There is a massive disconnect when using Landing Page best practices for automotive websites. 

How so? Too many marketing agencies and vendors are using outdated marketing tactics to solve the problems dealer face. 

1. Dealers are forced to use Landing Pages that contain content simply for the sake of creating content. It doesn't help answer key questions such as payments and prices. 
2. Dealers are still using iFrame page solutions. These pages are not structured properly so the Search engines can read the content. (If they can't read it - they can't index it) 
3. Message Matching doesn't exist. Paid search ads don't have the ability to include dynamic pricing and don't take shoppers to responsive, topic-specific Landing Pages.

Let's examine what happens with other products and industries. There are three basic stages every consumer goes through when purchasing a product. 

• They think about buying it.
• They research it.
• The commit to buying it.

This process may take six minutes to six months. Sometimes steps are repeated as buyers remorse can kick in even before the purchase. 

What's consistent among automotive and other industries? 

• 90% of shoppers start their search on the Internet
• 70%+ rely on online reviews 
• 53% of shoppers begin their search on a mobile device
• 33% of shoppers' entire time is spent on a mobile device

What defines a successful online shopping experience? 

• Shopper searches, see highly relevant paid search ad that matches intent and includes prices and offers
• Shopper clicks on ad
• User goes to a relevant Landing Page and takes the desired action

Any experience that differs from this risks breaking trust, wasting ad spend and causes the user to do more work finding answers to their original question. (Or worse - they leave the site)

What's a Landing Page and Why Is It Important?

One of the best strategic tools for a digital marketing professional is a Landing Page. This single web page has a specific and unique purpose within an online marketing campaign.

This page is the final destination an online shopper lands on after they have completed a search and clicked a relevant paid ad or an organic search result. 

While there is a specific goal of this page, there are many objectives which must be satisfied.

• The search result clicked on (whether a paid ad or organic result) must answer the shopper's question or match their desired intent
• The Landing Page must have the proper hierarchy (Primary content with the offer displayed first)
• Prominent Calls to Action must direct the user to the desired action (submit a lead, click to call, get more info) 
• Trust needs to be established (Items that break trust: landing users on the home page or anywhere else the message isn't consistent, or the offer doesn't exist)

Successful Landing Pages are simple and don't confuse. When executed properly they will 

• Create better online shopping experiences
• Increase engagement and influence the user towards making a purchase decision
• Improve on-page conversions and assisted conversions
• Improve organic search results presence by occupying more digital real estate
• Increase ad click-through-rates
• Lower paid ad search costs due to the relevancy and on-page performance

This straightforward approach is what makes landing pages the best option for increasing the conversion rates of your Google AdWords campaigns and improving your opportunity to rank higher organically. 

Somewhere, at some time, the automotive marketing community decided that shoppers should be directed to search results pages, micro-sites or even worse, to their home page - regardless of the search query or their initial intent. 

Why Should I Have Landing Pages?

There's only one answer this question: To drive more conversions! 

Dealers want specific actions from shoppers who are shopping for vehicles. Responsive, relevant Landing Pages help accomplish these objectives because of their ability to feature a single goal, on specific vehicles. 

This is a fundamental element of targeted marketing. Send highly specific users that have a specific objective to a relevant Landing Page that matches their original intent. They clicked the ad for a reason - because they expected to land on a distinct page that will solve their problem. 

The user is forced to begin the second stage of their search if they land on the home page or a search results page. Shoppers looking for a Toyota Camry lease offers do not want to search your website to find the lease offer they just saw on TV. 

Break your ads down to simple intent categories and let that determine where you land shoppers.

• Make-specific leaderboard Landing Pages are great for mid-funnel shoppers looking for 'Ford lease deals' and haven't indicated their specific model intent.
• Body-style Landing Pages are also great for mid-funnel shoppers. They may not know the exact vehicle they want, 'GMC suv deals'; a Landing Page with specific examples can influence their decision. 
• Model-specific Landing Pages are the perfect destination for in-market shoppers - those who have indicated their intent by searching for 'Ford Explorer lease deals'.  

Contrast the experiences of your home page and your SRPs vs. any of these type of Landing Pages. Your home page is a general experience. The home page is how you display your brand and showcase your unique selling propositions. Your SRPs are just a list of your inventory that makes the shopper do all the work. It has become the defacto destination for many marketers and is mostly a lazy solution.

