To outsource or bring in-house your dealerships marketing efforts - that's always the question...
What do you think?
What has been your experience?
Unless you're a large group, I would advise most dealers against this path. It's so difficult to find and identify the "unicorn" candidate that has the skills to handle everything necessary nowadays. Hiring the wrong person for this role can easily cost your dealership $100K+ in wasted ad spend, missed sales/service opportunities, and compensation.
That being said, our group has brought everything in-house. 10 years ago, I started as a Northwood college intern at one store and have now built a 14-person in-house digital marketing agency for our 62-rooftop group.
Our in-house digital marketing agency consists of:
- Digital Marketing Director - me
- Performance Manager - Hosts monthly performance meetings with each store going over last month's stats and strategizes for future months.
- Paid Ads Manager - Manages all digital advertising campaigns across Google, Microsoft, Facebook/Instagram, Waze, Hulu, Spotify, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
- 2 Paid Ads Specialists - Assists Paid Ads Manager in launching and managing digital advertising campaigns.
- Website Marketing Manager- Manages all aspects of our online web presence.
- 2 Website Support Specialists - Audits, tests, and coordinates with vendors to fix.
- Developer - Creates custom software and web apps for our internal staff.
- Content Writing Team
- Communications Manager - Manages our internal and external communications activities including press releases, employee spotlights, community philanthropy, etc.
- Technical Writer - Creates informational content for our websites (model overviews, comparisons, etc).
- Blog & Social Media Writer - Creates engaging content to be shared on social media and our blogs.
- Reputation & Community Manager - Replies to all online reviews and social media interactions.
- Videographer- Visits each store shooting videos for use on our websites, Facebook ads, etc.
- Graphic Designer - Designs graphics for in-store promotional materials, online ads, etc.
The pros of having our in-house agency:
- Innovative - We're always staying on the cutting edge and are more reactive to change than most vendors.
- Save Expense - Digital ad spend is probably where we save the most money. Since we manage everything in-house, there's no management fees or markup. And more importantly, there's little waste.
- Better Performance - Despite what they say, most vendors offer cookie-cutter solutions with average performance. Vendors are focused on scalability - servicing as many dealers as possible with as little staff expense as possible.
The cons of having our in-house agency:
- OEM Mandates - Over the past few years, OEM's have started tightening the reigns on digital advertising by requiring dealers to use their preferred vendor(s). This often means that we're forced to decide between getting co-op dollars and using a sub-par vendor or forego the co-op dollars and continue in-house.
- Constant Change - The digital marketing space is constantly changing so we have to stay abreast of new platforms and policies. (Google HEC ads, Facebook iOS 14, etc)
- Vendor Barrage - If a dealership has a bad sales month, they can't just cancel vendors on a whim, having an in-house agency is a long-term commitment. The dealerships are also constantly barraged by vendor pitches so they have to have full faith that our in-house agency does a better job.
As dealers continue to consolidate into larger groups, I truly believe having an in-house team is a necessity to be able to effectively create strategies to compete against Carvana, Vroom, etc. Lithia's Driveway.com is the perfect example of this.
Whereas, single-point stores and smaller groups should primarily rely on outside vendors but should still have someone in the dealership focused on managing those vendors.
