So we know that adding a 24/7 Live Web Concierge is going to get you more leads, and in a lot of cases, double what you already had. Some of the statements I’m hearing are from guys that had chat on their site but just weren’t happy with it. The more I pry, the more I hear that they were staffing the chat themselves and the leads weren’t that great. The obvious thing they weren’t looking at was their own stats. They probably didn’t see the amount of missed chats vs. good chats. They probably didn’t delve into the chat transcripts. If so, they would have seen their over-zealous sales guy was on the case. He probably beat up the visitor while trying to close on the car right then and there. Let’s be real. If you’re running a larger dealership, you typically have a nice receptionist that puts out a pleasant first impression to your visitors. Why wouldn’t you want the same for your website?

I’ve seen so many dealerships that spend hundreds of dollars each month on popups, unders, and floating boxes to create leads. A lot of money spent each month that in reality turns away a lot of your customers. Sure, you may get a sale here and there from a “die hard” brand loyalist that you had anyway, but really think about it. Why do it? How do you feel when you go to a website and stuff is jumping out at you from all angles? Not good. In most cases, the money you spend on all that junk could easily be allocated to our low cost Managed SmartChat™. The leads you’ll get from chat will far outweigh the number of customers coming in because of a coupon for $500 off MSRP. Managed chat leads are live 1-on-1 interactions with your customers. These leads typically contain all their contact info, the vehicle they are looking at, full trade info, and most importantly the mood of the customer.

Call us today and let’s chat about chat.

10 years ago, DealerTrack moved the automotive industry forward with its launch of Credit App.  Now, we’re poised to do it again with the successful integration of eCarList and AAX.  The result is the delivery of a truly end-to-end inventory product.

Only DealerTrack eCarList offers a comprehensive inventory management system that seamlessly combines live retail market data with rich historical data.  We take the guesswork out of vehicle purchasing by scoring the vehicle you’re appraising then recommend whether or not you should add it to your inventory and the price it should sell for.  This type of transparent look at market data alongside historical data is a first of its kind.

If you’re not planning on attending NADA or maybe you just want a sneak peak, check out our video of the new DealerTrack eCarList.

We hope you share in our excitement and look forward to a great 2012.

If you haven’t already, download the app for your iPhone or Android — it’s FREE. Call us at 214-722-8200 today to learn how TrueTarget Mobile can help keep your dealership in sync.

Check out some of the highlights below, and be sure to go to our Facebook gallery to see all of the photos!

The billing/admin/hr team’s theme was Angry Birds.

The Interactive department turned the office into a used car lot.

The search & media team was 101 Dalmations.

Account management as Mario Kart.

Our eBay team made a cute couple as Princess Bride.

So, who won the competition? You’ll have to watch the announcement video:

Here’s the deal, eBay is allowing us (DealerTrack eCarList) to offer three different listing packages to any of our interested dealers.  These can only be used once, but it’s definitely worthwhile.

Here’s the specs:

1.   Small Package – 20 listings for $900 (save up to $260.00)

2.   Medium Package – 40 listings for $1700 (save up to $620.00)

3.   Large Package – 60 listings for $2400 (save up to $1,080.00)

All package deals include the $50.00 insertion fee and an $7.00 reserve fee, which need to be utilized within 90 days.  
 
This is a great opportunity for anyone NOT using eBay to start, and anyone currently using eBay can save a few dollars without changing a thing!  All you need to do is call our eBay team and we can set you up anytime.

Call today:
Wes – 972-913-7698
Chris – 972-913-7699

Just remember that if you don’t take advantage of this now, you will forget.  We know we hate passing up on a great deal!

In fact, eCarList websites scored higher than ANY other automotive website platform according to Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing whose firm commissioned the independent testing used to evaluate website SEO performance. That’s big news!

Congratulations to the whole eCarList development and search marketing teams for building the most effective search platform in the industry.

Read the full press release from automotivewebsiteawards.com below…

Pinnacle Award Winner – eCarList

PCG Digital Marketing today announced that eCarList was chosen to receive a ‘Pinnacle’ 2011 Automotive Website Award (AWA) for search marketing. eCarList is also a 2010 AWA winner for Website Design. The awards were presented to the leading automotive website companies and software vendors at the AWA ceremony that took place October 7th at Caesars Palace, just prior to the DrivingSales Executive Summit.