Your home page, your SRPs and any other page that isn't a relevant Landing Page are guaranteed to include a multitude of links. Most of those links serve solely as a distraction and don't contribute to your desired goals. This is one of the biggest reasons ad spend, and conversion goals are wasted and miss their mark.

Why Is Message Matching Important?

Message matching is a vital aspect of a successful marketing campaign. When your Landing Page message is consistent with your paid search ad, you are making Google very happy. Google wants to know the message in your ad is consistent with where your visitors land. 

Which ads do you want to show your shoppers?

Search Query: Ford Explorer Lease Deals

Sample Paid Search Ad: Ford Explorer Lease Sale Going On Now! Check out our huge inventory

Landing page copy: (SRP's) 47 Ford Explorers for sale - no lease prices shown.

Or

Search Query: Ford Explorer Lease Deals

Sample Paid Search Ad: Ford Explorer Lease $299/mo W/$2500 Dn. $389/mo. W/Zero Down.

Landing page copy: Multiple Model/Trim-Specific Ford Explorer lease offers with monthly lease payments displayed. 

This tactic tells Google your messages match and your site visitors now have a better opportunity to convert. Your campaign quality scores now have a better chance to improve as well. 

9 Tips To Improve Your Landing Pages

1. Optimize your Page Meta Titles to match the page theme. Titles should be within 60-65 characters long.
2. Your page headlines should summarize the page theme so there is zero confusion as to the topic of the page.
3. Be sure your primary conversion calls to actions are prominent and not cluttered with non-essential actions.
4. Page Copy should focus on the key topic. This is how you frame the context of the page for both the user and search engines. 
5. Include video. Video influences automotive shoppers by up to 80%.
6. Use a responsive page that displays the same content on the desktop version as the mobile version - not an iFrame solution that prevents Google from reading the page content!
7. Include social proof whenever possible.  
8. Use short paragraphs with line breaks and use bullets or lists for easily digestible mobile content
9. Don't send paid traffic to your homepage. Always use your relevant landing pages!

Use these tips to create and manage your Landing Pages to improve engagement, increase conversion and lower your ad costs. 

How are you using relevant landing pages for your dealership's marketing efforts?

So, the Friend Collage is a popular thing on Facebook. Whether or not you like them, there are still some pretty cool things you can learn from this nifty bit of content. For the 17 people not on Facebook or you've just been more productive with your day, a friend collage is a simple 3rd-party application that automatically sorts through your recent Facebook interaction history and creates a pretty image of your connection's avatars. The end result is a grid pattern that sizes the images according to how frequent your interact with your connections. Larger images indicate more interaction and vice-versa. Simple formula.

There are several friend collage tools, FriendMatrix seems to be the go-to choice. Give it a try if you haven't, only take a few seconds and it'll post it to your wall. (If you choose to do so) 

They're just pictures. What's so great about them? 

I honestly found them to be extremely annoying at first. Most of us have reached a point where content repetition has numbed our online social experiences; we're looking for something new, something jaw dropping and something memorable.

However, if you look beyond that there are some neat things we can all learn from these friend collages, what they mean and why we/re so attracted to them: 

• These are branding activities: Some are using it for that reason, others may not realize it. Imagine putting together a picture collage of your customers and celebrating them in the same manner. And it doesn't just need to be online, it could bridge the offline gap as well.
• These are relationship activities: We're strengthening our relationships with others. We're letting all of our friends know who we connect with and how we feel about those people; some may even be bragging about those relationships - which is a very good thing. Who doesn't love to name drop every now and then? Plus, who doesn't love to be included within a group, especially when your avatar is one of the larger images?
• These are building mental lists: The speed of community building is reaching exponential proportions. We're seeing who people are connected with, the frequency at which they interact and creating the desire for newer connections in some cases. I saw several people who I would like to connect with more frequently. A great addition to simply tagging your connections is to kick it up a notch and comment about these people. Imagine sharing your favorite moments with them, how you met them or what you admire about them. Build that list. 

Our social media activities and behaviors speeds up our concept of mental list building. That is, we're constantly thinking about things we like, things we want and even those things that we don't care for - and they're made up of all the people, places and things we experience online. And all via our mobile devices. The friend collage does this exceptionally well as a reminder of our connections. Imagine creating those reminders with your customer's dealership experiences. 

