Facebook has started a push to attract car dealers into their Facebook Marketplace which is powered by Oodle. The image shown above was part of an email solicitation campaign that reach one of my dealer clients to offer their automotive advertising package.

According to the Facebook marketing website, your subscription with Oodle Pro will display your cars on Facebook as well as a number of other websites in the Oodle network.  Do you think that Facebook could create a competitive automotive marketplace challenge to Autotrader.com and Cars.com?

The Facebook Marketplace Pitch

Here are some excerpts from the Facebook Marketplace website:

• Showcase vehicle inventory on Facebook Marketplace. Your listings get top placement in search results on Facebook Marketplace and across the Oodle network to maximize exposure.
• Open your dealership to millions of potential buyers across Facebook Marketplace and the Oodle Network. Reach local audiences and millions of prospective buyers. Access to more than 500 million people on Facebook Marketplace.
• With Oodle Pro, one service automatically lets you post to over 250 sites including: Oodle, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace Classifieds, and more. Manage all of your listings in one place, making it easy to stay on top of your business – no more need to post your listings on website after website.
• No social media experience needed — a simple, easy to use setup, gets you up and running quickly, and makes it easy to begin reaching millions of people right away. Hassle-free product support, detailed help topics, and feature-specific tutorials give you all the support you'll need to be successful.

If anyone has been using the Facebook Marketplace for their car inventory, please share your results. I am familiar with the Oodle network outside of Facebook but not their ability to market cars within Facebook. I was also a bit suspicious that they are hawking this service to advertising car inventory on Twitter and MySpace, which qualify for "Weak Ideas of the Week".

Shopping For a Car on Facebook

Once you reach Facebook Marketplace, you can click on Cars in the top navigation as shown below which pops up a box to help you narrow down your search criteria.

Once you click on "submit" you will see a listing of cars for sale, not unlike any other automotive advertising portal. So I clicked on a 2007 Chevy Cobalt that appeared in my list, and this is the Vehicle Detail Page I was presented.

I wanted to experience how I would communicate with the seller so I clicked on the RESPOND button at the top of the listing and I had to give Facebook Marketplace access to my profile. This is where things started to go off the tracks for me. Recently I accepted an App that wreaked havoc on my friends so we have to assume the Marketplace will not abuse this access.

Once I granted permission to access my profile, a message box appeared which will allow me to contact the seller as shown below:

Car Dealer Inventory on Facebook

I decided to look at car dealer listings that appeared for my search and Sheehy Ford of Springfield appeared in the list. The car did not have any photos and in fact, all the dealers that I saw on the first few pages had photos missing. Here is what the Vehicle Detail Page looked like:

This is one ugly Vehicle Detail Page in my opinion. Since I gave access to my profile, the form at the bottom of the page to contact the dealer is pre-filled with some bacsic information from my profile.

How Much Does it Cost?

As you can see from the pricing chart below, you can list up to 500 cars a month for $499 if you go month to month. If you want to syndicate more than 500 cars, you need to request special pricing.

What Do You Think?

So what do you think about Facebook Marketplace for automotive advertising?

The Marketplace application was very slow from my computer so I would like some feedback is speed was also an issue from your PC.

Our recent survey of automotive shoppers indicated that "ease of use" of the shopping interface was the most important factor in selecting a website to shop for a car.  This current version falls short in my opinion of creating a positive shopping experience.  What do you think?

Facebook has started a push to attract car dealers into their Facebook Marketplace which is powered by Oodle. The image shown above was part of an email solicitation campaign that reach one of my dealer clients to offer their automotive advertising package.

According to the Facebook marketing website, your subscription with Oodle Pro will display your cars on Facebook as well as a number of other websites in the Oodle network.  Do you think that Facebook could create a competitive automotive marketplace challenge to Autotrader.com and Cars.com?

The Facebook Marketplace Pitch

Here are some excerpts from the Facebook Marketplace website:

• Showcase vehicle inventory on Facebook Marketplace. Your listings get top placement in search results on Facebook Marketplace and across the Oodle network to maximize exposure.
• Open your dealership to millions of potential buyers across Facebook Marketplace and the Oodle Network. Reach local audiences and millions of prospective buyers. Access to more than 500 million people on Facebook Marketplace.
• With Oodle Pro, one service automatically lets you post to over 250 sites including: Oodle, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace Classifieds, and more. Manage all of your listings in one place, making it easy to stay on top of your business – no more need to post your listings on website after website.
• No social media experience needed — a simple, easy to use setup, gets you up and running quickly, and makes it easy to begin reaching millions of people right away. Hassle-free product support, detailed help topics, and feature-specific tutorials give you all the support you'll need to be successful.

