimize and market the site organically. At the time, RP was one man asking us to build a web site for something and make it successful. It takes a certain skill to rank your site naturally/organically on the first page of Google, especially for multiple brands and multiple markets.
It is always good to hear that a dealer is knowledgeable in SEO. Do you remember when you contacted us for Micro Sites last year in May of 2007? At the time you were working at a dealership. We spoke several times about SEO back then. I am the type of company that remebers its clients or potential clients, and is ALWAYS just an email or phone call away. We provide a valuable solution for dealers at a very affordable cost.
Here are some examples.
Example of a Non Dealer Micro Site 2 pages
One such non-dealer micro site we built is in the mortgage industry. We built a 2 page micro site and in 3 months it has received about 10 leads. It ranks on the first page of Google with no other advertising, not even PPC.
For Example: Keyword M&I Bank Construction Loan
Page #1 - Position #1
For Example: Keyword M&I Financing
Page #1 - Position #3
For Example: Keyword Scottsdale Lot Loans
Page #1 - Position #1
And so on...
Micro Sites work so well for dealers in particular because when a potential customer is researching a new vehicle, they usually type in the following combinations of keywords:
"year, model" or "year, make, model" or "year, model, location".
Take the 2007 Tahoe site we built a couple of years ago. Our statistics show that customers are finding the site by Googling the following terms:
2007 Tahoe: position #3
2008 Chevy Tahoe: position #10
New Tahoe: position #2
2008 Tahoe, Phoenix: position #1
and so on...
McCombs in San Antonio built several micro sites with us, and one of them, RedSaysYes[dot]com has high organic raking for the following:
bankruptcy dealers: position #1
bankruptcy dealerships: position #1
To answer what you claim is my tactical error:
We are just one dealer solution provider in a sea of many many choices dealers have. RP now working at one of the biggest companies in this industry does good for what we provide, but does nothing for me directly. RP promotes what ADP/BZ does not what we do. If RP promotes one of our micro sites, his next sentence is, "We (ADP) or I(RP) can do that". I really don't think it is in RP's best interest to promote another companies wares when he is paid by ADP to promote that same service. Other dealer web site providers have approached us to partner with them in the micro site arena and we have approached others too. ADP is not the only solution provider. Before RP joined ADP, ADP refused to even consider Micro Sites. If any bridges were burned, it was by RP claiming those sites as his own and as a BZ site by ONLY changing the copyright notice and then promoting them to dealers as an ADP/BZ solution. It would be like me taking your site and using every word and image and putting it under a new domain name and copyrighting it as my own. No dealer would want the exact same site being used by a competitor, oh wait, BZ does do that already.
Bottom line Joe, we have been in the web development industry since 1995, and for Dealers, we specialize in building micro sites and provide online marketing via SEO & SEM.
David
First, I do not claim that Ralphs success is due to us, why would I? I merely claim that Ralph is not the only reason OUR efforts are successful. Like I said, RP asked for a particular site, and it was up to us to design, build, optimize and market the site organically. At the time, RP was one man asking us to build a web site for something and make it successful. It takes a certain skill to rank your site naturally/organically on the first page of Google, especially for multiple brands and multiple markets.
It is always good to hear that a dealer is knowledgeable in SEO. Do you remember when you contacted us for Micro Sites last year in May of 2007? At the time you were working at a dealership. We spoke several times about SEO back then. I am the type of company that remebers its clients or potential clients, and is ALWAYS just an email or phone call away. We provide a valuable solution for dealers at a very affordable cost.
Here are some examples.
Example of a Non Dealer Micro Site 2 pages
One such non-dealer micro site we built is in the mortgage industry. We built a 2 page micro site and in 3 months it has received about 10 leads. It ranks on the first page of Google with no other advertising, not even PPC.
For Example: Keyword M&I Bank Construction Loan
Page #1 - Position #1
For Example: Keyword M&I Financing
Page #1 - Position #3
For Example: Keyword Scottsdale Lot Loans
Page #1 - Position #1
And so on...
Micro Sites work so well for dealers in particular because when a potential customer is researching a new vehicle, they usually type in the following combinations of keywords:
"year, model" or "year, make, model" or "year, model, location".
Take the 2007 Tahoe site we built a couple of years ago. Our statistics show that customers are finding the site by Googling the following terms:
2007 Tahoe: position #3
2008 Chevy Tahoe: position #10
New Tahoe: position #2
2008 Tahoe, Phoenix: position #1
and so on...
McCombs in San Antonio built several micro sites with us, and one of them, RedSaysYes[dot]com has high organic raking for the following:
bankruptcy dealers: position #1
bankruptcy dealerships: position #1
To answer what you claim is my tactical error:
We are just one dealer solution provider in a sea of many many choices dealers have. RP now working at one of the biggest companies in this industry does good for what we provide, but does nothing for me directly. RP promotes what ADP/BZ does not what we do. If RP promotes one of our micro sites, his next sentence is, "We (ADP) or I(RP) can do that". I really don't think it is in RP's best interest to promote another companies wares when he is paid by ADP to promote that same service. Other dealer web site providers have approached us to partner with them in the micro site arena and we have approached others too. ADP is not the only solution provider. Before RP joined ADP, ADP refused to even consider Micro Sites. If any bridges were burned, it was by RP claiming those sites as his own and as a BZ site by ONLY changing the copyright notice and then promoting them to dealers as an ADP/BZ solution. It would be like me taking your site and using every word and image and putting it under a new domain name and copyrighting it as my own. No dealer would want the exact same site being used by a competitor, oh wait, BZ does do that already.
Bottom line Joe, we have been in the web development industry since 1995, and for Dealers, we specialize in building micro sites and provide online marketing via SEO & SEM.
David