Embrace the creativity and uniqueness to make your content stand out - make it memorable. Remember there are two simple factors everyone loves: 

1. People love to be included.

2. People love to laugh. 

What are you doing to include the people in your community and make them smile?

P.S. Here's my take on the friend collage.

So, the Friend Collage is a popular thing on Facebook. Whether or not you like them, there are still some pretty cool things you can learn from this nifty bit of content. For the 17 people not on Facebook or you've just been more productive with your day, a friend collage is a simple 3rd-party application that automatically sorts through your recent Facebook interaction history and creates a pretty image of your connection's avatars. The end result is a grid pattern that sizes the images according to how frequent your interact with your connections. Larger images indicate more interaction and vice-versa. Simple formula.

There are several friend collage tools, FriendMatrix seems to be the go-to choice. Give it a try if you haven't, only take a few seconds and it'll post it to your wall. (If you choose to do so) 

They're just pictures. What's so great about them? 

I honestly found them to be extremely annoying at first. Most of us have reached a point where content repetition has numbed our online social experiences; we're looking for something new, something jaw dropping and something memorable.

However, if you look beyond that there are some neat things we can all learn from these friend collages, what they mean and why we/re so attracted to them: 

• These are branding activities: Some are using it for that reason, others may not realize it. Imagine putting together a picture collage of your customers and celebrating them in the same manner. And it doesn't just need to be online, it could bridge the offline gap as well.
• These are relationship activities: We're strengthening our relationships with others. We're letting all of our friends know who we connect with and how we feel about those people; some may even be bragging about those relationships - which is a very good thing. Who doesn't love to name drop every now and then? Plus, who doesn't love to be included within a group, especially when your avatar is one of the larger images?
• These are building mental lists: The speed of community building is reaching exponential proportions. We're seeing who people are connected with, the frequency at which they interact and creating the desire for newer connections in some cases. I saw several people who I would like to connect with more frequently. A great addition to simply tagging your connections is to kick it up a notch and comment about these people. Imagine sharing your favorite moments with them, how you met them or what you admire about them. Build that list. 

Our social media activities and behaviors speeds up our concept of mental list building. That is, we're constantly thinking about things we like, things we want and even those things that we don't care for - and they're made up of all the people, places and things we experience online. And all via our mobile devices. The friend collage does this exceptionally well as a reminder of our connections. Imagine creating those reminders with your customer's dealership experiences. 

Embrace the creativity and uniqueness to make your content stand out - make it memorable. Remember there are two simple factors everyone loves: 

1. People love to be included.

2. People love to laugh. 

What are you doing to include the people in your community and make them smile?

P.S. Here's my take on the friend collage.

Here's my follow up recap for the rest of the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit held last week in Las Vegas. 

Dylan Swift, National Director of Marketing at Yelp, opened up Monday morning with an overview of the online review landscape. He raised some eyebrows with his initial recommendation to the crowd: "Don't ask your customers for reviews on Yelp!" Dylan said that reviews should simply be an organic extension of your dealership's experience. Bad experiences will yield negative reviews. So, make sure your experiences are as positive as possible. Sure, obvious stuff - but it does helps to hear directly from Yelp about their processes and admitting the possibility of reviews being stripped away. (I've had legitimate, positive reviews for my dealership removed - and with no explanation) 

Some dealers may have taken this guidance as a sign that Yelp doesn't necessarily understand the dealership review landscape (much like Google struggled a couple of years ago) Others may have interpreted this as a subtle hint that if you participate in Yelp's paid advertising programs, then maybe your reviews won't disappear. I don't believe this is a conspiracy of sorts, but the question does still remain about why so many positive reviews go missing. 

One simple take away: If you're using specific call to actions in your CRM follow up emails, you may want to remove Yelp as an option. Showroom iPad kiosk solutions that include Yelp should also be considered for removal. 

Next up on the agenda was the DrivingSales Best Idea Contest. This has always been one of my favorite portions of the entire event. Creative and progressive dealers compete against each other by sharing their best ideas to help improve their dealerships performance. There is never a shortage of great efforts and ideas. Another reason why I like this contest is that it helps the audience get a wonderful view of the enthusiasm these dealers posses - that's refreshing to see and should act as an inspiration to everyone in the audience for them to bring back to their dealerships as well. All of the contestants did an excellent job with their ideas; their presentations were also top notch this year. 

