Also, Rand Fiskin has posted a video on this very topic, that if this is to come to pass, what marketing professionals can do. http://moz.com/blog/100-percent-keyword-not-provided-whiteboard-tuesday

I think this is a great idea on paper- however, quite impractical in the scope of a small business focused on selling cars -- I assume that's why you don't really give an actionable detail in your post. So I dug in a bit deeper and I just don't see a very active twitter community in St Augustine, FL (where your dealer example is located) While I think the concept is sound, you are deceiving readers into thinking they could actually achieve such followings as the mimic the exposure that press releases used to get a few years back. Could you show us 3 examples of your clients who have obtained dedicated and passionate followings to the point where social networks spread their messages on a regular basis? thanks

Social media traffic is rapidly on it's way to eclipsing search traffic. In many verticals this is already the case. Automotive at the dealer level has a long way to go in reaching this tipping point. The method is right its the how to that needs a lot of work in our industry.. Interesting read.. http://moz.com/blog/forget-googles-games-make-social-a-primary-traffic-source

Paul You are correct, the average dealer does not have investments in place in-house or with competent partners to fully leverage social media. However, it is the direction that they should be heading. We are in the early stages of social media investments at the Small Business Level but it is the direction that will yield positive local results. Training for dealership personnel is a good starting point.

Like that article I referenced it can't be reinforced enough. People are going to social to do searches instead of search engines. Social sites are the destination not collateral to be optimized in search. Now dealers need to be socially and search optimized with emphasis on the former.

We as dealers are customers of vendors. Sharing opinions on the experience with someone on a public forum is no different than expressing my dissatisfaction with the service I received at the Nike store last week. Can I sue every critic of my business to shut them up? Is Google then a potential defendant for collusion?

While Bryan is absolutely correct I fear that Brian is right and that many dealers will be fearful of posting how they really feel. This could be compounded by recent news reports about the NSA and the IRS. Then there is the legal counsel that almost every dealership or group has that will be advising dealer principals to restrict their employee's access to such sites.

Government can't do this, it's freedom of speech and still considered heresay in the court of law even if a human profile is attached to the degrading comments on such website article. If an official representative or spokesperson from a dealership slandered True Car untruthfully or unreasonably with the intention to cause financial, branding, ect harm, then True Car would have to pursue legal action against that dealership in civil court. In this case- The govt would have to prove xxx dealerships conspired in an organized manner and were actively campaigning to attract other dealerships in their effort to not use True Car services AND to use xxx Competitor services company instead.

As the American born son of Cuban immigrants this sounds like socialism to me. But not surprising considering how our government is acting lately. I agree that as a consumer I have the right to share my ideas about different vendors both good and bad. Should we as dealers start litigation against clients who leave negative reviews about our dealership on Google? I wonder, can I express my ideas here without being suspect with government? Hummm

Voicing one's opinions is not against the law whether you do it as an individual or as an employee of a company. Freedom of speech is a basic right that applies to every part of society including Business. It is however anti-competitive for businesses to agree not to do business with another company. this is on the list of anti-competitive practices according to Wikipedia- Refusal to deal, e.g., two companies agree not to use a certain vendor. I hope that Dealers are not intimidated by this and investigate what is and isn't an anti-competitive practice before they stop voicing their opinions. That would be a sad day for the Industry.

I've wanted to comment on this, but I'm scared.... Just kidding..... I think the timing is fascinating. I can't imagine that comments will dry up. However, I think it is constructive to be measured in any comment on a vendor. Some companies do start off on the wrong foot and make the needed changes. TrueCar isn't the only vendor that has had issues. At least they've changed somewhat. I am still paying attention..... I want partenr venfors that will bring in legit leads and sales, and if it is TrueCar down the road, that's fine by me.