If anyone has been using the Facebook Marketplace for their car inventory, please share your results. I am familiar with the Oodle network outside of Facebook but not their ability to market cars within Facebook. I was also a bit suspicious that they are hawking this service to advertising car inventory on Twitter and MySpace, which qualify for "Weak Ideas of the Week".

Shopping For a Car on Facebook

Once you reach Facebook Marketplace, you can click on Cars in the top navigation as shown below which pops up a box to help you narrow down your search criteria.

Once you click on "submit" you will see a listing of cars for sale, not unlike any other automotive advertising portal. So I clicked on a 2007 Chevy Cobalt that appeared in my list, and this is the Vehicle Detail Page I was presented.

I wanted to experience how I would communicate with the seller so I clicked on the RESPOND button at the top of the listing and I had to give Facebook Marketplace access to my profile. This is where things started to go off the tracks for me. Recently I accepted an App that wreaked havoc on my friends so we have to assume the Marketplace will not abuse this access.

Once I granted permission to access my profile, a message box appeared which will allow me to contact the seller as shown below:

Car Dealer Inventory on Facebook

I decided to look at car dealer listings that appeared for my search and Sheehy Ford of Springfield appeared in the list. The car did not have any photos and in fact, all the dealers that I saw on the first few pages had photos missing. Here is what the Vehicle Detail Page looked like:

This is one ugly Vehicle Detail Page in my opinion. Since I gave access to my profile, the form at the bottom of the page to contact the dealer is pre-filled with some bacsic information from my profile.

How Much Does it Cost?

As you can see from the pricing chart below, you can list up to 500 cars a month for $499 if you go month to month. If you want to syndicate more than 500 cars, you need to request special pricing.

What Do You Think?

So what do you think about Facebook Marketplace for automotive advertising?

The Marketplace application was very slow from my computer so I would like some feedback is speed was also an issue from your PC.

Our recent survey of automotive shoppers indicated that "ease of use" of the shopping interface was the most important factor in selecting a website to shop for a car.  This current version falls short in my opinion of creating a positive shopping experience.  What do you think?

Today is November 1st and for car dealers this means that the monthly clock has been reset and new sales goals will be made for the next 30 days.

For readers that are responsible for car sales, it's time to make a November 1st resolution to apply what you may have learned at recent conferences or what has been shared on automotive communities.

Stu Mittleman Inspired Me

I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with World Record Holding Ultra Marathoner Stu Mittleman who has World and National records in ultra marathon races (6 days) and won a very special 1,000 mile race as part of his hall of fame accomplishments.

We ran 10 miles together, which was the longest I ran since re-starting running back in April. Stu told me a story about how he was hired to train 27 employees of a New York hotel for the New York City Marathon in 9 weeks. The farthest distance 26 of these 27 people ever ran by 3.1 miles, which is a 5K race.

Some would have thought this would be impossible but all 26 "newbies" completed the race. The one experienced runner did not make it. He succeeded by training the runners to look at the race as a New York City street fair with 26 stands, which corresponds to the 26 aide stations that are along the course for water. By looking at the race as 26 one-mile runs, he was able to achieve the goal of getting these runners to finish the race.

The details of this story and Stu's philosophy on running can be found in his book "Slow Burn" a recommended read for anyone who loves to run or anyone who wants to understand how to best utilize the power of your body.

Many car dealers came back from Vegas conference trying to figure out how they are going to implement the 26+ things that they learned and if they do that, they will fail. So, let's look at all the digital marketing opportunities for your dealership and execute them one at a time so we can move forward and not stay fixated at the starting line.

The transformation of traditional automotive advertising to digital marketing is not a sprint but a marathon as new learning, technology, and best practices need time to implement. My suggestion is that you start your Digital Marketing Marathon today by making THREE RESOLUTIONS:

Digital Marketing Resolution #1

Many people have written about the changes in Google Search results with Google Places taking a much larger portion of Page One Results. (Read my latest post) If you haven't seen this for yourself, search for "Baltimore Honda Dealers" and see how different Page One looks.

Heritage Honda has 152 reviews, Norris Honda has 41 reviews, and Brown's Honda City has 14 reviews and the reviews are rating the dealership less than 2 stars. Google Places and car dealer reviews are now front and center in Google search. When presented with this page of results, whose dealership will most likely get an increase of clicks?