Congratulations to Robert Karbaum, eCommerce Director for Weins Canada Inc. as he took home the top prize of $3000 with his Appointment Boarding Pass idea. (A strong signal that the Canadians are serious about upping their game!) Cheers to the other contestants who eagerly shared their efforts with the attendees - that alone is an awesome gesture and something that everyone respects tremendously. (There was some online chatter about this portion not being about the dealer's individual ideas vs. them showing of variations of vendor products - the main point here is that the dealers are trying to personalize these efforts and make them their own.) The others dealers competing were: 

• “Picture Perfect Reputation Management” – Megan Barto, Marketing Director, Ciocca Honda

• “True Internet ROI” – Mark Brady, CTO/CMO, Fisher Honda-Kia

• “Sell My Car” – Zack Freed, E Commerce Director, McCombs Automotive Team

• “How to Visualize Big Data in the Dealership” – Jason Stum, Digital Marketing Manager, LaFontaine Automotive Group

And for those in attendance, please don't be lazy and simply copy their idea. add your dealership's flair and personality to the concepts is you'e so inclined and make it fit your brand's personality. That's how you stand out among this crowded space. 

The next keynote to speak was Dr. Joeseph Weintraub, Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Babson College. Dr. Weintraub is an expert authority on leadership concepts and strategy - he's also one of those people that makes it extremely difficult to fit all of his experiences and knowledge into a 30 minute presentation. This is the type of guy you listen to all day long and then sit around a nice meal and simply soak up his wisdom. His emphasis on coaching content and leadership initiatives should speak volumes to dealers. He struck a chord with me with his message about creating learning through relationships to help improve the method and the processes. It needs to work on both ends and can't just be a one way street. His concept of allowing an organization's leaders to help grow future leaders make complete sense; the future of any dealership lies within the abilities of tomorrow's leaders, yet many simply ignore this path or don't recognize it at all. Dr. Weintraub's key elements of innovative companies is also something that dealers should consider adopting to help maintain a fresh stance in today's stagnant culture. Some examples include: 

• “Avoid analysis paralysis when we identify new opportunities by exhibiting a bias towards action; we are constantly experimenting"

• "We are not afraid to fail, we treat failure as a learning opportunity"

• "We have the right recruiting and hiring systems in place to support a culture of innovation" 

• "We are consistent in actually doing the things that we say we value"

• "We have a deliberate, comprehensive and disciplined approach to innovation" 

The next portion of the event I experienced was the breakout sessions. This year's DSES had a stellar lineup to choose from depending on your own personal needs and situation. I made it a point to visit as many dealer breakout sessions as possible because I was most interested in seeing what these dealers are doing. And I was not disappointed with the content I experienced. While they were all filled with timely, relevant information, two sessions that stood out for me were given by Aaron Wirtz (Subaru of Wichita) and Grant Gooley (Boyer Automotive Group). These two sessions were both highly polished and you could tell they had months of preparation and rehearsal put into them. Both presenters created an infectious enthusiasm among the audience and shared great concepts. The actual tools and tips shared almost seemed secondary; I enjoyed the way Aaron and Grant made their successes seem effortless - and fun. You could tell they simply love what they do. If your dealership doesn't have someone with that type of passion in that role, then you need to find one, quickly.  

After the breakout sessions, everyone rushed back to catch Bruce Kimbrall, Disney Institute, talk about their favorite brand - Disney. Always so much you can learn from top brands such as Disney and it was a treat to hear their perspective. The message is also so powerful when you hear from such a historical brand and you begin to piece together how a company can become such a part of our lives. Bruce shared Disney's six stage of branding: 

• Unbranded Goods

• Unbranded References

• Brand as a personality

• Brand as an icon

• Brand as a company

• Brand as a policy

He shared their philosophy on brand loyalty - always a hot topic for dealers. He insisted it boiled down to brand integrity. It doesn't matter what your product or service is, it will always come down to creating a positive experience for the guest. This philosophy transfers nicely into the concept of valuing all consumers to create the lifetime value effect. It does your organization no good to only create a portion of consumer value during their lifetime - it must be ongoing. He also described the steps involved in this process:

1. Create internal service quality (How you treat employees) 

2.  Employee satisfaction

3. Employee retention

4. External service quality (How you treat your customers) 

5. Customer satisfaction

6. Customer value

7. Customer loyalty

8. Profit/Growth/Revenue

Leadership was another key theme during his keynote. Everyone is empowered to lead - and create magical moments for every guest at Disney. He also indicated there was a direct correlation between those who created the highest guest satisfaction and who ultimately became a great immediate leader within the organization. And while everyone may assume various reasons why guests come back to Disney time and time again, they really come back because of three reasons: How clean they keep Disney, friendliness of the staff and because guests feel safe. Very universal emotional triggers and Disney appeals to these factors on a consistent basis. 

