PCG Consulting Inc
Google Publishes A Case Study on Jack Wilson Chevrolet
By Brian Pasch
It is common for dealers to ask me at workshops: "What else could I be doing to sell more cars?"
One of the most exciting areas of opportunity is Facebook advertising when it leverages Polk vehicle ownership data and Google's new Wildfire platform.
Wildfire is an agency level software platform that creates device independent (responsive) pages that can be used in social media engagement, contests, and promotions.
Facebook advertising is not new however Wildfire and Polk data take social media advertising to the next level.
Google Case Study Published
PCG Digital Marketing is please to be the first automotive marketing agency to have an official case study published by Google involving their Wildfire platform. Jack Wilson Chevrolet is using PCG's social media team to increase their website traffic, social media engagement, and car sales.
PCG SocialFire product is built on the Google Wildfire platform and gives dealers the personalized attention of our social media team. Take a minute to download a copy of the Google Case Study with Jack Wilson Chevrolet. Google Case Study
Why Is Wildfire Needed?
Dealers who do not have responsive website design are dissappointing consumers on Facebook because their custom content is often not visible on a mobile device. Over 50% of Facebook engagement (i.e. clicks) are from mobile devices. I have written about this in the past and it is very important. Dealers need to push their vendors to deliver a better mobile website experience.
Wildfire also provides templates to create better engagement pages and data capture forms. The social media analytics is also a strong benefit of using Wildfire so you can measure the impact of your investments in social media engagement. Overall, Wildfire gives agencies such as PCG the tools to supercharge a dealer's social media investment.
How Is Polk Data Working on Facebook?
In one statement: amazing. Dealers are familiar with using consumer vehicle ownership data for direct mail campaigns. Now we can use that same data to target LOCAL consumers on Facebook. The granularity of messaging to a target audience is producing great results.
In fact, we are finding cost per click (CPC) to be much less than similar campaigns on Adwords, and with much better results!
Social Media Advertising (SMA) is in its infancy and over the next year I will be sharing specific success stories and the campaigns that are working to sell more cars on Facebook!
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
PCG Consulting Inc
Google Publishes A Case Study on Jack Wilson Chevrolet
By Brian Pasch
It is common for dealers to ask me at workshops: "What else could I be doing to sell more cars?"
One of the most exciting areas of opportunity is Facebook advertising when it leverages Polk vehicle ownership data and Google's new Wildfire platform.
Wildfire is an agency level software platform that creates device independent (responsive) pages that can be used in social media engagement, contests, and promotions.
Facebook advertising is not new however Wildfire and Polk data take social media advertising to the next level.
Google Case Study Published
PCG Digital Marketing is please to be the first automotive marketing agency to have an official case study published by Google involving their Wildfire platform. Jack Wilson Chevrolet is using PCG's social media team to increase their website traffic, social media engagement, and car sales.
PCG SocialFire product is built on the Google Wildfire platform and gives dealers the personalized attention of our social media team. Take a minute to download a copy of the Google Case Study with Jack Wilson Chevrolet. Google Case Study
Why Is Wildfire Needed?
Dealers who do not have responsive website design are dissappointing consumers on Facebook because their custom content is often not visible on a mobile device. Over 50% of Facebook engagement (i.e. clicks) are from mobile devices. I have written about this in the past and it is very important. Dealers need to push their vendors to deliver a better mobile website experience.
Wildfire also provides templates to create better engagement pages and data capture forms. The social media analytics is also a strong benefit of using Wildfire so you can measure the impact of your investments in social media engagement. Overall, Wildfire gives agencies such as PCG the tools to supercharge a dealer's social media investment.
How Is Polk Data Working on Facebook?
In one statement: amazing. Dealers are familiar with using consumer vehicle ownership data for direct mail campaigns. Now we can use that same data to target LOCAL consumers on Facebook. The granularity of messaging to a target audience is producing great results.
In fact, we are finding cost per click (CPC) to be much less than similar campaigns on Adwords, and with much better results!
Social Media Advertising (SMA) is in its infancy and over the next year I will be sharing specific success stories and the campaigns that are working to sell more cars on Facebook!
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
No Comments
PCG Consulting Inc
Dealertrack Technology to Purchase AutoAccelerator CRM
By Brian Pasch
Breaking News - Dealertrack Technologies has announced their intent to purchase AutoAccelerator CRM.
This acquisition moves helps to complete their enterprise solutions for car dealers and also supports the observations made in the recent DrivingSales exclusive post "The Six Horsemen of Automotive Innovation."
If you have not read the "horsemen" post, take the time today!
According to Briefing.com "Total consideration for the Transaction is expected to be approximately $13.0 million in cash plus $1.75 million in additional consideration to be paid to the shareholders in 18 months, subject to the achievement of certain milestones."
I had the opportunity to review the AutoAccelerator CRM product at NADA and I was impressed with their mobile CRM solutions. Congratulations to their team and this new marriage!
So what does this mean for the smaller CRM companies on the dance floor waiting to get invited to the acquisition party? Who will be next in the consolidation story of "best of breed" automotive solutions?