It is TIME to start your Reputation Management Process in November - Make That Commitment. You need to have a process by which customers can post their reviews on the 5-6 primary websites that are consolidated in Google Places. Those sites vary from market to market, but a process is needed. If you don't have a high star count on Page One, your traditional advertising dollars will be assisting your competitors attract more in market shoppers.

Digital Marketing Resolution #2

Invest in tracking phone numbers for your off site content publishing, blogs, and social media engagement. It's time to stop making excuses that tracking numbers are expensive. Actually the data that these numbers provide can shed light on where you are wasting money.

Tracking numbers can also prevent you from terminating services that are working very well. At DrivingSales Executive Summit Matt Murray from Dealer.com showed that for every LEAD that was submitted on a dealer's website from a Google Adwords campaign, the dealer received FIVE phone calls.

The point is that IF you are measuring the success of Google Adwords on lead form submissions alone, you would be missing the majority of consumer response generated by PPC. This applies to so many other digital marketing strategies as well however I don't have the calls to lead ratio.

By placing tracking numbers on microsites, PDF brochures, and social media profiles you can start to see what marketing channels are attracting consumer calls. If Matt Murray's data does not inspire you to start tracking your calls, you have bigger issues at hand.

Digital Marketing Resolution #3

Many dealers are using Google Adwords (PPC) to generate traffic to their website and this is a good strategy as long as you are inspecting where these clicks are going and measuring what is happening when they land on those pages. Secondly, we all can agree that designing the perfect landing page design is not a one time design task.

You'll never know if you have a good design until you setup A/B testing.

So I would like to encourage all dealers to make a resolution to inspect their PPC landing pages and to start an A/B testing program to track and measure results based on different designs.

For example, dealers know that the model car a consumer calls about or discusses when they first walk into a dealership is not always the car they purchase. In the same way, give your landing pages a design that provide alternatives to consumers. If you design a 2010 Nissan Altima lease special page, you may want to provide button that also shows your current Nissan Sentra lease specials or a button that shows used Nissan Altima's.

The key is to recognize that you have no idea what is working until you test variations. Many dealers are spending 3K, 5K, 10K, and even 25K a month on Google Adwords yet they have never tested whether their landing pages are achieving the optimal results.

The testing processes takes time, but it is time well spent. The knowledge that you will gain from the experiment will revolutionize your PPC strategies.

Start Your Digital Marketing Marathon

So will you start your Digital Marketing Marathon this month? Digital marketing is not a sprint. Take it slow and get comfortable but you have to make the commitment to start the race. 

If Stu Mittleman can run 70 miles at a pace of 7 minutes a mile or run 1,000 miles averaging 52 miles a day, transforming your dealership to achieve outstanding digital marketing results is surely achievable.

If you need help with any of these three resolutions, ask in this forum or give me a call. 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com
http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

Today is November 1st and for car dealers this means that the monthly clock has been reset and new sales goals will be made for the next 30 days.

For readers that are responsible for car sales, it's time to make a November 1st resolution to apply what you may have learned at recent conferences or what has been shared on automotive communities.

Stu Mittleman Inspired Me

I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with World Record Holding Ultra Marathoner Stu Mittleman who has World and National records in ultra marathon races (6 days) and won a very special 1,000 mile race as part of his hall of fame accomplishments.

We ran 10 miles together, which was the longest I ran since re-starting running back in April. Stu told me a story about how he was hired to train 27 employees of a New York hotel for the New York City Marathon in 9 weeks. The farthest distance 26 of these 27 people ever ran by 3.1 miles, which is a 5K race.

Some would have thought this would be impossible but all 26 "newbies" completed the race. The one experienced runner did not make it. He succeeded by training the runners to look at the race as a New York City street fair with 26 stands, which corresponds to the 26 aide stations that are along the course for water. By looking at the race as 26 one-mile runs, he was able to achieve the goal of getting these runners to finish the race.

The details of this story and Stu's philosophy on running can be found in his book "Slow Burn" a recommended read for anyone who loves to run or anyone who wants to understand how to best utilize the power of your body.

Many car dealers came back from Vegas conference trying to figure out how they are going to implement the 26+ things that they learned and if they do that, they will fail. So, let's look at all the digital marketing opportunities for your dealership and execute them one at a time so we can move forward and not stay fixated at the starting line.

The transformation of traditional automotive advertising to digital marketing is not a sprint but a marathon as new learning, technology, and best practices need time to implement. My suggestion is that you start your Digital Marketing Marathon today by making THREE RESOLUTIONS:

Digital Marketing Resolution #1

Many people have written about the changes in Google Search results with Google Places taking a much larger portion of Page One Results. (Read my latest post) If you haven't seen this for yourself, search for "Baltimore Honda Dealers" and see how different Page One looks.