Here's my follow up recap for the rest of the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit held last week in Las Vegas. 

Dylan Swift, National Director of Marketing at Yelp, opened up Monday morning with an overview of the online review landscape. He raised some eyebrows with his initial recommendation to the crowd: "Don't ask your customers for reviews on Yelp!" Dylan said that reviews should simply be an organic extension of your dealership's experience. Bad experiences will yield negative reviews. So, make sure your experiences are as positive as possible. Sure, obvious stuff - but it does helps to hear directly from Yelp about their processes and admitting the possibility of reviews being stripped away. (I've had legitimate, positive reviews for my dealership removed - and with no explanation) 

Some dealers may have taken this guidance as a sign that Yelp doesn't necessarily understand the dealership review landscape (much like Google struggled a couple of years ago) Others may have interpreted this as a subtle hint that if you participate in Yelp's paid advertising programs, then maybe your reviews won't disappear. I don't believe this is a conspiracy of sorts, but the question does still remain about why so many positive reviews go missing. 

One simple take away: If you're using specific call to actions in your CRM follow up emails, you may want to remove Yelp as an option. Showroom iPad kiosk solutions that include Yelp should also be considered for removal. 

Next up on the agenda was the DrivingSales Best Idea Contest. This has always been one of my favorite portions of the entire event. Creative and progressive dealers compete against each other by sharing their best ideas to help improve their dealerships performance. There is never a shortage of great efforts and ideas. Another reason why I like this contest is that it helps the audience get a wonderful view of the enthusiasm these dealers posses - that's refreshing to see and should act as an inspiration to everyone in the audience for them to bring back to their dealerships as well. All of the contestants did an excellent job with their ideas; their presentations were also top notch this year. 

Congratulations to Robert Karbaum, eCommerce Director for Weins Canada Inc. as he took home the top prize of $3000 with his Appointment Boarding Pass idea. (A strong signal that the Canadians are serious about upping their game!) Cheers to the other contestants who eagerly shared their efforts with the attendees - that alone is an awesome gesture and something that everyone respects tremendously. (There was some online chatter about this portion not being about the dealer's individual ideas vs. them showing of variations of vendor products - the main point here is that the dealers are trying to personalize these efforts and make them their own.) The others dealers competing were: 

• “Picture Perfect Reputation Management” – Megan Barto, Marketing Director, Ciocca Honda

• “True Internet ROI” – Mark Brady, CTO/CMO, Fisher Honda-Kia

• “Sell My Car” – Zack Freed, E Commerce Director, McCombs Automotive Team

• “How to Visualize Big Data in the Dealership” – Jason Stum, Digital Marketing Manager, LaFontaine Automotive Group

And for those in attendance, please don't be lazy and simply copy their idea. add your dealership's flair and personality to the concepts is you'e so inclined and make it fit your brand's personality. That's how you stand out among this crowded space. 

The next keynote to speak was Dr. Joeseph Weintraub, Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Babson College. Dr. Weintraub is an expert authority on leadership concepts and strategy - he's also one of those people that makes it extremely difficult to fit all of his experiences and knowledge into a 30 minute presentation. This is the type of guy you listen to all day long and then sit around a nice meal and simply soak up his wisdom. His emphasis on coaching content and leadership initiatives should speak volumes to dealers. He struck a chord with me with his message about creating learning through relationships to help improve the method and the processes. It needs to work on both ends and can't just be a one way street. His concept of allowing an organization's leaders to help grow future leaders make complete sense; the future of any dealership lies within the abilities of tomorrow's leaders, yet many simply ignore this path or don't recognize it at all. Dr. Weintraub's key elements of innovative companies is also something that dealers should consider adopting to help maintain a fresh stance in today's stagnant culture. Some examples include: 

• “Avoid analysis paralysis when we identify new opportunities by exhibiting a bias towards action; we are constantly experimenting"

• "We are not afraid to fail, we treat failure as a learning opportunity"

• "We have the right recruiting and hiring systems in place to support a culture of innovation" 

