That is absolutely hillarious. Very professionally done. I like that the advertisement that I got to see was for Nissan. Pun intended?

Lol, thanks for the laugh Jeff... I now have a new line when I am having one of those stressful internet days - "I feel like control-alt-deleting myself" - nice! Cheers! Kevin Frye/eCommerce Director/Jeff Wyler Automotive Family

Thanks for your honest review of MyRide.com. As a Product Manager for MyRide.com, I value your input and candor.

Today, our product in Beta is a chance for us to begin a foundation of a great product that will be heavily influenced by general consumer feedback and need. I will make it a priority to listen to any feedback directly that will help us reach our vision, which is to make MyRide.com the best auto site ever.

Best to you
~Eric

Eric Cotter
Product Manager
Autobytel / MyRide.com
ericco@autobytel.com
Direct: 949.225.4544

I have been following the Vast.com and Autobytel MyRide.com partnership for a while and was very disappointed by the final site... and by the misleading site title tags... I can't find the dealers section... where is it.

Plus to search a car I must select the year first... so stupid... and no search function after it returns zero results... and if you press back... it goes to new cars... even when you were searching used cars... I would accept something like that from AutoByTel but Vast... come on... apply that classified magic to myride.

Only good thing is... if your inventory is going to Vast.com then it is on that site... which is pretty sweet.

MyRide.com = YACWSTTLC.
You can just feel the Suits at autobytel.com running it. It lacks "attitude".

I'd venture a bet they're copying... oh I mean "benchmarking" cardomain.com, a real 2.0 auto site with 15mill members.

AutobyTel has already unleashed the wolves (aka sales reps) & were dogging me for an order on myride.com 2-3 weeks ago. I told them to call me when their site grows up.

YACWSTTLC
Yet
Another
Corporate
Web
Site
Trying to
Look
Cool

Billy, your service obviously will beep the antenna of any ISM listening. So list your contact info so they know how to find you and get on the path of becoming your long term partner...

Having played on the dealers side of the fence for 15 years I understand many of the frustrations you all are currently expressing. I know how hard it is to sell a car, I've done it. In a perfect world 3rd party lead generation would be, 3rd party sale generation. I don't want to speak out of turn or upset anyone on the site, but I would love to express the direction of my company. I have been in business for 5 years as a generator. Over the last 120 days I've started to aggressively pursue dealers for a retail relationship. Our mission is simple. If we produce SALES for our dealers at a PROFIT, they will keep us around forever. My goal is simple I want to get paid by the dealer only when they sell a car, PERIOD. I don't feel anything else matters. So I ask many of you in the room, Does anything else matter? We sell sales not leads,not referrals, not clicks or anything in between. We generate 100% of our traffic online and will be happy to show our dealers exactly where the lead is coming from. I brand my dealers 100%, no hidden agenda. I need them to be successful and sell cars, because I get paid for SALES. Again, with my program the dealer only pays if they sell a car to my referral. We are tied to the dealers success everyday all day. If I want a raise it is there for me, I just have to send the dealer more SALES. We have just eclipsed 170 dealers and are growing everyday and have had our bumps along the way. I know it's hard to believe but there are numerous dealers who don't call or email leads. That is tough, when I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I front the advertising money to generate the traffic to grow their business and they let the leads hit the floor. I want long term partnerships with my dealers. I care about growing their business and sending them SALES. So in closing I ask anyone or everyone to respond, Is there a place for me in the industry?

Mitch, in response to your post:

“P.S.: Come talk to me in five years when all the dealers are doing as you've suggested, and the CPC to get in the top 3 for a term like "Pleasantville Honda Dealer" is $6.50 because there are 15 dealers competing on that query. If every dealer ran dedicated PPC campaigns, it would be anarchy. Your industry is in a very convenient spot right now.”

A positive thing about the pay per click model is that the value of a customer acquisition/conversion helps keep click costs in check because most companies who are bidding on the same terms have a similar value of a new customer/conversion. If every dealership was bidding an exhaustive amount per click then none of the dealerships would continue running PPC anyway because of the diminishing ROI. However, Google also has something called a quality score which helps keep click costs in check based on how relevant the search term is & content on the landing page. If 15 dealerships are bidding on the same term each dealership may be prompted to bid a different amount as a minimum bid based on how relevant the search term is to the content of the ad copy and most importantly the content of the webpage the traffic is being driven to.