Heritage Honda has 152 reviews, Norris Honda has 41 reviews, and Brown's Honda City has 14 reviews and the reviews are rating the dealership less than 2 stars. Google Places and car dealer reviews are now front and center in Google search. When presented with this page of results, whose dealership will most likely get an increase of clicks?

It is TIME to start your Reputation Management Process in November - Make That Commitment. You need to have a process by which customers can post their reviews on the 5-6 primary websites that are consolidated in Google Places. Those sites vary from market to market, but a process is needed. If you don't have a high star count on Page One, your traditional advertising dollars will be assisting your competitors attract more in market shoppers.

Digital Marketing Resolution #2

Invest in tracking phone numbers for your off site content publishing, blogs, and social media engagement. It's time to stop making excuses that tracking numbers are expensive. Actually the data that these numbers provide can shed light on where you are wasting money.

Tracking numbers can also prevent you from terminating services that are working very well. At DrivingSales Executive Summit Matt Murray from Dealer.com showed that for every LEAD that was submitted on a dealer's website from a Google Adwords campaign, the dealer received FIVE phone calls.

The point is that IF you are measuring the success of Google Adwords on lead form submissions alone, you would be missing the majority of consumer response generated by PPC. This applies to so many other digital marketing strategies as well however I don't have the calls to lead ratio.

By placing tracking numbers on microsites, PDF brochures, and social media profiles you can start to see what marketing channels are attracting consumer calls. If Matt Murray's data does not inspire you to start tracking your calls, you have bigger issues at hand.

Digital Marketing Resolution #3

Many dealers are using Google Adwords (PPC) to generate traffic to their website and this is a good strategy as long as you are inspecting where these clicks are going and measuring what is happening when they land on those pages. Secondly, we all can agree that designing the perfect landing page design is not a one time design task.

You'll never know if you have a good design until you setup A/B testing.

So I would like to encourage all dealers to make a resolution to inspect their PPC landing pages and to start an A/B testing program to track and measure results based on different designs.

For example, dealers know that the model car a consumer calls about or discusses when they first walk into a dealership is not always the car they purchase. In the same way, give your landing pages a design that provide alternatives to consumers. If you design a 2010 Nissan Altima lease special page, you may want to provide button that also shows your current Nissan Sentra lease specials or a button that shows used Nissan Altima's.

The key is to recognize that you have no idea what is working until you test variations. Many dealers are spending 3K, 5K, 10K, and even 25K a month on Google Adwords yet they have never tested whether their landing pages are achieving the optimal results.

The testing processes takes time, but it is time well spent. The knowledge that you will gain from the experiment will revolutionize your PPC strategies.

Start Your Digital Marketing Marathon

So will you start your Digital Marketing Marathon this month? Digital marketing is not a sprint. Take it slow and get comfortable but you have to make the commitment to start the race. 

If Stu Mittleman can run 70 miles at a pace of 7 minutes a mile or run 1,000 miles averaging 52 miles a day, transforming your dealership to achieve outstanding digital marketing results is surely achievable.

If you need help with any of these three resolutions, ask in this forum or give me a call. 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
http://www.pcgdigitalmarketing.com
http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

Have you seen that Google is experimenting with a new Page One SERP design? I saw this today as I searched for Chicago Dealers and I was blown away how much Page One real estate was used for Google Maps listings.

I color coded the SERP in sections to show that:

- Google Adwords was split on top and right shown in pink.

- Two organic listings were displayed above the new maps region, shown in green.

- That seven spots were taken up with exploded Google Maps listings, shown in red.

- The remainder of the organics were shown under maps which were cut off on the screen capture.

Google Maps Changes Digital Marketing Strategies

I don't see this type of display for all searches and maybe this is a new design for broad commercial searches but this is a game changer. What do you think?

What I can see is that Google review stars are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE VISIBLE which means that automotive reputation management processes must really be locked down.

What I also see is that if you are not in the top spots for organic search, you will get crushed by this new design and experience significantly less clicks.

What I also would expect is that the Google Ads on the right side will receive less clicks. There is too much activity front and center that brings the consumers eye to the maps region. So this will also be a game changer for Adwords bidding.

Your Homework

Get your Google Maps listings updated with photos, videos, coupons, and make sure you have the geo-targeting set correctly. If this is a look at the future, the more complete and compelling your Google Maps listing is, the more calls and clicks you will receive.

If you need help, ask below or call: 732.450.8200.

Have you seen that Google is experimenting with a new Page One SERP design? I saw this today as I searched for Chicago Dealers and I was blown away how much Page One real estate was used for Google Maps listings.