Share your thoughts here on DrivingSales.com
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
1 Comment
Jubaloo
I had heard this was going to happen soon, but not the CRM that I had been told about. Congrats, now the work begins to integrate the software.
PCG Consulting Inc
Dealertrack Technology to Purchase AutoAccelerator CRM
By Brian Pasch
Breaking News - Dealertrack Technologies has announced their intent to purchase AutoAccelerator CRM.
This acquisition moves helps to complete their enterprise solutions for car dealers and also supports the observations made in the recent DrivingSales exclusive post "The Six Horsemen of Automotive Innovation."
If you have not read the "horsemen" post, take the time today!
According to Briefing.com "Total consideration for the Transaction is expected to be approximately $13.0 million in cash plus $1.75 million in additional consideration to be paid to the shareholders in 18 months, subject to the achievement of certain milestones."
I had the opportunity to review the AutoAccelerator CRM product at NADA and I was impressed with their mobile CRM solutions. Congratulations to their team and this new marriage!
So what does this mean for the smaller CRM companies on the dance floor waiting to get invited to the acquisition party? Who will be next in the consolidation story of "best of breed" automotive solutions?
Share your thoughts here on DrivingSales.com
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
1 Comment
Jubaloo
I had heard this was going to happen soon, but not the CRM that I had been told about. Congrats, now the work begins to integrate the software.
PCG Consulting Inc
An Immediate Fix To Your Mobile Website Problem You Don't Know About
by Brian Pasch
I decided to document examples of the current traffic distribution to car dealership websites based on device types; desktop, mobile, and tablet.
The few examples I have included in this article show that there are great variations in device utilization as seen by Google Analytics.
This variance can also be influenced by the amount of mobile advertising that a dealer is utilizing.
Dealers must take a minute to inspect the traffic patterns for their own website because of a recent warning issued by Google. The warning was very clear regarding flawed mobile redirects to a mobile website that does not have the content indexed by Google from the dealer's desktop website.
Google is promising our industry that it will stop showing organic listings on a mobile device if that page content is not available on a mobile device. For some dealers, over 40% of their visitors are coming from a mobile (iOS or Android dominate) device and NOT a tablet.
Is Your Website Provider Putting Your Mobile SEO at Risk?
I estimate that over 80% of the dealership website platforms being utilized today are putting dealers at risk of the mobile penalty. Here is how you can test if your website is not compliant with Google's guidelines, as published in this recent blog post.
- Go to a custom page on your website and copy the URL down and email yourself that page link. If you don't know what a custom page is, pick your Staff page.
- Open up that email on your mobile phone. I used an iPhone for this example.
- Click on the link in the email and see if you are redirected to the home page of your mobile device.
Here is the test demonstrated in pictures. I selected the staff page at Irvine BMW and highlighted the URL, shown in the red box, and emailed that link to myself.
I open up the email on my iPhone and click on the link, and this is what happens:
I am redirected to the mobile home page and NOT the staff page. This is the redirection problem that Google is talking about. For most car dealers 95% of their website pages that are accessed via a link or organic search on a mobile device are being redirected to the mobile homepage.
This is not a good experience for users of Google search. As a result, Google will stop offering your internal website pages in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) on mobile devices. Can you afford that??
This is an urgent matter that needs to be fixed regardless of Google penalties. With some dealers experiencing 40+% of their visit from mobile devices, it is significantly limiting dealers on how they can share website pages on Twitter, Facebook, emails, newsletters, etc. When mobile device users are clicking shared links they are getting disappointed and are dropped to a website that often DOES NOT have the information that was shared.
Most of you doing this test will see the same type of pattern I illustrated above, which Google says will put your dealership at RISK for losing mobile organic search results when a consumer searches Google on a mobile device.
Let me say that this is an industry problem, and not just one isolated vendor. I'm not picking on any one vendor but this is a discussion that must be started. Automotive website providers and other major industries have simply UNDERESTIMATED the preparation needed to meet the needs of mobile shoppers.
Website platform providers are also limited by third-party software plugins to websites that can not "adapt" to different device types. Our entire industry must start a conversion on standard and solutions for mobile shoppers. Think about the integration of software that is needed from companies like Black Book, CarFax, PureCars, PaymentDriver, Chat Providers, Credit Application vendors, etc. on dealership websites. It is not a simple task.
A Quick Fix Exists
The only three website vendors on the market that seem to have solved this problem in a PRODUCTION version of their websites are Dominion Dealer Solutions , Dealer eProcess, and String Automotive. Any vendors that have a production version that I am not aware of, should send me a link so I can update this article with your company name.
Until your vendor provides a device independent website platform that displays content regardless of what device the consumer is using to research cars, there is a solution. It is actually very simple and it should not take website providers long to implement.
Short Term Cure: Only redirect consumers to the mobile website if they are coming to your home page directly and are on a mobile device. All other internal pages that might be indexed in Google, should NOT be sent to the home page of the mobile device which causes a penalty to occur. Take the mobile user to the desktop version of the page.
Since all mobile websites have pages for new and used car vehicle searches, the website provider could also provide manual redirects for these popular pages that are exactly found on the mobile site.
Website providers MUST also STOP using a popup error message box that is shown to mobile users when the page doesn't exist.