NOTE: THE COMMENTS AND OPINIONS STATED HERE ARE STRICTLY MY OWN AND IN NO AFFILIATED WITH ANY COMPANY OR DEALERSHIP I AM ASSOCIATED WITH. Thank you Brian both for all you do for our industry, for sharing this story and for bringing to light an interesting twist. I guess I'm not surprised that the FTC would consider action against the automotive industry- we seem to always be first in their sights and held to what seems to be a much higher standard than just about any other retail business segment I can think of. The mere mention of the words 'auto dealer' and 'price issue' in the same sentence would have the smart FTC employee googlng 'true car' and noting who's talking about it as a logical first point of inquiry. The most interesting point has to do with what was called the 'agency rule' when I was in law class in Grad School. Does a individual speak for the company he (or she) works for when they state an opinion? Certainly if they, at the business location, make a representation to a customer about a product the company sells, in the 'normal' course of business, then there is no question they are acting as an 'agent' and the company is liable for their statements/actions. But what if I'm at home, on the weekend, on my own computer, expressing my opinion about something? Or, what about if I'm at work at my desk on my lunch break using the company internet connection. My point is that it appears that the DEALERSHIP is being targeted for actions made by an INDIVIDUAL Can I, AS AN EMPLOYER, be held liable for comments made BY AN INDIVIDUAL who is in my employee. This has far reaching - and scary - implications that go far beyond the automotive industry.

Ed, you hit the nail on the head. One dealer client of mine got a letter from the FTC. The dealer did not say anything online. He was asked for the communication records for one of his employees. He has no idea why this employee was targeted regarding this TrueCar matter but now he has to spend money on legal fees. He is not very happy. When these types of actions occur, it's legislation thru litigation. If there is not a clear law in place to accomplish a particular goal, just sue everyone and behavior will change or stop. He who has the biggest pockets wins.

Brian, Curious if they know how much of that traffic is coming from within their showroom/lot from their own employees? And what's their trend been like - the chart shows ~2k since feb yet the visits show 15k & 4k. (Can't make out the settings applied - as I'm viewing quickly from my phone - fitting.)

Eric This dealership does not use tablets or mobile CRM in their sales process today. I'm not sure how mobile traffic can be isolated to be coming from the dealership since it's not a local IP address associated with the store, like desktop traffic can be filtered. The Setting Applied called MSN-OUT was to filter out the MSN bot that is attacking from Cobalt websites and inflating the traffic. So, it takes out the junk "noise" and the results as shown more accurately. In June 2013, was the cross-over where the mobile traffic overtook the desktop traffic and continues to grow. So, for this dealer, June was the inflection point that mobile delivered more traffic than desktop and the gap continues to grow.

This is very true Brian as we see the same results with our dealers. Most desktop providers give very little thought as to mobile. Those who don't adapt will not be around, including some of the bigger players.

Tarry Agreed. We have much to catch up in regards to helping dealers engage with mobile shoppers!

We've been advocating a mobile first mentality and this post is a perfect example of why this makes sense. I'm eagerly awaiting your next post about dealerships receiving more leads from mobile than their desktop. I've heard that some dealerships are experiencing a decline in overall leads. Could this be because their customers are migrating to mobile but their mobile systems arent up to par?

Amir The number of calls from PPC campaigns targeting mobile devices has exploded compared to lead forms. This of course means that dealers need to increase phone training and process because more mobile traffic means more phone calls.

Amir- We have a Ford dealer that receives 80% of the leads we produce from mobile.

Brian, great post, I hope dealers reading this will not only "wake up" but read my post on DrivingSales - http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/dealereprocess/2013/09/11/your-website-is-broken-dont-even-know-it

Thank you Dave! Yes, this post and your post shows dealers just how important a Mobile First strategy is for the dealership.

User-agent: MSNBot Disallow: / In robots.txt is the fix. If that does not work have Cobalt block the bots ip address.

Another solution is to redirect the bot using .htaccess

Hey Brian! Great post, this is something that we constantly battle but kudos for sharing as I'm sure it is going to be a global issue. Advanced segments are a great solution for looking back and eliminating that traffic, but there is also a way to avoid that bot traffic from ever being registered in analytics. I made a quick video with an explanation: http://screencast.com/t/l33q7KnWfcW Paul: While blocking the bot via .htaccess or robots.txt would work, you don't want to disallow access to bing as this is how they index your site. All you really want to do is block the traffic from registering in analytics. quick explanation of how in the video above!