The Pinnacle award is the highest recognition the AWA provides in the Search Marketing category. The companies receiving this award have designed and delivered search compliant websites that stood above their peers. Pinnacle Platform winners deliver outstanding digital marketing platforms for car dealers and show an unprecedented attention to detail in live production. Members of this elite group of website design professionals have demonstrated that their products deliver outstanding results for clients.

eCarList’s Website Platform is a Top Performer
The AWA study team was impressed with the significant improvements eCarList had made to its website platform over the past year. With all of the upgrades and enhancements made, eCarList has not lost focus on the basics of search marketing and they remain a consistent leader. Their website platform was a top performer this year.

The 4th annual Automotive Website Awards (AWA) are created by PCG Digital Marketing, recognized leaders in automotive digital marketing strategies. For 2011, PCG Digital Marketing recognized the industry’s best website platforms across five different categories: design, technology, search marketing, mobile websites and mobile applications.

The Automotive Website Awards seek to provide car dealers with an unbiased evaluation of automotive website platforms and integrated search marketing tools. The 2011 AWA study included a review of over 50 automotive website providers.

This year’s published study includes 160 pages of valuable information regarding automotive website platform choices, search marketing performance, design, technology, social media and mobile applications. The report is the industry’s reference guide for the best in automotive website technology, design and marketing.

Here is a short overview of what to expect at the session I’m presenting on Wednesday, October 5, at 1:00pm — session #106: “Eight Ways Mobile can Improve your Bottom Line”.

Eight Ways Mobile Can Improve Your Bottom Line — 10/5 at 1:00pm

Len Critcher will deliver eight critical ways mobile applications improve a dealership’s bottom line and operational performance

In today’s marketplace, dealers need to be “in-sync” to make the most of their team capabilities and inventory opportunities. In this presentation, Len Critcher will illustrate eight critical ways that mobile applications can improve a dealership’s bottom line and operational performance. Current and emerging mobile applications will touch on all of the major areas of a dealer’s business, including vehicle appraising, monitoring and merchandising.The ability to take advantage of mobile applications could mean the difference between success and failure for dealerships in the future.

Digital Dealer 11
October 5-7, 2011
DealerTrack is Booth #525

Chris Short (left) & Wes VerHoef

We are providing the dates and times of eBay Motors’ eDealer Training Program Sessions in order to help dealers understand how the eBay process works and to let you know that we are here to help. Find a date and session below in a city near you and take advantage of hearing from the experts at eBay Motors.

Attending a session will give you the basic skills to navigate eBay motors competently and more effectively. eBay provides attendees with a Dealer Consultant to help with the next steps and getting things started. DealerTrack/eCarList also provides a team of dedicated eBay Specialists with specific eCarList help.

Our team consists of Chris Short and Wes VerHoef. Wes and Chris are here to help you use the eCarList tool and all of its features like True Target, automatic reserve lowering, and auction/lead management.

You can reach them directly at:
972.913.7698 Wes
972.913.7699 Chris

Find a date below and call eBay at 866-980-1204.

It’s easy to forget that, although SEO and SEM are separate “products” often pitched by separate vendors, their fundamental applications and objectives are the same – to get more search engine traffic. Therefore doesn’t it make simple sense that these two strategies should be heavily integrated, if not completely dependent upon one another?  But then again, it’s easy to forget when you’ve got SEO vendors pitching against SEM, and SEM vendors who have (and probably want) nothing to do with your website and its SEO.

In order to get into the mindset of a combined strategy, you first have to ask yourself what your end-goal is with all this SEO/SEM stuff. “What are my objectives”? “What are the pros & cons of each”?  “At what point have I achieved success”?

A successful search engine marketing strategy is defined by achieving maximum search engine exposure with the highest Click Through Rate (CTR) at the lowest possible cost.  And the only way to do that is to find the right balance between paid and organic rankings.  SEO is designed to alleviate your sole reliance on paying per click, while SEM is designed to get you traffic you are not otherwise getting from SEO.  But rarely are these two programs optimized according to one another, and all-too-often dealers are having to choose one over the other.  Here are several salient points to consider when constructing (or revising) your SEO/SEM strategy.

