We recently launched a remarkable new product that automatically keeps your website up-to-date with the latest new vehicle rebates and incentives from the manufacturer.

Check out my quick video demo….

Download PDF: eCarList Automated Incentives

Real-time rebate and incentive data automatically matched to your website inventory.

• eCarList automatically updates your website with comprehensive incentive information tied to specific vehicles in your inventory.
• Display all programs available in your region within hours of release by the manufacturer.
• Instantly upgrade your website content to correspond with manufacturer advertising.
• Incentive information is displayed directly on your inventory and vehicle pages without frame-ins or pop ups.

I’m not here to preach one way or another about dealership microsites because if used correctly they can be very effective.  I’d rather tell you a story and let you decide for yourself on how best to apply them to your dealership (if at all).

I had a dealer in New York call me about two weeks ago inquiring into our dealer websites and SEO.  The first words out of his mouth were, “can you build me a bunch of microsites”?  My regretful response, “why”, led him into a 5 minute seminar on microsites helping with SEO, creating additional SEO rankings and hundreds of back-links to his website.   He also shared his theory on how automotive shoppers “hate dealers”, and that by taking the dealer’s brand away from a microsite makes the customer feel more comfortable to fill out a lead form.

My experience with microsites started in 2004 when I started an online marketing agency providing SEM/SEO services to Retail Automotive.  We were one of the first (if not the first) companies to market Search to car dealers.  Our core product was in-fact a microsite….we called it an “SEO sub-site”.  The SEO sub-site was born out of necessity because our first client’s website provider refused us access to the backend of the website where we needed upload our SEO code and content.  The client wanted SEO and we offered SEO.  Their website provider did not.  So we developed a work-around…

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HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Planet, the global leader in IT hosting, today announced the addition of ecarlist (www.ecarlist.com) to its dedicated hosting platform. Headquartered in Dallas, the company provides hundreds of automobile dealers in the United States and Canada with critical data for inventory management, pricing analytics, search engine optimization, marketing and Web site design.

According to J.D. Power & Associates, an industry research firm, approximately 75 percent of all car shoppers use the Internet when evaluating car purchases.

“Technology and the Internet have created a monumental shift in pairing buyers and sellers for automobile purchases,” said Len Critcher, Chief Executive Officer of ecarlist. “Dealers are facing new challenges to ensure their inventories are current, and their sites always up and running, particularly in today’s difficult environment. The services we provide enable them to take full control of their online marketing and be more competitive, backed by the critical data required to make strategic marketing decisions for their businesses. Our SaaS (Software as a Service) solution means customers count on us to have this information available around the clock, and that’s why we switched to The Planet. The company’s corporate stability and reputation, its reliability and scalability gave us the confidence to make the change.”

“We hear time and again from customers that they select The Planet for our world-class data centers and enterprise-quality network,” said Steve Kahan, vice president of marketing and product management for The Planet. “With the broadest complement of products and services in the industry, we offer customers the power to choose the precise solutions and services for their IT infrastructures.” (more…)

ecarlist dealer websites with custom design and features.  For examples of our work, please visit:
www.ecarlist.com

As most of us say ‘good riddance’ to 2008, it seems everyone has a heightened sense of awareness going into 2009. In regards to strategy, Dealers are making more careful choices and wiser decisions.  Ambiguity has been replaced with accountability, trust is synonymous with proof, and vendors are being audited.  But above all, the dealers who will survive in 2009 and beyond will be those who fundamentally shift their beliefs about the Internet.

During the housing boom, money was flowing.  It seemed one out of two vehicles on the road had paper plates.  Meanwhile most dealers were still trying to figure out the Internet with many refusing to believe it was a lucrative means of reaching existing and potential customers because..well, they were selling cars.

Also remember, the tech bubble had burst shortly before the housing bubble began…so the theory of the Internet taking over our daily lives was in question.  But what emerged from the tech implosion was a leaner, more viable Internet.  The fat fell off and the Internet was exposed for its most essential offerings - email and search.  And with more data showing Internet usage increasing and car shoppers looking online to start their research, dealers started moving their Internet efforts higher on the priority list.  Yet although dealers were starting to embrace the Internet, they were still unwilling to relinquish their old habits.  According to NADA - in 2005 dealers on average spent $177,992 on newspapers, $72,821on radio, $58,631 on TV, $30,132 on direct mail, and $25,844 on the Internet.  As the old saying goes, “I know my advertising budget is working…I just don’t know which part”.

So now that 2008 has proven that over 90% of people planning to purchase a vehicle start their buying cycle online, what do you plan to do with that information, and are you thinking of reallocating your budgets according to proven user behavior?

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As a dealer vendor in the online advertising/marketing sector, it is your innate duty to justify the money your dealer gives you.  That’s what makes online marketing different - the accountability.  It’s easier to take radio or newspaper dollars and chalk up the lack of accountability to “branding”, but with the Internet it all comes down to Cost-Per-Lead and the ability to match leads to vendors.

Yet there are many vendors competing for the same justification of the same existence. An example - my previous company sold SEM/SEO services…but we didn’t provide the actual website. So we built “microsites” in order to segregate our leads and say “look at these great results…we deserve what you pay us for”. No harm done, but in theory why would a dealer want two different websites and who were we really helping by separating SEM visitors from the dealer’s Direct website visitors? That’s right, ourselves. We needed to justify the money our clients spent with us regardless of the TRUE value to the dealer. Allow me to be clear – I’m a huge fan of accountability…but at the end of the day, SEM visitors ARE Website visitors, and with proper analytics a dealer has the ability to track and separate out SEM visitors from their Direct or Organic visitors. But…we felt good about telling our clients they received X many leads because of us, and in the end our dealers wanted to know their ROI specific to Search.

So let’s look at a deeper-routed problem, and the real reason for this post. There are plenty vendors out there that seem to be riding coattails and molding data solely to justify their existence no matter the true value of their product. Online chat, sweepstakes providers, certain media services, talking avatars and even pop-up lead forms are all giving the dealer a report back that says “hey look what I brought you…now pay me”. Frankly some of it is just plain insulting, and below are a couple enlightening examples.

A) There’s one very large SEM provider whose sole responsibility is to manage their clients’ Paid (more…)