An example is shown on the right.
Not only does this not fix the Google redirect penalty but it also inflates mobile traffic back to the main website.
A Long Term Solution Is Coming
It will not be until later this year or in Q1 of 2014 that the major website providers will have a full rollout of responsive or adaptive website platforms for the dealer community.
For example, Dealer.com showcased their solution at NADA this year but the initial BETA testing is just starting in select markets. I will also be getting an update from Cobalt this coming week on their plans for an upgraded mobile experience, so I will keep you posted.
Until a permanent solution is implemented, I would contact your website provider and insist that you only want selective redirects. It can be only your website home page and it could also be expanded to include the New Vehicle and Used Car Search tools, which are on all mobile websites.
The redirect rule: Only pages that have exact matches on the mobile site should be redirected!
If you found this article helpful, please share it with your friends in the automotive community and encourage them to take action. Our industry MUST stop disappointing and confusing consumers who choose to use their mobile device to shop for a car.
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
15 Comments
DealerFire
Few things to note here: 1. Google is NOT planning on punishing entire domains because of pages that do not have a 1 to 1 redirect match to a mobile. What it might do is decide to not rank that one particular page that does not redirect perfectly. So having your team listing not show up is not good, but will not kill your mobile presence. 2. It IS possible to have a redirect system in place without going responsive or resorting to not redirecting at all. 3. While I'm just as excited about responsive as anyone - responsive is not currently the only or even necessarily the best option (currently). Just ask Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Best Buy...
PCG Consulting Inc
Aaron, you are correct that the main domain will still show in mobile organic but keep in mind that dealers have been making dozens, of custom landing pages for SEO purposes. These pages focus on long tail searches and convert very well with shoppers. All of these pages, if not mapped correctly, will NOT appear in mobile search. The staff page was just an example that every dealer could test but all specials pages, model pages, testimonial pages, geo-targeted pages, if not mapped will likely not be shown. That is the big issue, not the indexing of the home page. As I mentioned, redirecting top matches pages is what dealers should do but you can't redirect to a page that doesn't exist on the mobile site. Responsive is most likely not going to be the standard for car dealers. Adaptive is mots likely going to be the way platforms can map pages to device types and still have compatible plugins from third parties. Dealer.com's upcoming release allow you to build a website page and see it on all three devices. Then when you publish it publishes the content and creates the mapping redirects automatically.
DealerFire
You need to look at mobile usage too. I think it will grow, but currently the majority of searches on mobile are branded and have local intent..."Dealer name" "OEM Dealer CIty" much of which *should* be captured by core pages which should be easy to have mobile counterparts. I do agree that responsive will be tough when taking into account all the 3rd party plugins - but it's something that needs to evolve or go as well. Most of this is conversation is based on theory though... when it comes to practice I'm used to working with sites that have already had a dynamic redirect system in place for months. :)
Shawnee Mission Kia
Is this redirect issue confined to custom pages? I'd prefer to engage here for the answer rather than test directly at this moment. We have a Dealer.com site.
PCG Consulting Inc
Jim, you just have to test any non-home page page you have that is indexing well in google organic search that is driving traffic to your website. Send that link to your email address and see how it displays on your phone. You can get your top 20 entrance pages, from Google Analytics.
PCG Consulting Inc
Jim Here is what I just did. I went into Analytics, Under Content, and looked at the top landing pages. This was a Cobalt site I checked. For this dealer's top landing pages, liked vehicle searches, Hours & Directions, Contact Us, Cobalt had perfectly mapped a redirect to the appropriate page on their mobile site. However, this dealer had a landing page for their Body Shop, and when I tested that it did the redirect to the mobile home page, which is what this article is about. So it looks that all the custom content that you create, with SEO goals in mind, or merchandising goals like Fixed Ops, you will need to contact your website provider and have them build manual redirects and equivalent pages on the mobile site. I am not sure how flexible mobile sites are, so that will vary on a vendor by vendor basis. It is a big pain in the butt but you either have to redirect all your custom pages manually and build mobile pages or take the path I recommended and only redirect for a few popular pages that have equivalent pages on the mobile site.
Hawkins Chevrolet
I have a DealerOn website. It appears that the two custom pages I tested go to the same URL as a regular browser. However, when I go to inventory searches...it goes to a URL that has "mobi" in the URL string and looks different than a standard desktop browser. Do you suppose that some websites only "mobile optimize" relevant pages? Tom Hawkins
DealerTeamwork LLC
Brian, Thanks for bringing this to the surface. The main point to consider is the fact that there are now separate rules, or considerations at the very least, for your mobile properties. And, this should also be a huge wake up call for everyone. If Google is creating these standards for mobile search listings then your mobile site needs to start getting a portion of your attention as well.