1. Building it Right the First Time: The most relevant and successful SEO campaigns are founded upon existing SEM data.  Although this could be considered a “chicken or egg” scenario, an initial SEO keyword analysis based on proven SEM keyword success metrics provides a relevant and successful SEO blueprint.  This gives your SEO program a head-start and alleviates guesswork. The alternative is a SEO strategy formulated by hypothesis based on the client’s products, services and/or objectives – which is still a necessary step, but still, just hypothesis
2. Increasing Success while Eliminating Waste: Your ongoing SEO campaign strategy should involve some type of SEM data integration.  Why? A) Because it provides your SEO strategy with breadth, and B) it alleviates wasteful SEM spending. Since a SEO keyword list is quantitatively limited to numerous factors including the amount of site pages, products/services and client objectives – there is no limit to how many keywords you can add to your SEM campaign. Therefore, scanning your SEM keyword list for successfully trafficked and/or converted terms can turn up hidden gems your initial SEO keyword list did not include (even if you did implement #1 above).  The alternative is paying per click on a keyword into eternity without any attempt to achieve the equivalent organic ranking and moving your reliance to the free clicks -wasteful indeed.
3. Lowering Cost while Increasing Traffic : As mentioned above, SEO is designed to reduce reliance on SEM spending.  But this requires some serious data mining and management (unless you have a tool that automates it).  If we are talking serious SEM management, your SEM keyword bids should be set according to their corresponding organic placement. 
   1. Scenario:  Your keyword, “used cars Dallas”, costs you $3.00 per click to reside in the  #1 spot, while your organic ranking for that same keyword is #11 (1^st on the 2^nd page). Theoretically and with the right SEM management process, you could set a rule to where you reduce your PPC bid by 10% for every 2 organic rank increases.  In this assumption, you would reduce your $3.00 click to  $1.98 by achieving a top organic ranking.  And with almost 70% of clicks occurring in the organic listings (vs. the paid), you should simply see higher traffic at less cost.
4. Increasing Conversions while Increasing Branding: According to a recent study by Google on Honda, there was an 18% lift in brand affinity, 42% lift in brand recall and an 8% lift in purchase intent when Honda was featured at the top of both the Organic and the Paid results.  Amongst similar studies, Penn State found a 15% increase in CTR when an ad appeared in both the organic and paid results on the same page.

These are just a few vitalities that should persuade you to keep your SEO and SEM together with one online marketing agency in addition to benefits and coordination with landing pages for SEO and SEM quality scores, consolidated reporting and much more.

And now for a quick plug:

Thanks to our recent acquisition by DealerTrack, eCarList has licensed the leading website analytics and paid search management tools on the market today in efforts to move towards one single “Online Marketing Hub”, in which SEO, SEM, Web Analytics, Social, Behavioral and more are managed under the same platform with integration across each channel and one consolidated reporting system. Our new SEM management platform allows us to set rules as in #3 above. We also have the ability to automatically add SEM keywords based on their organic performance and vice-versa.  Also a direct inventory feed to the engines will allow us to buy inventory-related keywords in real-time, therefore reducing wasteful SEM spending.   All this and much more to come…stay tuned!

We were originally shooting to raise $14,000 to cover the cost of a wish plus the costs of throwing the Crawfish Boil, but thanks to the support of wonderful sponsors, clients, friends and family, we ended up raising over $24,000. This was such great news for us, and we are so very thankful to everyone for their hard work. The big surprise came when we recently calculated all of our event costs and realized that we had raised enough money to grant TWO WISHES!

Christopher, who attended the Crawfish Boil with his mom and older brother, jetted off to Disney World yesterday to meet Mickey Mouse. We hosted a send-off pizza party in the office last Friday to see him on his way!  Read Christopher’s full story here and see a clip from the send off party here.

Jacob, a 10 yr. old wish kid, dreams of meeting the Minnesota Twins through the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He’s been battling Leukemia for 3 years, but is thankfully in remission as of this month! His wish to meet the Minnesota Twins will also come true this month, thanks to the support of all who donated to or attended the Crawfish Boil! Read Jacob’s full story here.

We send out another million thanks to everyone who made this event possible. We are more than thrilled to be able to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Texas in order to grant wishes just like Christopher’s and Jacob’s. THANK YOU AGAIN!