Awesome video Aaron...this is a great suggestion and a great collaboration to help dealers.

Aaron, great post, and a great example of how a vendor organization can get involved on DrivingSales. When I first speak with any potential advertiser (on DrivingSales) I always start with the "free" stuff: Get involved on the platform, contribute to the blogs and forums, etc. Yet, like so many communities, it's 10% (max) that contribute the majority of content. Your post was a great example of how vendors can contribute, add value, and separate their thought leadership from the pack. Thanks for playing along!

Hey thanks guys! Always glad to be able to contribute!

I have looked at about 20 different GA's for sites that I have access to for dealers that use Cobalt. A few things seem to stand out. 1. Only the dealers with paid digital ad packages (DAP - SEM/Display) accounts with Cobalt are really affected heavily. 2. While I don't understand why... the larger the DAP budget the worse the BOT traffic. I have a client that is a big spender with Cobalt that has with 2.8MIL (yes MILLION) visits from the bot in the last 30 days. 3. There is also a BOT with a provider ISP of "codero"... don't know if related but found it on almost all the sites. With the DAP tie-in (at least from what I can tell) makes you wonder if Cobalt started something on the MSN network that is causing this? Traffic started heavy around Aug 13, with a couple day spikes in July (testing??) And, you can't tell me the 2.8 MILLION hits are not going to be affecting traffic and site speed across all Cobalt sites..and this was only one dealer!

Drew Thank you for sharing your research. There is something going on here that does not make sense, especially since I am not seeing this on non-cobalt websites yet. Your tie to DAP is very interesting but I'm not getting any more specific answers from Cobalt on why this is happening. In a related note, one client wrote to me that he thought that his website BOT traffic was not filtered from his Cobalt internal reports. Cobalt has stated that all MSN BOT traffic is filtered. The confusion came from the fact that Google Analytics was not installed on ALL pages of his Cobalt website, so the traffic report by Cobalt and Google Analytics did match properly. So, the lesson I learned here is that there may be many Cobalt websites that Google Analytics code is not installed on all pages, like VDP's, making it impossible to use GA for any bench marketing or research. You can test your own websites by looking for the "UA-" on a few random pages to see if your site is included in the partially configured sites.

Brian the example you gave as a good title tag is horrible. The delusional search query "New Kia Optima Monroe" is smoke an mirrors. The title tag and description with location stuffing is SEO 2005 and is sub par. Having the dealers name in the Title tag for the example given would provide more value to both the dealer and the consumer.

Indexing a search result violates Google's webmaster guidelines:

"Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines."

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769

Dealers should create landing pages for each new car model and compartmentalized used car offering with unique content with links to search results or include the search results UNDER the landing page content. Give search engine users a reason to want to see your inventory and differentiate yourself from every other dealer in you general market area. You don't do that by providing a search result page.

If we are going to help dial in dealers using "education" lets make sure what we give them has value. From an SEO standpoint you should be pushing dealers away from "platforms" to custom solutions, not "custom websites" using the same CMS thousands of other dealers are using.

I appreciate this. We are using HIBU along with our Dealer.com platform. The more I dig into SEO, I see I have a ton to learn, and that the solutions are not with the "upgraded" packages of website companies.

Wow this ones gonna be lively. I can see both ideas here and think that they are both valid in their own right. I hope dealers don't come here thinking they found the "key" to all their problems in this area (I can remember when I would have done just that...lol). Maybe all SEO articles should have a disclaimer stating that this is just ONE of the many things to consider when thinking about their own SEO efforts. SEO from what I am learning has to be done from a "Holistic" point of view. I have a question. If the dealer name is on every title tag on every page, could that be considered spammy? Just curious, as I don't claim to know it all by no means.