Dominion Dealer Solutions
Great discussion on Responsive vs. other approaches. I have read a ton on the subject, and always enjoy the lively discussions around this technology. I'm also biased since we chose to blaze the trails with Responsive Web Design (RWD). The challenge for big box eCommerce sites (Amazon, Best-Buy, Walmart, etc.) and other established players (automotive website providers for instance), is the absolutely massive amount of rework involved in rebuilding your entire website platform. This involves not only rebuilding the shopper side (designs, tools) but also the backend CMS since dealers also want to control a Responsive site from a Responsive tool. Of course for a dealer who chooses a Responsive website provider, it is as easy as switching to any website platform. It is the provider that must do the heavy lifting. When a website provider goes from non-Responsive to RWD there is a huge upfront investment compared to most device-specific solutions. The pay-off for website providers is there but it comes later. It comes with easier maintenance and a reduced change for human error when making changes to the site. At Dominion, the decision 3 years ago to switch to Responsive was easy, since we were rebuilding the web platform from scratch. I think most providers would agree, if they could start over, it would be a hard argument not to go Responsive. From a dealer's perspective it is a no-brainer, push the Easy Button. One site to maintain, one site for Google to index, sophistication through simplicity.
Cobalt
The argument must also be made from the viewpoint of the USER and what is best for their experience, NOT just the dealer. After all, if the user is presented with a bad "desktop" experienced compressed into a mobile screen all for the purpose of getting them to ANY of your sites, you're shooting yourself in the foot. How aggrivating is it, sitting at a stoplight, looking for a mobile page on your phone with limited time. You want a very clear, big visible link to Hours and Directions. All you want to do is get there, you don't care about the site's content, their staff pages, their Community Service page... (these are all well and good for the shopper sitting at home or in a coffee shop with a big screen and time to spare). But a mobile user is in an ENTIRELY different shopping experience, with ENTIRELY different goals probably 90% of the time. We are designing for USERS, not DEVICES (see https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples#seventh). Handled well, Responsive is a good end-all-be-all solution IF the right components are retained when 'snapping down' - but let's not sacrifice User Experience for SEO. There needs to be a balance. I think Brian is onto something with his Short Term Solution, but I'd tweak it a bit: Rather than "Only redirect consumers to the mobile website if they are coming to your home page directly and are on a mobile device", I'd suggest you redirect them to the mobile Homepage directly IF they click on the homepage link (via a mobile device), to the mobile H&Ds page directly (if they click on that one), etc. If you can't get that granular, redirect any mobile visitor to your mobile homepage and have the available navigation points be few and intentional (keeping in mind the limited time and potential high-frustration level of the mobile audience). AS AN ALTERNATIVE, if we could very clearly provide a "view mobile version of this page" link prominently at the top of the site WHEN VIEWED by a mobile device, that would be a great solution to the problem as well. Hopefully we can provide this level of usability to our customers with relatively little effort. Ideally, Specifically-Mobile versions of sites should NOT INCLUDE every page on your desktop sitemap until your site is responsive (and then, the mobile and desktop sites are one and the same). Your sites should not compete with one another, but rather compliment the user experience, because in the end, THAT's what determines the success of your site. Why would you confuse your customers with multiple, segmented and frustrating entrances to your physical store? What kinds of complaints and frustrations do you think you'd hear face-to-face? I'm not speaking from the web-providers' standpoints and saying I can make this happen overnight, but I AM speaking as an advocate for the user. While the perfect solution isn't available yet, that doesn't hurt the potential idea generation that we need to have in this industry. Rob Christianson Sr. User Experience Designer
ADP Digital Marketing/Cobalt
Great post Brian! At Cobalt, we did an analysis of dealership mobile website traffic in our network. All top landing pages have a mobile optimized page. However, to align with Google’s latest recommendation and as you mentioned above, for the small traffic that we have seen who want to access content that is not mobile optimized, we will be redirecting consumers to the desktop version. This update effort has already begun and should be completed this summer. In the long term, we will be providing our dealerships with ‘Responsive’ website design.
Dealer Inspire
Brian, thanks for shedding light on this important issue. Are you familiar with Dealer Inspire? We're an automotive platform that provides responsive design for all of our custom built automotive websites. You can learn more / request a demo at at www.dealerinspire.com.
PCG Consulting Inc
Katie I am not familiar with Dealer Inspire but I would love to get a demo of your technology. You can call my office and schedule a demo with Carrie to get on my schedule. 732.450.8200.
PCG Consulting Inc
Katie I visited your website and checked out one of your customer testimonials: http://www.riverviewford.com The responsive website design to work very nicely. The SEO of this "bell cow" dealership website was average at best, so my friendly recommendation is that if you are going to tout the excellence of your websites and Advanced SEO, you should make sure your case studies have better on-page SEO in place.
PCG Consulting Inc
An Immediate Fix To Your Mobile Website Problem You Don't Know About
by Brian Pasch
I decided to document examples of the current traffic distribution to car dealership websites based on device types; desktop, mobile, and tablet.
The few examples I have included in this article show that there are great variations in device utilization as seen by Google Analytics.
This variance can also be influenced by the amount of mobile advertising that a dealer is utilizing.
Dealers must take a minute to inspect the traffic patterns for their own website because of a recent warning issued by Google. The warning was very clear regarding flawed mobile redirects to a mobile website that does not have the content indexed by Google from the dealer's desktop website.
Google is promising our industry that it will stop showing organic listings on a mobile device if that page content is not available on a mobile device. For some dealers, over 40% of their visitors are coming from a mobile (iOS or Android dominate) device and NOT a tablet.
