@Lighntup
is this guy legit? If so maybe I can call and get a price break on that new alpha package?

This is an email I received from my boss, I am a field sales rep for autotrader.com. Enjoy!

"YOU Will Want to Read This!!!!!

Team,

In submitting my weekly report to the Regional Management team I am once again going to be asked why we are not meeting our Regional obligations and I am getting pretty tired of having to answer this question. How would you answer? Would you like to spend a day in my shoes? Here is the deal; every one of you must meet your obligations. For those that are barely scraping by you have a hill to climb by Friday.

Here is what you owe this week:

Sam $3622

George $3000

Alicia $2190

Carry $3750

Roberto $3750

Jessica $3347

You need to have a very specific plan in place to reach these numbers so be prepared for a phone call at some point Monday to discuss. I don’t want any excuses because they will not help you reach your new business numbers. This next week will be critical for you and the D90 team. We have a longs way to go and not much time to get there."

These mini hubs for retailing vehicles are truly the best thing since slice bread.

All that has truly happened is a shifting of ad dollars from print to online, so the price may be up but not the overall ad expense.

In Chicago a one page ad in the Sunday paper can cost $12,000 dollars and this type of leader ad is as worn out as a printed $2 dollar bill still being circulated.

What I find funny is when an ad agency blows so much smoke up a dealer principles you know where that if they spend +-30k on a "high my name is JOE SCHMO the owner of FRICK AND FRACK DEALERSHIP" tv campaign.

***Attention all dealer priciples! You are not a rock star. You are not a movie star. People do not buy cars because you think that you have this larger than life iconic image and are drawn into your store because you promised or guaranteed anything!

Traditional ad companies are so out of touch with e-commerce and have lived off the 15-20% discount kickback from print and tv for years. I know one dealer is billed $300,000 a month by an agency...Can do the math?

Autotrader, Cars, Yahoo autos etc. have literally build a virtual bridge for auto dealers to sell into markets that would not have been able to otherwise.

Google in my opinion a waste of money. The reality is that NO ONE will ever find your store in another market by entering key search words.

Google knows that too and that is why they are quietly testing a search within a search box. "Google" the words "dynamic drive" to see what I mean.

The smartest person I know is the guy from LuxuryMotors.com

He was an early adopter of using adsense but is even smarter because sold a portion of the website but not the stores before the relevant results became what I said previously, worthless.

As for Ebay and franchise dealers, my verdict is still out but feel that this has become a tool to try to maximize profit by selling to the most desirable markets out there but the problem is that Ebay buyers are value buyers and so much for maxin out the pr.

The bottom line is that most people us Google to type the dealer name that they already know and use it as a shorcut instead of typing the whole address. Another for you? Take a guess of how many people still type www into the browser address box or are worried about cap's.

Last but not least I have seen the past and any newbies in the business will to 5-10 years from now how ridiculous it will seem that more money is spent to promote a dealers brick and mortar store rather than their e-site.

A great spring to all and happy motoring!

Hey guys,

My team and I are working on a new autos startup that helps dealers sell cars online. The service, EasyAutoSales.com will be free for dealers and private sellers to list cars and we are very ROI and lead focused.

Like you, we realize the online autos market needs to be modernized to mirror today's online consumer activities. If you're interested in helping us grow and drive more leads for yourselves, please check out our website at EasyAutoSales.com and shoot us a message.

Integration with our site is easy whether you have a DMS or not and we would love to see how we can help.

Thanks.

- Wei Yang

"Dear God, I wish this thread would just die a peaceful death."

Keep praying! Just kidding Lightnup. You do make a good point: the cost of business typically does goes up.

However, in the case of ATC, the costs go up while the results go down. Maybe this is due to the water being muddied by more competitors, but wouldn't that mean you need to get more competitive? Logic escapes me on ATC's current strategies.

What Lightnup and Autotrader seem to fail to realize is that when we as dealers compare our call rates/activity from the last three year period and all these "new" features Autotrader has added, we aren't realizing the VALUE of greater ROI from the products. Rates will always go up, that much is a given, but to somehow attempt to justify increases of 100% and more over the three year period in question when we really haven't seen the increase in ROI to justify the increases is beyond me. What is Autotraders strategy? shrinking the total amount of dealerships onsite and squeezing the remainder?

Dealers in my area that I've spoken to at auction in the last several months have all mentioned stepping down in spend w/Autotrader or deciding to cancel entirely and put the money elsewhere to organically grow their activity to their own web site and skipping the third party classified ad vendors almost entirely, this is especially true with larger dealerships with excess of 100 used units on the ground or larger dealer groups w/multiple rooftop franchises.