I don’t see an issue w/ the search engines becoming over saturated w/ ads because of the measures that are already in place w/ relevancy.

Unfortunately, lead generators can still provide more leads at a very fair price than SEM campaigns run by the dealership or an agency. This trend like many within the automotive internet space will evolve, but it will take some time. If you're a dealer that wants/needs supplemental leads, you owe it to yourself to take a good look at lead generators. The one I'm most familiar with won't even charge you unless the lead is completely legit (valid contact method and actually in market for a vehicle).

Any company can claim results. I'm not hear claiming i'm the best or that I got any dealer 801 phone calls for $5,000 and calling each of those phone calls a lead. Meaningful case studies are backed by a name. I deal with over 100 dealers at an NY based advertising agency. Ive seen some reachlocal clients do well, ive seen others do horrendously (just like any other advertising program, no advertising works 100% of the time for anyone) but ive never seen ridiculously high results as are claimed in this case study.

Provide 1 name of a dealer that got results even close to as high as this case study.

I know because I see it all the time.
For you to say that ReachLocals posted case studies are likely fictitious is a bit of a slanderous stretch, don't you think? I do.
Do you honestly think that the dealer in that case study would like to be identified so his competitors find out what their doing, then have the likes of you calling them on the phone to verify?
Get real.
I'm calling you out?..please, enough drama already..give it a break.
I would gladly wave my fees and run a $5000 campaign for any dealer out there who wants to see the highest returns possible from a paid search campaign. Then, since your the "Real SEM Vendor" you beat my results... theres a call out for you Brandon, AKA Brad, AKA xBMANx AKA????? Put your money where your mouth is.

"Those results are from a real dealer, and a real campaign."

How do you know? YOU didn't conduct the campaign!

Rob, I am calling you out, name this dealer so we can verify these results!

Brandon, or should I call you Brad?

You can call me a reseller, a vendor, an agency, call me anything but a lier. Those results are from a real dealer, and a real campaign.

Speaking of fictitious, I have copied and pasted an inquiry that came in from my website concerning this thread.

Is it just me or are there some similarities between this inquiry and Brandon's post above?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: bman46@g____.com

Name: Brad Kowal

Phone: **********

Comments: Rob, i saw your post about a dealers campaign you ran that
generated 801 phone calls for $5000. I work for a dealer and would
like to see some proof of this as we would be interested in
advertising with you. Are many of these calls to sales & service?
Please send case study via email.. Thanks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thankfully all the other inquires I received from this debate had phone numbers and email addresses that identified where they worked.
But I humored "Brad Kowal" anyway by responding professionally.

Yes ReachLocal is an SEM vendor but you are not. Those case studies you are pointing at are reachlocals case studies. Give us the dealer name (which you can't because its probably fictitious) and I will call to confirm these results with them.

xBMANx

Brandon,
Proof of my stated results are available on my website.
Click on the orange link labeled Case Studies where it says "see actual campaign results here:" or on the lower left of the home page where it says Activity Reports. There you will find the all the campaign activity for the $5,000 campaign that generated 801 phone calls, along with a couple others not dealer related.
The keyword portfolio used for this campaign was focused on new and used vehicles, not parts or service. There still may be a small number of calls for parts or service. Even if only half of them were for sales, your still looking at a cost per lead lower than the $16-$21 Mitch mentioned he's paying.
Would you consider ReachLocal a SEM vendor? Just curious.

Mitch,

Very impressed with your dealer blog. Good work.

xBMANx

Rob,

I don't want to make this post negative but firstly your not an SEM vendor. All your doing is reselling reach local's product (your website proudly proclaims it at the bottom) and all of your collateral is linking to their website. Now that we got that out of the way I:

1) Highly doubt 801 phone calls were generated for $5,000. I am an ACTUAL SEM vendor and professional in the business and have never seen these types of results.

2) Suspending my disbelief, lets say Reach Local (Notice I didn't say you) did provide those type of results, how many of the phone calls were for parts and service compared to new or used car leads. I bet a good deal of the phone calls were for parts & service and if thats the case you arent even comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges when you quote a cost per lead of $6.24.

Please respond with proof of your stated results and answers to my questions.