Is Your Website Provider Putting Your Mobile SEO at Risk?
I estimate that over 80% of the dealership website platforms being utilized today are putting dealers at risk of the mobile penalty. Here is how you can test if your website is not compliant with Google's guidelines, as published in this recent blog post.
- Go to a custom page on your website and copy the URL down and email yourself that page link. If you don't know what a custom page is, pick your Staff page.
- Open up that email on your mobile phone. I used an iPhone for this example.
- Click on the link in the email and see if you are redirected to the home page of your mobile device.
Here is the test demonstrated in pictures. I selected the staff page at Irvine BMW and highlighted the URL, shown in the red box, and emailed that link to myself.
I open up the email on my iPhone and click on the link, and this is what happens:
I am redirected to the mobile home page and NOT the staff page. This is the redirection problem that Google is talking about. For most car dealers 95% of their website pages that are accessed via a link or organic search on a mobile device are being redirected to the mobile homepage.
This is not a good experience for users of Google search. As a result, Google will stop offering your internal website pages in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) on mobile devices. Can you afford that??
This is an urgent matter that needs to be fixed regardless of Google penalties. With some dealers experiencing 40+% of their visit from mobile devices, it is significantly limiting dealers on how they can share website pages on Twitter, Facebook, emails, newsletters, etc. When mobile device users are clicking shared links they are getting disappointed and are dropped to a website that often DOES NOT have the information that was shared.
Most of you doing this test will see the same type of pattern I illustrated above, which Google says will put your dealership at RISK for losing mobile organic search results when a consumer searches Google on a mobile device.
Let me say that this is an industry problem, and not just one isolated vendor. I'm not picking on any one vendor but this is a discussion that must be started. Automotive website providers and other major industries have simply UNDERESTIMATED the preparation needed to meet the needs of mobile shoppers.
Website platform providers are also limited by third-party software plugins to websites that can not "adapt" to different device types. Our entire industry must start a conversion on standard and solutions for mobile shoppers. Think about the integration of software that is needed from companies like Black Book, CarFax, PureCars, PaymentDriver, Chat Providers, Credit Application vendors, etc. on dealership websites. It is not a simple task.
A Quick Fix Exists
The only three website vendors on the market that seem to have solved this problem in a PRODUCTION version of their websites are Dominion Dealer Solutions , Dealer eProcess, and String Automotive. Any vendors that have a production version that I am not aware of, should send me a link so I can update this article with your company name.
Until your vendor provides a device independent website platform that displays content regardless of what device the consumer is using to research cars, there is a solution. It is actually very simple and it should not take website providers long to implement.
Short Term Cure: Only redirect consumers to the mobile website if they are coming to your home page directly and are on a mobile device. All other internal pages that might be indexed in Google, should NOT be sent to the home page of the mobile device which causes a penalty to occur. Take the mobile user to the desktop version of the page.
Since all mobile websites have pages for new and used car vehicle searches, the website provider could also provide manual redirects for these popular pages that are exactly found on the mobile site.
Website providers MUST also STOP using a popup error message box that is shown to mobile users when the page doesn't exist.
An example is shown on the right.
Not only does this not fix the Google redirect penalty but it also inflates mobile traffic back to the main website.
A Long Term Solution Is Coming
It will not be until later this year or in Q1 of 2014 that the major website providers will have a full rollout of responsive or adaptive website platforms for the dealer community.
For example, Dealer.com showcased their solution at NADA this year but the initial BETA testing is just starting in select markets. I will also be getting an update from Cobalt this coming week on their plans for an upgraded mobile experience, so I will keep you posted.
Until a permanent solution is implemented, I would contact your website provider and insist that you only want selective redirects. It can be only your website home page and it could also be expanded to include the New Vehicle and Used Car Search tools, which are on all mobile websites.
The redirect rule: Only pages that have exact matches on the mobile site should be redirected!
If you found this article helpful, please share it with your friends in the automotive community and encourage them to take action. Our industry MUST stop disappointing and confusing consumers who choose to use their mobile device to shop for a car.
Brian
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
Google
15 Comments
DealerFire
Few things to note here: 1. Google is NOT planning on punishing entire domains because of pages that do not have a 1 to 1 redirect match to a mobile. What it might do is decide to not rank that one particular page that does not redirect perfectly. So having your team listing not show up is not good, but will not kill your mobile presence. 2. It IS possible to have a redirect system in place without going responsive or resorting to not redirecting at all. 3. While I'm just as excited about responsive as anyone - responsive is not currently the only or even necessarily the best option (currently). Just ask Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Best Buy...
PCG Consulting Inc
Aaron, you are correct that the main domain will still show in mobile organic but keep in mind that dealers have been making dozens, of custom landing pages for SEO purposes. These pages focus on long tail searches and convert very well with shoppers. All of these pages, if not mapped correctly, will NOT appear in mobile search. The staff page was just an example that every dealer could test but all specials pages, model pages, testimonial pages, geo-targeted pages, if not mapped will likely not be shown. That is the big issue, not the indexing of the home page. As I mentioned, redirecting top matches pages is what dealers should do but you can't redirect to a page that doesn't exist on the mobile site. Responsive is most likely not going to be the standard for car dealers. Adaptive is mots likely going to be the way platforms can map pages to device types and still have compatible plugins from third parties. Dealer.com's upcoming release allow you to build a website page and see it on all three devices. Then when you publish it publishes the content and creates the mapping redirects automatically.