Paul your statement: "From an SEO standpoint you should be pushing dealers away from "platforms" to custom solutions, not "custom websites" using the same CMS thousands of other dealers are using." This is an old school rant against the larger website companies that we used to blog about. This is the old Paul Rushing that I miss. I'm glad you are back. But it's 2013 and not 2005. Your prejudice against platforms does not hold water, when you consider the scale of our industry. In reality, smaller platforms are failing to keep up with the demands of our business. They fail to scale. Full website integration with digital and social marketing, CRM, third party tools, inventory feeds, etc. breaks many small companies. It is not easy to support hundreds of "custom" solutions so these companies go out of business. So if you want to direct dealers into one-off, custom solutions, that can disappear when the consultant/company goes belly up, then you have to at least share that downside in your argument. Custom is not cheap nor is it stable. The larger website "platforms" are not perfect. Agreed. But the reality of current OEM demands, integration concerns, and scalability drive me to show dealers how to make the best of their reality; the platforms that they have today to work with. Yes, you and I could create a killer website using publicly available CMS tools but that is not a scalable solution, as a primary marketing platform for dealers.

Scott Spammy would be a strong word but unnecessary is the better word. If it's unnecessary, then it begs to ask "what is the better word choice?" That is the point of this article. There are many things that impact SEO, and this is just one of them. There is no reason to add the Dealership Name to every page, so don't do it. My advice is to properly describe the page contents with an appropriate Page Title. It's simple yet powerful.

Brian my statement was not to encourage the use of "smaller Platforms" it was to encourage dealers to take control of their online marketing and OWN their website technology. Not to be dependent on any specific vendor in that regards. The real gist of my reply was the examples you gave as "proper" SEO are far from it. What you are showing as good examples are low quality and/or violate Google's guideline. A complete separate topic is how important are those guidelines. HA The OEM and integration arguments are smoke and mirrors and do not hold water. Using that as a way to emphasize your point is trying to create fear where none should exist. I understand you have services to sell and reputation to maintain. If you are going to market yourself by giving advice at least do a better job than what was presented here. Title tag stuffing, description keyword stuffing and referencing search terms that car buyers would never use to drive home your point, which is valid, is bad form and leads dealers down the wrong path. For those that do not know. I do not offer SEO services and have zero to gain by calling a spade a spade other than to stop a dealer from wasting money or time doing things that will bring them no benefit or even worse hurt their search rankings.

Great read, and lots of great seo thinkers here! So many way to do it outside the box and kill it! Both Brian and Paul have some good points here. Research, Research and Research.

Scott Tyner, You are the voice of reason. There is no 'silver bullet' with respect to SEO. Both sides have valid points. (Examples: Page titles should be specific to page content, and geo term stuffing is a dated technique.) There's no easy formula for writing a page title, but dealers can get closer to what works by: (1) first making sure the page titles are not the same on every page (2) testing, measuring, and then testing more. A strong page title supports rank and click-through, so those are the metrics to watch.

Catherine Brock, Thanks. I'm only mentioned because I remember when I first started (still not a rockstart with SEO - don't have time to do that AND sell a car). But one things for sure, I DO know enough to make an intelligent "buying" decision when it comes to choosing a vendor for my dealer. It's very easy for a person with no experience to look at one blog post and thing they found their "key" to SEO. They don't know what they don't know. So I caution them to do more research and DO NOT make a decision based on only one blog post.

Brian, a couple things to consider. There are alot of providers (Dealer e Process) for example always use the Dealers Name as the first couple words of the home page title tag for a few reasons; 80% of all searches start with the dealers name; some websites providers have two websites so we choose to "out optimize" the manufacturer website by capturing the traffic that comes via the dealerships name. That being said, as far as the dealership name being at the end of every tag - Ill refer to Google Search Engine Optimization Guide https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf See page bottom of page 4 - the illustration from Googles example shows the companies name "in this case Brandon's Baseball Cards" used at the end of EVERY page even when it's page of content targeted at a particular term. ' I think at the end of the day, having a dealers name at the END of a title tag doesn't really matter assuming the rest of the title tag is different, content is different, keywords are different etc. the only reason I jumped into this conversation is because Dealer e Process has won the AWA award, we value your opnion and are willing to change our platform if it makes sense. Do you have any examples of where this has negatively affected a dealership?

