Dealer Website HeatMaps = more effective sites

Posted on 19. May, 2009 by admin.

Analytics only give you a static interpretation of your site visitor’s activities. You may be able to tell how many people have visited your site, or viewed a particular page, but you won’t be able to gauge effectiveness of design elements, link placement or popular areas of your site. If you want to know where people are clicking on your site, and which areas could use improvement, you need a Heat Map. This will help you visualize your visitors and see what is the “hottest” link on your site.

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Think Small for your Automotive Marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Posted on 31. Dec, 2008 by admin.

The big automotive marketing companies think big, act big, make big deals with the manufacturers. Major marketing contracts are negotiated on the manufacturers (dealership’s?) behalf and the best automotive website and marketing solutions are chosen based on some factors that occur behind closed doors without dealership involvement, intervention, or say in the matter.

However, when the big marketing company represents YOU and also ALL of your local competitors, who benefits the most? How does the Internet, Google, the manufacturer, and this big automotive internet marketing company decide who will rank #1 on Google for “Honda New Jersey” or “Houston Honda Dealer”? You paid your money just like the other 10 guys in your market, but why is the other guy beating you in the search results when you have made the same investment, paid the same bill, to the same manufacturer or vendor?

Who will get the #1 spot? Will it be the big Chevy dealer or the little Chevy dealer who wins in Google? Is money a factor, luck, favoritism? Is it first in first on top?

Well, some of these questions can be put aside because here are some good points to ask the “big web developers” or “largest automotive marketing firms” in the US when they ask for your business…

A few questions to ask the Large automotive marketing companies

1) How do you get me ranked higher than my competitor, when we both use the same exact site and SEO?

2) Am I allowed to choose the phrases I want to win in the search engines and if so what exactly will you do to ensure that I get there, and how much will it cost?

3) What comes for free and what is extra, regarding search engine optimization and SEO-based keywords?

4) What can I do, and what tools are at my disposal to self-manage my destiny on the Internet or has my fate already been decided when you signed the deal with automotive-marketing-company.com?

These are some tough questions that will make the big guys squirm because they really, truly have no alternative but to dodge the question or provide you with some lip service. “You’ve always been my favorite, you’re the best, we will get you #1 for what you need”, etc etc”. Just sign here on the dotted line… They are hoping you do not check, forget about it, or in a few months will let you know they are working on it, hoping to buy more time. Chances are good that your personal account rep will have left within 6 months anyway so all feelings of the sweet whisperings will slowly turn into a feeling of rage.

The Benefits of a smaller automotive marketing company are large:

1) We serve you, the client and do not have major conflicts of interest like the 500 pound gorillas do.

2) We can hand-craft a marketing plan that matches your exact needs to sell the cars you want to sell.

3) We move fast, have no red tape to cut through, and are on the forefront of the most current marketing techniques because we use them for ourselves. We talk the talk and walk the walk.

4) We do not have to cater to the manufacturers and limit your website, microsites, pay per click marketing, or automotive Search engine optimization to specific demands (unless co-op is involved of course)

Picture yourself for a moment inside a supermarket, in front of the ice cream freezer. There are 40 choices but the flavor is only vanilla. Who determines which vanilla ice cream container is placed in front? When you choose a major automotive web site marketer who also handles 39 other dealers in your DMA, what is the likelihood that you will be the ice cream in the front of the freezer?

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10 surefire ways to waste your Automotive search marketing budget

Posted on 29. Sep, 2008 by admin.

Top 10 ways to Waste your Automotive search marketing budget

We have handled millions of ad impressions on our automotive marketing (pay per click) accounts for our clients, and have taken over our share of mismanaged accounts from other automotive web developers, mom and pop shops, and even major companies that state they are experts in search marketing for automotive dealers. Here is a quick top ten list of no-no’s, along with some great examples of how bad things can get when a car dealer just throws money at search marketing

10:  Buy outside of your dealership’s geographic area:

Every car dealer wants their customers, their competitors customers, and will go to great lengths to buy zones or marketing areas well outside of any reasonable area. Often, it’s a naive marketer that buys a 100 mile radius on new car leads. What’s the REAL CHANCE you will sell a NEW Chevy when a customer will have to drive past 53 other Chevrolet dealers on the way down? Used cars is another story. We have some great success stories of selling cars outside of the state, region, even country.

9:Buy keywords for models you do not sell:

Of course people are cross shopping vehicles. Yes you may put a Cayenne buyer into an FX45 but first and foremost, get the proper keywords before you even think about buying any other automotive keywords. Then, if and when you do buy competing models, closely watch the clicks, conversion rates to see if these are even turning into automotive leads or are just a wasted effort.

8:Buy generic phrases:

If you are buying phrases like “cars” and “used” then you have purchased a one way ticket to spend budget quickly. You will attract all sorts of crazy requests especially if you buy a “broad match” which may include such wonderful phrases as “cars for demolition derbies” and “used jeans just like Madonna”.  Automotive marketers beware but a click is a click to Google and they will charge you if you are not smart enough to prevent it.