DealerFire
You need to look at mobile usage too. I think it will grow, but currently the majority of searches on mobile are branded and have local intent..."Dealer name" "OEM Dealer CIty" much of which *should* be captured by core pages which should be easy to have mobile counterparts. I do agree that responsive will be tough when taking into account all the 3rd party plugins - but it's something that needs to evolve or go as well. Most of this is conversation is based on theory though... when it comes to practice I'm used to working with sites that have already had a dynamic redirect system in place for months. :)
Shawnee Mission Kia
Is this redirect issue confined to custom pages? I'd prefer to engage here for the answer rather than test directly at this moment. We have a Dealer.com site.
PCG Consulting Inc
Jim, you just have to test any non-home page page you have that is indexing well in google organic search that is driving traffic to your website. Send that link to your email address and see how it displays on your phone. You can get your top 20 entrance pages, from Google Analytics.
PCG Consulting Inc
Jim Here is what I just did. I went into Analytics, Under Content, and looked at the top landing pages. This was a Cobalt site I checked. For this dealer's top landing pages, liked vehicle searches, Hours & Directions, Contact Us, Cobalt had perfectly mapped a redirect to the appropriate page on their mobile site. However, this dealer had a landing page for their Body Shop, and when I tested that it did the redirect to the mobile home page, which is what this article is about. So it looks that all the custom content that you create, with SEO goals in mind, or merchandising goals like Fixed Ops, you will need to contact your website provider and have them build manual redirects and equivalent pages on the mobile site. I am not sure how flexible mobile sites are, so that will vary on a vendor by vendor basis. It is a big pain in the butt but you either have to redirect all your custom pages manually and build mobile pages or take the path I recommended and only redirect for a few popular pages that have equivalent pages on the mobile site.
Hawkins Chevrolet
I have a DealerOn website. It appears that the two custom pages I tested go to the same URL as a regular browser. However, when I go to inventory searches...it goes to a URL that has "mobi" in the URL string and looks different than a standard desktop browser. Do you suppose that some websites only "mobile optimize" relevant pages? Tom Hawkins
DealerTeamwork LLC
Brian, Thanks for bringing this to the surface. The main point to consider is the fact that there are now separate rules, or considerations at the very least, for your mobile properties. And, this should also be a huge wake up call for everyone. If Google is creating these standards for mobile search listings then your mobile site needs to start getting a portion of your attention as well.
Dominion Dealer Solutions
Great discussion on Responsive vs. other approaches. I have read a ton on the subject, and always enjoy the lively discussions around this technology. I'm also biased since we chose to blaze the trails with Responsive Web Design (RWD). The challenge for big box eCommerce sites (Amazon, Best-Buy, Walmart, etc.) and other established players (automotive website providers for instance), is the absolutely massive amount of rework involved in rebuilding your entire website platform. This involves not only rebuilding the shopper side (designs, tools) but also the backend CMS since dealers also want to control a Responsive site from a Responsive tool. Of course for a dealer who chooses a Responsive website provider, it is as easy as switching to any website platform. It is the provider that must do the heavy lifting. When a website provider goes from non-Responsive to RWD there is a huge upfront investment compared to most device-specific solutions. The pay-off for website providers is there but it comes later. It comes with easier maintenance and a reduced change for human error when making changes to the site. At Dominion, the decision 3 years ago to switch to Responsive was easy, since we were rebuilding the web platform from scratch. I think most providers would agree, if they could start over, it would be a hard argument not to go Responsive. From a dealer's perspective it is a no-brainer, push the Easy Button. One site to maintain, one site for Google to index, sophistication through simplicity.
