Dealer Website or Manufacturer's Website?

[inskeepford]

I am considering going from a Ford Dealer Connection Website to a dealer website. Is it better to have your own website versus the manufacturer's website? Who are you using to do this for you (who do you recommend)? What do they do for you (video, live chat, etc.)? Has your internet traffic gone up since you switched? What is the cost involved? Has your lead quality gotten better? Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[CFrentzen]

I recommend Dealer.com. We use their Control Center and they will work with you to do custom work. We also use their ILM - very useful and, from my experience, the people there are very friendly and work with you to solve issues that arise.

I personally don't have experience with much else besides Dealer.com, but from what I've read they are acknowledged as very good at what they do.

I also think that your own website is potentially much more effective than a manufacturer's website.

 

[kevinfrye]

I would encourage having your own website. Most of the OEM sites are "cookie-cutter" in design, giving you little room to brand yourself differently than your competitors. You also have some more choice in picking a website provider that has good SEO qualities that help you in the search engine results as well.

 

[jasontheman07]

yeah, i would suggest using a third-party developer, or possibly a good designer and an open-source CMS (content management system) like Joomla!

 

[Alex Snyder]

OEM websites (Ford Dealer Connection in your case) rarely allow the customization levels I am looking for. I might be a little more demanding than some in this area, but I like to be able to change a lot of stuff myself - whenever I want. This goes well beyond the realm of simply changing some specials or a few boxes here and there. I want to be able to add pages on the fly, create custom URL's, upload just about any media I want, rearrange my navigation links, and just about anything else that comes to mind at 3:00 AM when I can't sleep.

We have a few OEM sites through VW, Audi, Jaguar, Porsche, MINI, smart and Scion. Here's a quick run down on my opinion of who allows me to be creative:

• VW & MINI are through CoBalt and I can't believe I'm saying this but CoBalt actually is the better of them all.....except Scion - once you get past the frustration in using CoBalt's back-end tool
• Porsche's makes sense because of the buyer. They are simply looking for what is in stock across the nation. They'll pay the extra money to ship a car. Thus, the consumer usually uses Porsche.com for everything. Returning Porsche customers will use your site.
• Audi is launching a new site host so the jury is still out.
• smart is by far the most restrictive.
• Scion allows multiple site-host choices, but restricts you to certain templates. I believe it is this restriction that makes our Scion site one of the worst performing sites we have with Dealer.com.....it is almost worse than Jaguar (sorry Jag - I look forward to the day when you're thriving again)....but almost everything out performs our OEM-forced sites.

I totally understand why a manufacturer would force these sites. With huge dealer networks it is tough to police everyone and a lot of dealers are not fully engaged in keeping their websites up to date or even consumer-friendly. I get that!

However, I look at companies like BMW, Honda, and Toyota who definitely perform the best for us......beyond the ratio of sales to site traffic when you compare all our brands. They allow you to use any site hosting company you want and any design you want, as long as you're not breaking ad covenant agreements (some of these items are a little weird, but it beats being stuck in a box). They have agencies that monitor sites to see if everything is kosher. There are a few key things going on here....

• We can custom build our sites to incorporate our own name & logos (things we've spent years branding in our marketplace) that help a customer identify with the people they're going to work with. at the end of the day, the car doesn't sell or service itself - people do.
• We spend extra money and time working on our own websites so we're much more invested in those than the OEM sites. The more money involved, the higher the expectations.
• Support from companies we choose to do business with is much better. When an outside company is handling hundreds/thousands of dealerships who aren't their true client, they lack the care to get things done well and quickly.
• Competition is fierce amongst dealerships, and that competition sells more cars. Differentiation aids competition - uniforms don't. This goes back to all that branding dealers do on their own.

So, to cookie-cut dealership websites totally circumvents the mission: sell and service more cars. Because - no matter how hard they try, the corporate office for <insert OEM name here> is not in my marketplace. They don't know my marketplace, and they don't know my customers as well as I do. If they lack the expertise to market in my marketplace, why do they tell me how to market in my marketplace? Let good old fashioned evolution/capitalism rule when it comes to dealers. Put some rules in so we don't diminish the value of your branding, but let us roll beyond that!

What can you do to get around the OEM's who want to cook your own website up for you?