Thanks

xBMANx

P.S.: Come talk to me in five years when all the dealers are doing as you've suggested, and the CPC to get in the top 3 for a term like "Pleasantville Honda Dealer" is $6.50 because there are 15 dealers competing on that query. If every dealer ran dedicated PPC campaigns, it would be anarchy. Your industry is in a very convenient spot right now.

Rob, again my point is that this isn't an article about where the best leads come from overall, but rather comparing third parties. I don't question that the most cost-effective way to get leads is through search engines... but I really don't see this post as a place for that discussion, especially seeing as you're an SEM vendor yourself. Kinda like going to see a band in concert and telling the crowd "hey, there's a much better band down the street. Oh by the way, I'm in that band." We're all Internet-savvy here... you're not enlightening anyone on this blog when you say search engines get the best ROI.

But at any rate, you neglected to address my main point as devil's advocate: for every good SEM vendor out there, there are 10 horrible, inexperienced, fly-by-night ones... to an old-school dealer with no knowledge of search engines, it just looks like the latest third party get-rich-quick scheme... and lest we forget that there are many other tools/services out there that are just as valuable to the dealer that are just "coming up". Dealers get stuff like this thrown in their faces every day, and it was only 10 years ago that all they thought they had to worry about was what their newspaper ad looked like. It's daunting to say the least, and given that, most dealers are going continue using their trusted third party vendors. Hence, this article.

And the reason I like vendors to train my guys is because those account reps are all people who came up through the auto dealer industry and mastered the system... something few SEM vendors can say.

I have a few questions from a SEM vendor.

When a potential car buyer accesses the internet to gather information, do they go directly to KBB, Edmunds, etc. or do they go to Google, Yahoo, MSN, or some other search engine first?

If they go to a search engine first, how do they end up on a lead providers website? -What are the lead providers doing to attract that buyer?

If the lead providers are doing paid search marketing, how do they make a profit selling you the lead?

If paid search is working for them to gather leads, would it work for a dealership?

I'm looking at a completed campaign (case study) where a new car dealer spent $5,000 on a paid search campaign. It generated 3,498 visits to the dealer website, and 801 phone calls. If you consider a phone call to the dealership a lead, that comes to $6.24 per lead.
If anybody doesn't believe this, I would gladly send it to you.

Why would someone at a car dealer pay $16-$21 for a $6.24 lead? Is it the lunch, or the round of golf?

OK, sorry about that last question.

The truth is, the highest converting sales leads come from the dealers website, and the least expensive way to get people there is paid search, thats why the lead providers do it.

The providers got their start before the technology was available to geographically target a paid search campaign to a 10, 25, or 50 mile radius from the dealership. Now that its available, it makes good financial sense for the dealership to get those leads at their true source.

As far as Search Engine vendors providing sales training to car dealers, we would rather not tell you how to do your job, anymore than we would want you to tell us how to set up and run a paid search campaign.

I agree for the most part, but that's not what we're debating in this article. And let's not forget that the #1 reason (far and away) that companies and executives don't participate in SEO/SEM is because they don't understand it. You're not going to transform an industry this stale in just a year or two of proven performance. SE vendors should worry more about educating dealers than landing an account.

And to say companies are wasting their budget on leads is a bit overzealous, considering all the half-wit Search Engine vendors out there trying to grab at a dealer's pockets. Your industry gets a lot of bad PR via schmucks in India calling up dealers trying to say they know what's best for the store. Maybe you should have a chat with your competitors who try to solicit my business, only to find that I know more than they do about SE's. If I'm a dealer and I'm getting those kinds of cold calls, I'll take my trusty lead providers any day of the week.

Plus, last time I checked, there aren't any Search Engine vendors out there providing sales training seminars for my ISMs, guaranteeing me a closing ratio, or taking me out for lunch and a round of golf.