General Motors announced last week that it is going to spend 50% of its ad budget, or $1.5 Billion, ONLINE over the next three years. eMarketer predicts that U.S. Online ad spending will increase by 23% in 2008. The Kelsey Group just reported that 62% of dealers plan to increase their online spending in the next 12 months.

In spite of those trends, the typical dealership owner/general manager has always been slow to catch on when it comes to leading edge ideas or technology, including the Internet. (Not referring to Dealer Refresh readers, of course.) They reluctantly agree to be online, but have a near-coronary when an effective Internet presence is going to cost them 5% to 9% of their advertising budget. "Highway robbery," they say. Yet they'll spend $40,000, $80,000, $100,000 a month in hard-to-measure "traditional" advertising without blinking an eye because that's what they've always done - and it's an ego-booster to see their picture in the newspaper or on TV. And they'll run their car prices in the paper for the weekend at $2,000 to $5,000 less than what their Internet prices are. (This weekend, 6 of the dealers in my area were guilty of doing just that in Saturday's paper. I track that.) Then they wonder why the Internet isn't bringing the response the paper brought. Of course, that 2-day weekend newspaper ad also costs considerably more than the AutoTrader.com bill does for the entire month.

AutoTrader.com has recently had price increases. Cars.com has recently had price increases. Both companies have issued press releases during the past year announcing new enhancements, partners and capabilities that benefit their dealers and car shoppers, and there will always be more. Anyone who claims that their price increased with "no additional perks," as I Got Scrooged claims, obviously didn't pay attention when given the opportunity to see a current product demonstration of the myriad of new marketing and merchandising tools available to them. I think that's probably safe to say for both ATC and cars.com.

And I say "tools," because having an effective Internet presence takes work on the dealer's part, not just signing up and waiting for the phone to ring. (I know, I'm preaching to the choir here.) Yet most of a rep's time is spent re-training Internet Managers to use the available tools consistently. Or training new IMs because the dealer goes through them like shop rags. They'll do it for a while and results are good, but then they get busy on other projects or get transferred or get lazy, they stop doing it consistently, the results drop off and the dealer thinks it the solution that's not working. Not so.

My point is that Internet advertising is going to become a larger and larger part of the forward-thinking dealer's advertising budget. Why? Because that's where the eyeballs are going. Dealers who think they can compete effectively on the Internet for $750 a month like in the good old days are sadly mistaken. (Likewise, Superbowl ads weren't always $3 million apiece, but they are now.) They may not like it, they may gripe and moan about how AutoTrader.com is supposedly sticking it to them, but there is no disputing that ATC's online audience has grown tremendously since the good old days - while newspaper and traditional media audiences have dropped like rocks. ATC's available tools and solutions for reaching new and used car shoppers have never been greater and they are working very well for the tens of thousands of dealers who utilize them with consistency.

By the way, I was behind a lady at a convenience store last week who bought a gallon of milk for $5.00! Five dollars! It was the same size gallon of milk as it was in 1972 when it was $0.99 per gallon and my brand new Monte Carlo was only $4,200. The plastic jug even looked the same as it did 35 years ago. At least ATC is bringing a bigger audience and more features for the increased cost.

Let the flames begin. Dear God, I wish this thread would just die a peaceful death.

Tony, I'm the dealer customer that's going to tell you "forget it, here's our 30 day written cancellation notice" this year, plain and simple. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes with this outfit, alot of bitterness out there against you guys, got to let you know that people are tired of the same old spiel from Autotrader.

hmmm.... wonder if our friends over at m3post could handle this one for us?

I am currently an employee of Autotrader.com, I'm the guy who sits down with dealers and sells them the product, the AC.
Autotrader.com remains the leader in used car online classifieds, and until that changes, rate increases will continue to happen. Plain and simple.

Has anyone seen www.usedcars.com ? It does not care about reports nor charge for anything except the leads. No page-views or clickthru reports.

Lightnup - I missed you buddy. Glad to see the gag-order didn't make it to you. I must admit "the little bird" is close to AutoTrader.com, but not officially part of the company.

Awww....thanks Brian.

No gag order that I'm aware of. Maybe just some local manager thought it would be a good idea. I agree with Jeff - it's crazy talk.

I for one am going to miss Lightnup

Nah, they're just pissed that their strategy of attempting to have dealers "bid" on this Alpha product has been revealed. They still think they are all that and a bag of chips but here's a news flash ATC, more of us are looking at the strategy of spending less with you, not more. The ROI doesn't justify the fairy tale sales pitch anymore. Maybe 5 years ago it did, not in 2008 it doesn't.

"A little bird dropped by the dealership today and mentioned AutoTrader.com reps have been instructed, from on-high, not to post on Dealer Refresh anymore!"