7:Don’t match your ad to your destination page:

You ad says “Toyota Camry’s for $199/mo” and your landing page is a homepage that is still 3 clicks away from finding the Camry inventory. As a special bonus to your customer, they can’t find this $199 special because someone forgot to load it into your special offer section of your dealership’s website. Talk about a time waster. Another one-way ticket to find another dealer on Google is coming to a customer near you. Could you envision a situation where a customer walked into your showroom, asked about a Camry, and you walked him around your entire dealership, showed them the service department, F&I, and led them to a few doors which may or may not lead to a price on that car?

6: Make crappy boring generic ads

This is an automotive marketing staple. Boring, generic ads with no compelling reason to click on them. Sure it’s great you are on top of Google but that will not last long if you have a low click through rate, and customer’s are going to click on the ad that excites them. We run many automotive ads simultaneously and constantly make them compete to beat the next ad. This is why we can see a 15% or more click through rate on some ads and other dealers say that pay per click just does not work.

5: Spend too much on “gotta have it” keywords

I was at a dealership the other day, who shall remain nameless, who said “I have to win the word Honda”. I don’t care how much it costs, but anything Honda, I need to be #1 in paid search.”. This dealership would have put together a pay per click campaign that resulted in clicks on Honda motorcycles, Honda outboards, Honda used, Honda jet planes (yes take a look at them) and anything else. Plus he may end up paying $10 per click on competitive words. Insane.

4:Ignore Analytic reports and focus on traffic:

90% bounce rates on pay per click ads mean that 90% of your customers are leaving almost immediately. If you are not looking at analytic reports then you are spending money on the wrong keywords, ads, sites, etc. We just left a dealer who was buying the word “free” in their PPC campaign. Sure, tons of clicks. Duh. Bounce rate near 100%. Duh. I can’t even imagine how much they paid per click. Factor in the exit rates (what pages people are leaving from) and the new visitor ratio, and you can get a good idea of the best sources of traffic. Buy more good, buy less bad.

3:Let Google run your campaign

Sure it is easy and may be good to get you started, but Google suggestions will often just give you irrelevant phrases, or provide you with odd budgets. Buy what you need, leave the rest. Remember, Google wants to spend your automotive budget.

2:Spend too much per click

Sometimes, coming in 2nd is a good thing! When the price between being a first place listing and second place listing is $2.00 per click, it pays to let go of first sometimes. Often, we can buy several times as many clicks for our clients just by avoiding the “bid to win 1st” mentality. Sometimes, the “long tail” philosophy can lead to a boatload of clicks at a low price.

1. Buy your own name

Here is our favorite one of all, bidding on your own name. There is a very popular and well known automotive marketing company who can get dealers a ton of clicks and “phone calls” as well. It’s easy when you buy the dealers name. If you are already #1 with your own name (most dealers are) and there is no competition, the DO NOT buy your own name. They will find you for free. That is buying the cow, AND paying for the milk. It’s insane that a major, well funded business has built a business model around redirecting a dealers own traffic back to the dealer, and getting full credit for it. There are cases where you do want and need to buy your own name but in most cases, it is not necessary.

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Automotive search marketing domination simplified

Posted on 26. Sep, 2008 by admin.

Alright, you want to dominate automotive search marketing right? Yeah or course you do. Take a number and line up with the rest of the car dealers, manufacturers, lead providers, SEO companies, and every other small and large business in America.

The good news is, you can become a dominant search engine marketing expert (or at least hire an automotive seo company such as us). The bad news is, it will take a lot of work, effort, time, sweat, and tears.

As with all automotive advertising, it can be broken down into a few simple parts (yes, go ahead and grill me if I left one out).

• The message

• The media

• The market

Many dealers leave one part, or several parts of this message out. (ie: Let’s buy tons of radio ads and only radio ads!)

In the automotive search marketing space, dealers want it all. They want to win all keywords, on all search engines, with every possible phrase that they can think of at all times under all conditions. Organic listings, paid listings, maps, videos, you name it. If it lists on Google, or Yahoo, my dealership should be there.

Can this be done? Sure given enough of the aforementioned money, time, effort. In reality it is unlikely to win every keyword, on every square pixel of the Internet.

So let’s get back to the point.

The message: What is your ad? What are you selling? Is it compelling enough to get a customer to take action? Do you have a generic “Visit my dealer, lots on sale, click here” sort of ad or are you posting specific hot deals on cars in stock with actionable information? What “keywords” are part of this message? The message is automotive marketing in it’s essense. Without a good message or offer, you are almost dead in the water.

The media: What search engines/networks/social sites/blogs/press release organizations do you have to choose from, and which are most important? Do you know? Have you tested them with a good message? Do you track them? What is the conversion rate from each source? Bounce rate? Which brings more “new visitors” than the other source?

The market: Who are you marketing to? Are you a Florida auto dealer trying to sell new Chevy’s to California? (Yes, we’ve seen it) Are you selling to a male or female audience? What is their demographic? Are you going for your backyard or DMA or east of the Missisippi? Whether you choose organic or paid search marketing for your dealership does indeed have an impact on the market.

All of the above are important questions that need to me asked whether you are setting up an automotive marketing search campaign, ppc campaign, writing an electronic press release, or even updating meta tags on your website.

We have found a nice combination of message, market, and media that works for automotive search. Stay tuned for the “map” of how to tie it all together.

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