I have to agree with Rob on this... our best closing leads are the leads from our own website, and we utilize SEM to maximize that asset. We have also ensured that we use a conversion based platform in doing that (otherwise you are just throwing away money - as many others have experienced). When it comes to third party leads, my biggest piece of advice is to ensure that you have a first-class, aggressive process in place in following up on leads, as you are competing against the clock with your competition that has received the same lead. The dealership that "touches" the prospect first is going to win most every time, so if you have an inefficient process with a response time that is several hours or more on average, third party leads will be very ineffective for you. With all that said, if you have a good process in place to handle your third party leads, I would lean towards the lead aggregators for the quality of the lead (which I find to be better than the lead generators). My experience with the quality of many of the leads I receive from the lead generators is that the prospect had their info harvested when clicking on something like "learn the inside secrets of the dealerships" or "how to beat the dealer at his own game", etc.. , and many times when we contact these folks, they feel like they were "tricked" into giving up their information, hence they often do not close as well as the other leads we obtain... Kevin Frye/eCommerce Director/Jeff Wyler Automotive Family

I have a somewhat biased opinion because paid search marketing is what I do. When it comes to auto dealership leads the aggregators close on average 5-7%, manufacturers website leads 10-12%, and leads generated directly by the dealership site 15-20%. A lot of dealerships are beginning to realize its more valuable to market themselves directly because they can sell more for less budget allocation. A locally targeted paid search campaign that promotes all the profit centers is the best return I've come across. However it is very easy to waste budget when done incorrectly. A conversion-based optimization platform generates the highest possible ROI, sending you more of the website traffic that converts and less of the traffic that doesn't.

WOW, what a great article and batch of informative responses. The title didn't intrigue me at all, but the content certainly did.

Is it a must to have a link from the OEM?

Absolutely. Is the Cobalt site crappy? Absolutely. Will it generate leads that you wouldn't have received without the link?

Absolutely.

At least it's not a Ford site.

Alex

You might see all your SEO points disappear from your primary site, only to see your "basic template" Cobalt site start showing in the search results.

Click to expand...

This is mostly true, but I don't think it's a bad thing. Say your OEM site is #4 and your primary site is #6. A customer who clicks on the OEM site will either turn into a lead or they'll move on. There's a chance that they'll stop at #5 and leave a lead, but they probably would have done that anyway before they made it to your primary. If they do leave, you get a second chance with your more attractive site at #6.

There is a slight chance that the taste they got at your OEM site will discourage them from clicking on the better site, but again, that is a slight chance.

Ryan

Since the OEM site drives so much traffic, I would advise that you use that web presence for targeting new vehicle buyers that go there, but then set up sister sites elsewhere for other shoppers, including other new vehicle shoppers.

Click to expand...

I've always been a big fan of having all of the inventory everywhere that a customer's eyes can see.

umer

Kevin, we have few GM dealers and none have bothered purchasing this link... it is so tiny on that page... why do it... plus you get the link to your site from the regional OEM sites...

Click to expand...

Why do it? It's not terribly expensive and it provides leads. Take down a billboard, cut back on radio, take a smaller size newspaper ad, or better yet, just invest more into the internet marketing. The ROI on that link will be better than most conventional marketing spends.

Shi

The growth of the "Blog Phenomena" is another example.

Click to expand...

Agreed, but carefully. There will be more and more companies out there selling blogs to dealers. Some will be ultra cheap, filled with RSS and stale content. Others will be higher, and may be good, but still overpriced.

Before dealers jump on and pay companies for a blog, they should look into the ease in creating a blog, the maintenance, and the potential costs.

They may find that the receptionist or a salesperson can put it together and maintain it for cheap.

Brian

Personally I like the plain vanilla dealership websites. I am on dealer websites every day so get to see the spectrum.

Click to expand...

You're on dealer websites every day. Two years ago, I would say that most consumers would have agreed. Today, I believe they want it to be functional and easy to navigate first, but they also want it to be attractive. The tremendous increase in high-speed connections has made the more simple sites, while appealing to some, still convert less. That's an opinion. I have no data to back it up other than watching a single dealer website go through the simple-to-attractive transition in March of this year. The numbers were dramatically different.

Tom

For me, the value of having the link on the OEM listing comes from driving more potential customers to our site earlier in their research.

Click to expand...

That's a great, great point. People at the top of the funnel might get sucked down unexpectedly. Even if they don't, the branding and subtle subliminal name infusion is still a benefit.

Joe
That's terrible. I hate hearing when GMs don't understand that money wisely spent on internet marketing never fails. Yes, wisely is the keyword here, but still, I think having two sites, especially if you keep the main site at the high PR url, is a good way to spend.

PR 5 is rare, but not unique. I actually have a PR4 dealer that Future PageRank Predictor says will be PR6. It's never right, but one can only hope.

Have your GM call Jeff.