David Thank you for the feedback and in this matter I have recently changed my opinion based on some testing that I have done. The question at hand is why add a random phrase to any page title, when that phrase is already perfectly optimized? There is no reason to add the "Pink Elephant Engine" to every page when that "keyword" is perfectly optimized. So, the more I thought about it, and the more I tested it, there was no good reason to continue that practice. Yes, there are 5-10 pages on a dealer's website that could qualify for having the dealership name added, but that's it. So, there is a choice here. It is not the magic bullet, but just a step toward focusing the TITLE tags on the specific content on the page. You can check some very popular blogs, and some add the blog name and some do not. Here is a recent Matt Cutt's Blog Post: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/recover-hacked-gmail-account/ The Title tag is: Notice it does not have the additional tag "Matt Cutts" in the title tag. Mmmmmmm

Brian - Matt Cutts is not trying to sell cars in a competitive environment. Including the dealer name in the title tag of every page if done properly is brand management and will build awareness. A well optimized dealers website wont need their name in the title tag for it to appear in the results. Just because Matts name is not in the title tag does not mean it wont appear in the SERPS. I know why this happens do you? https://www.google.com/#q=http:%2F%2Fwww.mattcutts.com%2Fblog%2Frecover-hacked-gmail-account%2F

FYI - Matt Cutts name is in every title for his blog in the SERPS. https://www.google.com/#q=site:www.mattcutts.com&start=0

I love the banter Paul. The point of this article is simple. Dealers don't need their name on every page of their website. I'll stand on that advice.

Its bad advice coupled with bad examples of why it should not be done. Every major brand on the web includes their name in the title tag of every page on their websites even if it is truncated in the SERP display. Every example and the SEO advice in this article and in the comments to bolster the opinion are off the mark. Ill stand by that...

That's the great thing about business Paul, there are always more than one opinion.

Brian its not opinion. The advice given and the evidence provided are wrong on many levels.

I have no issues admitting I used none of this strategically, or knowingly whatsoever, while turning around bankrupt stores which I did successfully and with immediacy. Opinion A vs. opinion B - great. Bottom line for car dealers is this, SHOW ME. Not graphs I can't understand with meaningless and nonsensical trends, etc. but results. I want proof of a store in a similar market with a similar structure with a similar brand to mine Before and After. We really don't care at all about clicks or leads (yep, I said it) etc. but the bottom line is results. The PROOF of ability is results. How many more cars did I sell and service, is it scalable, is it maintainable and is it manageable. The real question: how much more did I make as a direct result of this. I can drive more traffic to a store than anybody, a simple mail piece to an inner city low income area with a $99 car payment and free hamburgers and chicken for lunch will have your showroom floor mobbed! But... It's crap traffic. You can't convert it. It doesn't translate into sales. So what's the quality of the click, what's the quality of the search, etc. all answers I'm sure the "professionals" can give. But show me in results. Not search pages but on a financial statement. Period. That's all we care about. Financial statement the 3 month period before and the same financial statement the 3 month period after. That's the only determining factor of whether or not something like this works from either point of view. If I showed both sides to the 3 most successful mega dealers i know they'd laugh in my face without a before and after financial statement as proof. A Consultant/Vendor get out of jail free card is always "I did what I said I'd do, now it's up to you, your staff and your store" is crap and not an acceptable answer. It's kind of like giving a 90 year old lady with arthritis an M16 for home protection. A fine weapon indeed however not usable for her and she's the buyer hence the only one that matters. What I'm saying is thinking through this and removing excuses. We can't fire everybody and re-staff. Before and after independently audited financial statements with a trend of ongoing increases in net profit with this being the only variable introduced ends all speculation and is really all that matters. Sorry for dumbing down a highly intellectual debate to the most basic fundamentals but that's what dealers want. Dealers i.e. Executive Managers, Dealer Principals, Owners