I color coded the SERP in sections to show that:

- Google Adwords was split on top and right shown in pink.

- Two organic listings were displayed above the new maps region, shown in green.

- That seven spots were taken up with exploded Google Maps listings, shown in red.

- The remainder of the organics were shown under maps which were cut off on the screen capture.

Google Maps Changes Digital Marketing Strategies

I don't see this type of display for all searches and maybe this is a new design for broad commercial searches but this is a game changer. What do you think?

What I can see is that Google review stars are SIGNIFICANTLY MORE VISIBLE which means that automotive reputation management processes must really be locked down.

What I also see is that if you are not in the top spots for organic search, you will get crushed by this new design and experience significantly less clicks.

What I also would expect is that the Google Ads on the right side will receive less clicks. There is too much activity front and center that brings the consumers eye to the maps region. So this will also be a game changer for Adwords bidding.

Your Homework

Get your Google Maps listings updated with photos, videos, coupons, and make sure you have the geo-targeting set correctly. If this is a look at the future, the more complete and compelling your Google Maps listing is, the more calls and clicks you will receive.

If you need help, ask below or call: 732.450.8200.

A survey was created to poll the members of the automotive community on topics pertaining to their membership and participation in online communities.  If you have not taken the survey, take 1 minute to cast your votes.  Your opinion matters!

Vote Here:  Automotive Community Survey

Communities & Their Writers

Recognizing that each automotive community offers its own benefits, what makes up each community is passionate writers, contributors, and the quality of engagement. 

There are so many people in this community as well as others that share ideas and advice without looking for reward.  They are passionate about the automotive industry and they have a servant's attitude. 

We need more of these members. It is time that you recognize the people and topics that you enjoy the most.  It is healthy for our industry to recognize and reward those that serve.

Survey Data

For example, from approximately 200 responses to date, members indicated that having more articles on "Measuring the ROI on Digital Marketing Strategies" would be strongly welcomed.

What is discouraging, that with all the dealers in the United States and Canada, how few participate actively online.  I looks like less than 25% of car dealers are actively involved in online communities and that needs to change.

In order to improve the quality of engagement and content we need you to vote and then we need you to email the survey link to:

1. Members of your dealership
2. Members of your 20 Group
3. Friends in the industry

The survey is actively being promoted on ADM, DealerRefresh, Dealer Elite, ISM and on social media websites.  We need to get a large cross-section of automotive professionals that utilize these communities to vote.

Survey Closing Date

The survey data will be summarized on October 12, 2010 so please take a moment to vote today and pass the word. 

The survey is NOT about which community get the most votes.  The survey is about how you spend your time online, who you are reading, and your opinion on the quality of content and engagement.

I seek to serve and grow the DrivingSales.com community and I know you want to see this community to grow as well.  We need you to vote and speak up.

Vote Here:  Automotive Community Survey

A survey was created to poll the members of the automotive community on topics pertaining to their membership and participation in online communities.  If you have not taken the survey, take 1 minute to cast your votes.  Your opinion matters!

Vote Here:  Automotive Community Survey

Communities & Their Writers

Recognizing that each automotive community offers its own benefits, what makes up each community is passionate writers, contributors, and the quality of engagement. 

There are so many people in this community as well as others that share ideas and advice without looking for reward.  They are passionate about the automotive industry and they have a servant's attitude. 

We need more of these members. It is time that you recognize the people and topics that you enjoy the most.  It is healthy for our industry to recognize and reward those that serve.

Survey Data

For example, from approximately 200 responses to date, members indicated that having more articles on "Measuring the ROI on Digital Marketing Strategies" would be strongly welcomed.

What is discouraging, that with all the dealers in the United States and Canada, how few participate actively online.  I looks like less than 25% of car dealers are actively involved in online communities and that needs to change.

In order to improve the quality of engagement and content we need you to vote and then we need you to email the survey link to:

1. Members of your dealership
2. Members of your 20 Group
3. Friends in the industry

The survey is actively being promoted on ADM, DealerRefresh, Dealer Elite, ISM and on social media websites.  We need to get a large cross-section of automotive professionals that utilize these communities to vote.

Survey Closing Date

The survey data will be summarized on October 12, 2010 so please take a moment to vote today and pass the word. 

The survey is NOT about which community get the most votes.  The survey is about how you spend your time online, who you are reading, and your opinion on the quality of content and engagement.

I seek to serve and grow the DrivingSales.com community and I know you want to see this community to grow as well.  We need you to vote and speak up.

Vote Here:  Automotive Community Survey