Cobalt
The argument must also be made from the viewpoint of the USER and what is best for their experience, NOT just the dealer. After all, if the user is presented with a bad "desktop" experienced compressed into a mobile screen all for the purpose of getting them to ANY of your sites, you're shooting yourself in the foot. How aggrivating is it, sitting at a stoplight, looking for a mobile page on your phone with limited time. You want a very clear, big visible link to Hours and Directions. All you want to do is get there, you don't care about the site's content, their staff pages, their Community Service page... (these are all well and good for the shopper sitting at home or in a coffee shop with a big screen and time to spare). But a mobile user is in an ENTIRELY different shopping experience, with ENTIRELY different goals probably 90% of the time. We are designing for USERS, not DEVICES (see https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples#seventh). Handled well, Responsive is a good end-all-be-all solution IF the right components are retained when 'snapping down' - but let's not sacrifice User Experience for SEO. There needs to be a balance. I think Brian is onto something with his Short Term Solution, but I'd tweak it a bit: Rather than "Only redirect consumers to the mobile website if they are coming to your home page directly and are on a mobile device", I'd suggest you redirect them to the mobile Homepage directly IF they click on the homepage link (via a mobile device), to the mobile H&Ds page directly (if they click on that one), etc. If you can't get that granular, redirect any mobile visitor to your mobile homepage and have the available navigation points be few and intentional (keeping in mind the limited time and potential high-frustration level of the mobile audience). AS AN ALTERNATIVE, if we could very clearly provide a "view mobile version of this page" link prominently at the top of the site WHEN VIEWED by a mobile device, that would be a great solution to the problem as well. Hopefully we can provide this level of usability to our customers with relatively little effort. Ideally, Specifically-Mobile versions of sites should NOT INCLUDE every page on your desktop sitemap until your site is responsive (and then, the mobile and desktop sites are one and the same). Your sites should not compete with one another, but rather compliment the user experience, because in the end, THAT's what determines the success of your site. Why would you confuse your customers with multiple, segmented and frustrating entrances to your physical store? What kinds of complaints and frustrations do you think you'd hear face-to-face? I'm not speaking from the web-providers' standpoints and saying I can make this happen overnight, but I AM speaking as an advocate for the user. While the perfect solution isn't available yet, that doesn't hurt the potential idea generation that we need to have in this industry. Rob Christianson Sr. User Experience Designer
ADP Digital Marketing/Cobalt
Great post Brian! At Cobalt, we did an analysis of dealership mobile website traffic in our network. All top landing pages have a mobile optimized page. However, to align with Google’s latest recommendation and as you mentioned above, for the small traffic that we have seen who want to access content that is not mobile optimized, we will be redirecting consumers to the desktop version. This update effort has already begun and should be completed this summer. In the long term, we will be providing our dealerships with ‘Responsive’ website design.
Dealer Inspire
Brian, thanks for shedding light on this important issue. Are you familiar with Dealer Inspire? We're an automotive platform that provides responsive design for all of our custom built automotive websites. You can learn more / request a demo at at www.dealerinspire.com.
PCG Consulting Inc
Katie I am not familiar with Dealer Inspire but I would love to get a demo of your technology. You can call my office and schedule a demo with Carrie to get on my schedule. 732.450.8200.
PCG Consulting Inc
Katie I visited your website and checked out one of your customer testimonials: http://www.riverviewford.com The responsive website design to work very nicely. The SEO of this "bell cow" dealership website was average at best, so my friendly recommendation is that if you are going to tout the excellence of your websites and Advanced SEO, you should make sure your case studies have better on-page SEO in place.
PCG Consulting Inc
VinSolutions Purchases Haystak Digital Marketing
By Brian Pasch
Haystak Digital Marketing is now part of the Autotrader family of companies serving car dealers. The announcement further enhances the products that Autotrader can offer dealers to merchandise and advertise their inventory and dealership services. In recent years other acquisitions have included Kelley Blue Book, vAuto, and VinSolutions.
Haystak Digital Marketing was spun out of Moore & Scarry a few years ago. Moore & Scarry is an full service advertising agency with headquarters in Ft Myers Florida. According to the official press release, VinSolutions is the purchaser.
The search engine market place is crowded with well established providers, so what’s different? Haystak Digital Marketing in recent years has stormed the automotive marketplace offering car dealers VIN level pay-per-click advertising, regardless of website platform dealers use to run their business.
Automated Adwords campaigns based on in-stock inventory is not a new concept. Dealer.com and Cobalt have been offering this service to dealers for years however both companies only offer this integration for dealers on their website platform. VIN-level advertising allows car dealers to more effectively advertise their used cars on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
For example, a Ford dealer who has a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado in stock, can make sure local shoppers searching for a 2011 Silverado know that their local Ford dealer has a pristine truck in stock and priced to sell. The secret sauce is knowing how to bundle vehicles into campaigns and using intelligence to adjust bid management strategies.
These capabilities are outside the realm of individuals that manage their own search budgets. Google Adwords recently announced that VIN-LEVEL advertising is available directly from Adwords but it does not have the same level of sophistication offered by the Haystak platform.
Transparency In Digital Advertising ROI
What has made Haystak a household name is that their advertising services are platform independent and that they offer a higher level of transparency on how the dealer’s budget is spent. Haystak has partnered with many automotive website platform companies to integrate Adwords campaigns with replaceable phone numbers to track calls generated by Adwords investments.
Dealers using the Haystak platform have their own login which can show them their advertising investments and the performance of their ad groups. In the example below, an executive level report will show the basic ROI of their investments for the past 30 days.
This type of report is perfect for dealership executives who do not want to get into the details of ad management. Detailed reports are also available from the backend tools provided by dealers, in addition to monthly reports emailed to Haystak clients. 
Cobalt is the only major website platform that has decided not to allow Haystak to integrate their campaigns with Cobalt website phone tracking. Dealer.com, who normally does not allow third parties to leverage their replaceable phone number technology, was obliged to allow Haystak to run on their platform because of the Chrysler PAP program. Both Haystak and Dealer.com are certified to offer Chrysler dealers co-op funded advertising solutions.
The Haystak Digital Marketing platform competes with Dealer.com’s Total Control Dominator (TCD) platform, which was first to market for VIN-Level advertising for dealers. The TCD platform and Haystak Digital Marketing are both winners of the 2012 Automotive Website Award for digital advertising.