This is a spirited debate but: 1) Chris is right, the M16 is a fine weapon (except the direct mail comment- with the right inventory, dealers CAN sell a ton with $99 car payments. But chicken? No, never. Hamburgers and hot dogs? Sure!). 2) Like Chris said though, dealers don't care about clicks, impressions, etc. Is that white board in the manager's office filled up at the end of the day, week, month, year? Did we sell cars? 3) When Dealers read this type of back and forth about SEO, they don't know who to believe so they throw their hands up and go back to business as usual. (Not all, most). 4) I don't blame them. The digital world is still new and industry experts don't agree on much. 5) So (like Chris said) BRING THE PROOF! Not examples, not tough talk. PROOF BABY!

Todd and Chris: Agreed. At the end of the day, selling more cars is the only thing that matters. Will applying one rule about page titles make that happen by itself? Nope. A dealer's page title strategy is just one component of an overall SEO strategy, which should be a subset of a content plan, which should be driven by a brand plan, which should also dictate how you treat your customers, manage your inventory...My point is that defining best practices in isolation (while a necessity of blogging) is a tad misleading, because it's often the cumulative effect of managing the details that impacts sales. Whether a dealership has an in-house or vendor SEO team, it's that SEO team's job to analyze trends, read the nonsensical charts and, finally, understand and prove how the SEO strategy contributes to selling more cars.

Brian Pasch - I like you, you're flamboyant and know how to get attention... but that's kinda where it ends for you. Looks like you may want to remove those pink elephants you are ranting about from your own house: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.brianpasch.com&oq=site%3Awww.brianpasch.com&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1066j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Still better than when I searched for "Jack Jillson" http://www.justmugshots.com/georgia/auburn/1775589

This is a great example on how dealer get duped everyday by 3rd party leads ( internet) lead providers. The best lead you can get is the one that goes to your dealer website and makes the choice to call, email or simply go in to the dealer. The big math flaw is the fact that this customer at the prime level is not a $ 2000 gross anymore. The new website customer is the educated shopper. They have gone to your website and 20 other ones before they make a decision. By that time they already have the best price. You will lucky to make $ 1000 minus your commission and overhead. In the case of the sub prime customer, those 3rd party internet leads do not have the same math anymore. Buying 100 random leads from a company means you will get a hold of 50% if you are lucky (50). make appointments with 30% (15), have half of those show up (8) and sell 20% of those.(4). With that sub prime customer you could make the $ 2000 each which would be a gross of $ 8,000 minus your commissions ( 25%) $ 2,000 minus the cost of the leads $ 2,000. Your net profit would be $ 4,000. Much smaller ROI than what they sell you. You could make that by just putting up "Yard Sale " signs.

One more thing to add in is the added cost per click you have to pay in order to drive people to your website. Your giving a company money to compete against you in the advertising world, and then they are charging you 20 dollars to buy back your own customer. Oh, that's right, plus they are selling that right to other lead company's, 5 of your leading competitors, and your grandma, if she will give them a buck. Brian, don't get me started!

Don't forget that most important thing about internet leads. 6 companies will sell you the same guy 6 times plus there is no credit screening. Who is still paying for a random lead for $ 20.

Great topic. Just a few days ago, on a related issue, Jeffery Byrge wrote: "The standard is, the first lead in is the one that is credited with the source of the sale." http://www.drivingsales.com/blogs/hello-from-jeff/2013/08/31/my-first-blog-amidst-controversy-trucar That attribution model may be an extension of the rule on the sale floor re: no-split-deals, and for the purposes of day-to-day housekeeping, it keeps things simple. But what if a lead is first by six days... six weeks... or six months ago? If I had to pick one influencer only, why not the last lead source, same rationale as crediting the sales person who actually closed the sale? Actually, the one-lead-source model is broken, and we may use it because it's easy to, but it clouds our insight into what drives sales; it reduces the quality of our decision-making in our roles as dealers, eCommerce directors and ISMs.