• Build your own anyway. Treat the OEM site as a microsite that is great for showing up in your Google search results - that's just one less third party source to fight against.
• If your OEM has a better URL on your OEM site than you, swap them (you'll take a hit, but it will build back with time). It is your name, do with it as you wish.
• I don't advocate this, but you could sabotage that OEM-forced site by breaking links, or changing content around that Google doesn't like. Putting white text on a white background will get that site blacklisted for sure!
• Never acknowledge that OEM-forced site. Update all your business listings to point at a different site. Make sure all your third parties don't link to that site.
• You can get really nasty and make that site basically disappear without your manufacturer even realizing it, but that is a really dumb thing to do.

And voice your dispeasure with being thrown in a box at every opportunity you can get. Make sure your GM and Dealer Principle is also upset about being put in a box. If they get shot down, ask them if they would rather play politics or make money. The squeaky wheel gets oiled, so be loud!

 

[joe.pistell]

Jeff,

Save this quote for the record books, Alex writes:

"...I might be a little more demanding than some in this area..."
​

hahaha... If anyone is more demanding than Alex on what they expect out of a web site... THEY WORK FOR GOOGLE. hahahaa.... Alex lies awake at nite plotting his next coup

You 'da man Alex! But your understatement made me fall out of my chair!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

We have a few OEM sites through VW, Audi, Jaguar, Porsche, MINI, smart and Scion. Here's a quick run down on my opinion of who allows me to be creative:

• VW & MINI are through CoBalt and I can't believe I'm saying this but CoBalt actually is the better of them all.....except Scion - once you get past the frustration in using CoBalt's back-end tool
• Porsche's makes sense because of the buyer. They are simply looking for what is in stock across the nation. They'll pay the extra money to ship a car. Thus, the consumer usually uses Porsche.com for everything. Returning Porsche customers will use your site.
• Audi is launching a new site host so the jury is still out.
• smart is by far the most restrictive.
• Scion allows multiple site-host choices, but restricts you to certain templates. I believe it is this restriction that makes our Scion site one of the worst performing sites we have with Dealer.com.....it is almost worse than Jaguar (sorry Jag - I look forward to the day when you're thriving again)....but almost everything out performs our OEM-forced sites.

Thanks for the breakdown Alex.

We have a few OEM sites as well.

I agree with your comments 100% with the OEM's that you have listed for we have many of the same manufacturers. I'll add a few more to the list...

Lexus - Cobalt and semi restricted on what you can do. Of course Lexus continues to be strict with the display of your actual new car inventory.

Mercedes-Benz - Currently still with Critical Mass though this change should be announced any day (if is has not already). From what I hear, MB dealers too will have an option of 2-3 providers to choose from.

Saturn - The usual Cobalt site

Subaru - Dealer.com and I will have to say, so far Subaru and Dealer.com (even though Subaru has restricted to using 1 provider) is by far the best OEM sites we have. Subaru is very liberal on what you can do with your sites and provides enough templates/skins that would allow your dealer to be different from the others.

Depending on what website provider the OEM has you using, I would usually recommend adding your own dealer website into the mix HOWEVER I would not forget about my OEM site since many of the OEM websites send their consumer traffic to your OEM dealer site. At the very least keep your new/used and specials updated along with any other pages you have the ability to customize.

Or you can do what Alex suggested..

Never acknowledge that OEM-forced site. Update all your business listings to point at a different site.

 

[mattwatson81]

Having an OEM and an additional website has SEO benefits as well. You have twice the chance of ranking well in the search engines for your marketplace.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Jeff,

Save this quote for the record books, Alex writes:

"...I might be a little more demanding than some in this area..."
​

hahaha... If anyone is more demanding than Alex on what they expect out of a web site... THEY WORK FOR GOOGLE. hahahaa.... Alex lies awake at nite plotting his next coup

You 'da man Alex! But your understatement made me fall out of my chair!

Anytime Joe



Matt - you're right, there is a lot of SEO benefit in having multiple sites. That is the only good side to all these OEM-forced sites.

 

[todd.smith]

Hey, I just went through a demo of AutoFusion for one of our clients to get my opinion of their sites. One thing that stood out for me was that the content on the pages changed each time you refreshed the browser. This is something that Google indexing absolutely loves so I thought I would pass it along.