Guess they're afraid of the discussions going on here, when you can't hide from the truth you run from it.

A little bird dropped by the dealership today and mentioned AutoTrader.com reps have been instructed, from on-high, not to post on Dealer Refresh anymore!

Ashley, Brian is on target. What time period did they claim this placement of product would remain "exclusive". I'll take a guess that no other Honda dealers have taken the bait because they don't see the value/need for it in the first place. I know of many Honda dealerships with midline product w/Autotrader doing just fine, esp. w/certified pre-owned. I can't see them offering you"exclusivity" for more than a 6 month term.

@Ashley
once you sign up they will visit your competition (bring in the big wig from corporate) tell them they can't compete without (insert package here) and tell them how great your business is since you switched to (insert package here) pretty soon your exclusive package isn't so exclusive anymore.
(this all came to me in a dream last night)
btw after your recommendation I switched to v-auto goose-aid much tastier then the old fashioned kool-aid and it's only 15.3% more expensive but you will experience a 25.3% increase in clarity.

Here ya go Joe. I got some VAuto Koolaid for you

Back to Autotrader and I hate to do this. Is anyone else having Alpha/increase discussions with their ATC reps? Does paying or should i say "bidding" for Alpha make sense? If it does I'll jump on it. It's a few weeks past the bidding deadline and no Honda dealership in my market has placed a "bid" yet. Now is the time!!!

Btw...this is Bad Ashley talking...

The bullet is taking aim!

Car dealers & ISM's whipsawed in "the perfect storm".

A time line as I see it.
Old School:
---Dealers loyally spend in newsprint.
---Newsprint owned the dealers for decades.
---Newsprint grew fat and happy.

New School:
---Customers Drive dealers onto the net (dealers dont like change.
---Internet Classified sites reward Early Adopters (most all of us here are Early Adopters).
---More and more "late to the party" dealers jump into the Net
---BZ was borne (the end can't be far can it?
---Internet ad spending rockeets & ROI plummets for Early Adoptors, but, it's new biz for the old school bunch.
---Internet Classified sites steal marketshare from newsprint
---Internet Classified sites want some of that "newsprint windfall"
---Internet Classified sites grow fat and happy.

New-New School
---Early Adopters, sick of the rate rape, embrace PPC and SEO
---BZ & all others attack new SEO/PPC revenue pool, most are bandaid additions to a duct-taped platform that would fail in anyother highly competitive verticle (not yours Mark B.
---WebSite builders grow fat and happy.

Where does this lead too?..ISM's still fighting for a flat. Can anyone pass me some vAuto Koolaid?

Me thinks we're in the wrong biz!
just my $0.02
Joe

A lot of good points posted on this subject but to back up to a higher level I think that we may be too focused on whether or not the advertising on websites like autotrader is effective and maybe not focused enough on the real money losing ads that are being run in Newspapers, TV and Radio. I think it is really time that dealers look at reducing conventional ad spend and testing out the various local online ad sources that provide proven results and full reporting and metrics (cost per lead, cost per sale..etc) Internet is a science and it is really time that we all stop guessing with all of our ad dollars and hold advertising companies 100% accountable for the results. With that said I think there is a place for branding but not to the tune of 40k/month like many dealers are spending.

I realize I am simplifying things but if you look a the majority of US dealers, the use of local search and local online advertising is off the mark by a huge margin and only a small % of dealers are truly capitalizing on the emergence of internet shopping being the norm. Even for all the dealers worried about their 3rd party costs they should realize that many of the leads they are buying from these websites could have been theirs first gereration instead of buying it 2nd or 3rd generation for 200-300% more! Maximize your local online advertising and cut the middle man out whenever possible, that is the key!

Many new programs available now to dealers allow them to gauge the effectiveness of all of their ad sources side by side so that they can see what in fact newspaper, radio, tv and internet are doing as compared to one another. Even more related to this string of posts is that you can have all of your 3rd party lead providers side by side and gauge which produce the most leads, lowest cost per sale each day, week, month and year. At the end of the day this is all that matters and will empower dealers to transition the correct amount of money away from costly and ineffective traditional advertising spend.

This has to be the goal, too many dealers are hurting with profits and it doesn't have to be there way.

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

AutoTrader CEO Chip Perry, for instance, says the one thing dealers want to know from him is “why do you raise your rates 20 percent every year?” But they seem to get the value of a medium that is used “seven times more than newspapers,” he says — even if their spending doesn’t nearly reflect it.

Mark,

Who said the $620 was not accurate? That could very well be the correct number for the dealer addressed in Ian's post above, based on market, inventory size and advertising level. Please check your facts before complaining about things that you may only be imagining.