I agree that a customers , especially the one that has challenged credit , will respond to may sources, if not sold. As you well know its the dealers job to contact this customers until he "Buys or Dies". Really if you think of this , there would be less leads out there if the dealers we all doing their jobs contacting these people in the first place and staying on them until the end.

It costs us $39 to work every lead between acquisition and labor cost. BTW, I haven't seen a third party lead aggregator that boasts a 10% closing ratio in many years. Most are in the 3%-5% range. The other factor is lost opportunity in the form of wasted time and wasted money. Would that money be better spent on your website, on SEO, on Adwords, on Video Pre-Roll, on Facebook advertising? Would the BDC's time be better spent on working leads that close at a higher rate? Other than Truecar, I haven't seen a solid third party lead provider in years and Truecar just eliminated themselves from generating a reasonable ROI with their ridiculous write off policy.

Great post here by Brian. This is an example where some dealers mistake busy for effective. “At least we have leads to work….” is the rallying cry. Really? Since Edmunds pulled out of wholesaling their leads to 3rd party vendors a couple of years ago, the quality and close rate from these 3rd party leads have been significantly lower in my area. Without any kind of tracking, we would be left at the mercy of 3rd party vendors to tell us how wonderful they are. (like TrueCar) Tracking is important. (Btw, Edmunds is a player, and very reasonably priced for marketing and advertising on their site) I agree with Joshua Friedman about how we source as an industry. Frankly, I use the “first in” model as an overly simplistic way to track and to keep vendors honest. I need to (and will) improve on this. And to clarify my comments regarding the “first lead in” practice, it was in the context of sourcing TrueCar leads, not an endorsement of the system. We need to let the customer teach us and learn from them. Instead of trying to overly simplify a source for advertising, what do the online shopping habits teach us about our customers? If they go to several sources, should we be there? Would we make that sale, or even get a swing, if we aren’t in most/all of these environments? What difference is there between different leads based on manufacturer and model? (If you are a Dodge dealer for example, the Avenger is probably doing great in 3rd party leads where special finance comes into play….) A lot of these issues could be solved with better tracking of customers in our CRM and better attention to detail, an admittedly weak area in our business overall. FOLLOW UP or wait for the UP BUS? We no longer use 3rd party vendors outside of Edmunds, Autotrader and Cars.com. With the lack of transparency from most 3rd party vendors, I see no reason to burn $20 per lead. During the spring, we closed 3 of them at 2%. 3 sales out of 150. For $3000 we got 3 sales, without figuring in BDC costs and employee overhead, plus sales commissions. The numbers don’t add up……..

Ugh! I wrote that in MS Word. Apologies for the formatting above.

We think many dealers would benefit from investing in themselves before other lead providers providing they have not done so already. A lead source report for the previous three months will confirm what you already know, dealer owned web properties convert at a higher rate and are tops for gross. Makes sense to increase leads from that source. Many lead providers only exist because they place better in search than the dealer. Dealers need to change that. The good news is they can. A dealer is their own best lead source.

I think the problem is always the lens through which it is viewed. 3rd party lead providers are a long term PROBLEM for dealers, in spite of the short term value being offered. I just spoke to a dealer in florida today whose top priority was going after dealers who were 70 - 100 miles away. Now these dealers that were so far away WERE in fact, targeting consumers in his market via SEO. But what was more concerning was that the top 3 listings for "nissan dealer geotarget" in almost every town or city around that dealer was Truecar, Edmunds and aol autos. After those three were a local listing which contained the dealer looking to take back his market. So is the dealer really better served to pay for that lead when he should have already ranked for it? Even if the ROI holds water now, what happens when lead price (or sale price) goes up again? And AGAIN? What happens when he has to pay for bad leads too? What happens when its not enough to pay TrueCar because edmunds and AOL show conclusive evidence that they influence a percentage of sales? What happens when they say no more write off policy? Where does it end? The answer is simple. It doesn't. Its Gordon Gecko mentality and in the world of 3rd party lead aggregators, GREED is good. They resell and re-churn old leads to each other to get a 2nd and 3rd and 4th crack to make a buck at the dealer's expense. Its not about value. Its about generating revenue... for the lead provider. Period. And in the end they are smart to do it. Because most dealers won't ever look outside the microcosm of the month. The stair-step. The trunk money. The SM's, GSM's and GM's get paid on volume programs, not on NET. So they make more, the lead aggregators make more, but the dealer principal gets bled dry. Dealer profitability continues to decline. Its not surprising that Brian and others focus on the small issue of momentary ROI. None of them have ever worked retail and even those that may genuinely care don't really understand the business model of auto retail to realize this only ends one way and the dealer loses.