Haystak Is A Strategic Investment For VinSolutions Customers
The purchase of Haystak is a strategic investment for a number of reasons. First, Haystak is one of a handful of companies awarded Google SMB designation. As an SMB partner, Haystak benefits from high-level access to Google, which means that new product innovations are normally first disclosed with their best clients.
The second reason why Haystak is a strategic investment is that it gives VinSolutions customers a stronger digital advertising platform. Today, Haystak is a completely stand-alone product. In the future, I could see tighter integration into the VinSolutions platform on the product roadmap.
Currently, the VinSolutions platform has integrated direct marketing campaigns allowing dealers to design direct mail pieces and send mailers to targeted lists. Adding integrated Google Adwords, Bing, and Facebook campaigns would be a logical step allowing dealers to control their marketing strategies from within a single interface.
The Haystak platform will fall under VinSolutions product management teams. VinSolutions will benefit from having an integrated advertising dashboard similar to ones offered by Cobalt and Dealer.com. The integration would also help VinSolutions be more competitive for new OEM website endorsements.
What Is Next For Autotrader?
Is the acquisition spree for Autotrader.com coming to and end? Who do you think they should acquire next?
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
No Comments
PCG Consulting Inc
VinSolutions Purchases Haystak Digital Marketing
By Brian Pasch
Haystak Digital Marketing is now part of the Autotrader family of companies serving car dealers. The announcement further enhances the products that Autotrader can offer dealers to merchandise and advertise their inventory and dealership services. In recent years other acquisitions have included Kelley Blue Book, vAuto, and VinSolutions.
Haystak Digital Marketing was spun out of Moore & Scarry a few years ago. Moore & Scarry is an full service advertising agency with headquarters in Ft Myers Florida. According to the official press release, VinSolutions is the purchaser.
The search engine market place is crowded with well established providers, so what’s different? Haystak Digital Marketing in recent years has stormed the automotive marketplace offering car dealers VIN level pay-per-click advertising, regardless of website platform dealers use to run their business.
Automated Adwords campaigns based on in-stock inventory is not a new concept. Dealer.com and Cobalt have been offering this service to dealers for years however both companies only offer this integration for dealers on their website platform. VIN-level advertising allows car dealers to more effectively advertise their used cars on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
For example, a Ford dealer who has a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado in stock, can make sure local shoppers searching for a 2011 Silverado know that their local Ford dealer has a pristine truck in stock and priced to sell. The secret sauce is knowing how to bundle vehicles into campaigns and using intelligence to adjust bid management strategies.
These capabilities are outside the realm of individuals that manage their own search budgets. Google Adwords recently announced that VIN-LEVEL advertising is available directly from Adwords but it does not have the same level of sophistication offered by the Haystak platform.
Transparency In Digital Advertising ROI
What has made Haystak a household name is that their advertising services are platform independent and that they offer a higher level of transparency on how the dealer’s budget is spent. Haystak has partnered with many automotive website platform companies to integrate Adwords campaigns with replaceable phone numbers to track calls generated by Adwords investments.
Dealers using the Haystak platform have their own login which can show them their advertising investments and the performance of their ad groups. In the example below, an executive level report will show the basic ROI of their investments for the past 30 days.
This type of report is perfect for dealership executives who do not want to get into the details of ad management. Detailed reports are also available from the backend tools provided by dealers, in addition to monthly reports emailed to Haystak clients.
Cobalt is the only major website platform that has decided not to allow Haystak to integrate their campaigns with Cobalt website phone tracking. Dealer.com, who normally does not allow third parties to leverage their replaceable phone number technology, was obliged to allow Haystak to run on their platform because of the Chrysler PAP program. Both Haystak and Dealer.com are certified to offer Chrysler dealers co-op funded advertising solutions.
The Haystak Digital Marketing platform competes with Dealer.com’s Total Control Dominator (TCD) platform, which was first to market for VIN-Level advertising for dealers. The TCD platform and Haystak Digital Marketing are both winners of the 2012 Automotive Website Award for digital advertising.
Haystak Is A Strategic Investment For VinSolutions Customers
The purchase of Haystak is a strategic investment for a number of reasons. First, Haystak is one of a handful of companies awarded Google SMB designation. As an SMB partner, Haystak benefits from high-level access to Google, which means that new product innovations are normally first disclosed with their best clients.
The second reason why Haystak is a strategic investment is that it gives VinSolutions customers a stronger digital advertising platform. Today, Haystak is a completely stand-alone product. In the future, I could see tighter integration into the VinSolutions platform on the product roadmap.
Currently, the VinSolutions platform has integrated direct marketing campaigns allowing dealers to design direct mail pieces and send mailers to targeted lists. Adding integrated Google Adwords, Bing, and Facebook campaigns would be a logical step allowing dealers to control their marketing strategies from within a single interface.
The Haystak platform will fall under VinSolutions product management teams. VinSolutions will benefit from having an integrated advertising dashboard similar to ones offered by Cobalt and Dealer.com. The integration would also help VinSolutions be more competitive for new OEM website endorsements.
What Is Next For Autotrader?
Is the acquisition spree for Autotrader.com coming to and end? Who do you think they should acquire next?
Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Consulting
732.672.2356
No Comments
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