Amen Tim. 3rd party leads are a dead business model. We just saw a historic month in the car business and it seems like we're quick to get back to our pre-2008 habits. The last 5 years have forced dealers to get lean and mean and focus on expense control. I can already see some of the bloat creeping back in. We're riding a great wave right now but dealers need to stay disciplined and focus on internal solutions rather than looking for an external "quick fix." These companies are stealing your customers and selling them back to you and seven of your competitors. Stop the insanity!

Thanks Brian good article... As you know I've been preaching ZMOT since the day you introduced it to me a couple of years ago. I have added one statement to my presentations that you put in bold letters "Please don't forget that leads do not sell themselves." You are correct, leads don't sell cars conversations do. For the first time in the history of auto sales it's the customer that is the center of the shopping universe with 18+ circles of influence. Prior to the internet and now well on our way into web 3.0 the dealer is on the outside looking in. Here too the math tells the story because DrivingSales reported the average consumer visited 1.3 dealerships in person last year when buying a car. This means deals are won and lost before the customer walks through the door. The dealer's mission should be to engage the customer at every circle of influence possible and hope to be invited to a conversation. If your a dealer open the door to all forms of communication (chat, text & call) that lead to an immediate conversation.

@ Yelp - Is it true that you filter out positive comments of businesses who decline your solicitation for their advertising dollars?

David, thank you for posting a question. Frankly, I am surprised that members of DrivingSales do not care enough about Yelp to post their question. Maybe having Yelp present at DSES is not a topic that dealers really car about...I'm surprised. is YELP! just a YAWN! for dealers??

Someone gave a mention to Yelp at Ziegler's recent "Battleplan" held here in LV a couple of weeks ago. My question is a consequence of that presentation. Unfortunately, I can't recall you mentioned them. The presenter's claim that Yelp will filter out your favorable comments if you decline their solicitation for advertising with them got everyone's attention. I don't expect the Yelp rep to cop to it even if it is true. But to ask the question might let them know they are being watched. Just mentioning Ziegler's name in the question might really get their attention... such as.... I heard a discussion about Yelp at a recent Jim Ziegler BattlePlan and it was said that .......... I'll be at DSES and will be glad to ask the question, although the last time I got up to ask Scott Painter a question, Jared changed my question to keep from offending Painter, which really surprised me.

@Brian, I'm still puzzled by the (valid) positive reviews being yanked. I also think many dealers just don't know enough about Yelp and simply may not care - I think the questions will surface once their awareness increases. Most dealers probably don't even use the platform, so why would they be familiar with their activities?

I guess yelp is a good place for dealers to concentrate if they have full service lunch counters.... In reality it is just like any other platform. If you put a lot into it you will see return. The real "Review" strategy is not platform dependent it is delivering an awesome experience for the consumer, then the reviews take care of themselves. Putting to much emphasis on one platform really denigrates the true message that should be delivered here at Drivingsales..

I'm just repeating what I heard from a presenter at Jim Ziegler's battle plan and am looking for corroboration or to find out it isn't true. An "awesome Customer experience" is defined differently for different people. It is more important what Customers say than what the words they speak. Some Customers won't be satisfied until they can order a car like they order an iPad from Amazon. Consumers will always tell you they want transparency. Then try to find out what they mean by that. True transparency leads to an efficient market, which renders the product into a commodity. And that leads to disintermediation. Dealers and sales people tend to want to avoid that.