• "We are consistent in actually doing the things that we say we value"

• "We have a deliberate, comprehensive and disciplined approach to innovation" 

The next portion of the event I experienced was the breakout sessions. This year's DSES had a stellar lineup to choose from depending on your own personal needs and situation. I made it a point to visit as many dealer breakout sessions as possible because I was most interested in seeing what these dealers are doing. And I was not disappointed with the content I experienced. While they were all filled with timely, relevant information, two sessions that stood out for me were given by Aaron Wirtz (Subaru of Wichita) and Grant Gooley (Boyer Automotive Group). These two sessions were both highly polished and you could tell they had months of preparation and rehearsal put into them. Both presenters created an infectious enthusiasm among the audience and shared great concepts. The actual tools and tips shared almost seemed secondary; I enjoyed the way Aaron and Grant made their successes seem effortless - and fun. You could tell they simply love what they do. If your dealership doesn't have someone with that type of passion in that role, then you need to find one, quickly.  

After the breakout sessions, everyone rushed back to catch Bruce Kimbrall, Disney Institute, talk about their favorite brand - Disney. Always so much you can learn from top brands such as Disney and it was a treat to hear their perspective. The message is also so powerful when you hear from such a historical brand and you begin to piece together how a company can become such a part of our lives. Bruce shared Disney's six stage of branding: 

• Unbranded Goods

• Unbranded References

• Brand as a personality

• Brand as an icon

• Brand as a company

• Brand as a policy

He shared their philosophy on brand loyalty - always a hot topic for dealers. He insisted it boiled down to brand integrity. It doesn't matter what your product or service is, it will always come down to creating a positive experience for the guest. This philosophy transfers nicely into the concept of valuing all consumers to create the lifetime value effect. It does your organization no good to only create a portion of consumer value during their lifetime - it must be ongoing. He also described the steps involved in this process:

1. Create internal service quality (How you treat employees) 

2.  Employee satisfaction

3. Employee retention

4. External service quality (How you treat your customers) 

5. Customer satisfaction

6. Customer value

7. Customer loyalty

8. Profit/Growth/Revenue

Leadership was another key theme during his keynote. Everyone is empowered to lead - and create magical moments for every guest at Disney. He also indicated there was a direct correlation between those who created the highest guest satisfaction and who ultimately became a great immediate leader within the organization. And while everyone may assume various reasons why guests come back to Disney time and time again, they really come back because of three reasons: How clean they keep Disney, friendliness of the staff and because guests feel safe. Very universal emotional triggers and Disney appeals to these factors on a consistent basis. 

Wow. Five and half years years ago I received a phone call from Jared Hamilton. He asked, no - told me, I had to head out to Las Vegas to attend a new event he was holding specifically for "progressive dealers." I had no idea what he meant by that; as a relatively new dealer on the scene I just assumed every dealer was progressive. It sounded awesome and I knew I had to be there. so off to Vegas I went. 

Jared described a conference that would speak to dealers about their current problems, provide greater awareness and help dealers actually improve operations. I recall him telling me how this was going to be the best thing ever and that someday, eventually, it would be the biggest & best retail conference. I also remember getting off the phone saying to myself, "I like that kid - he's a dreamer, but I like him." 

True to his word Jared has delivered on that promise to the retail industry. After five years the DrivingSales Executive Summit has become the defacto retail automotive conference to attend. Nearly 3000 people have attended all five events over the years, thousands more have followed along online to soak up the knowledge from the speakers and the attendees. (The event has even been a national trending topic on Twitter. Twice.) 

Jared and his superstar event planning team have attracted the best industry speakers, world-class keynotes from outside the industry and the best retail dealers to contribute their experiences with attendees. This year was no exception. In fact, this year's event was extended to include a special pre-DSES Canadian section for our dealer neighbors to the North. This group of dealers, vendors and speakers nearly equalled the same number of attendees from the 1st DSES. 

The Canadian portion of the event signifies a new shift in the retail industry. The Canadians appear to be even thirstier for the information flow US dealers have been sipping at the past few years. The speed at which they're absorbing and implementing this content is staggering. These dealers needed their venue due to the culture changes and DrivingSales was able to respond with the help of Jay Radke. (Did you know that Canadians are the largest consumers of YouTube content in North America?) Jay assembled an all-star cast of successful Canadian dealers such as: Robert Karbaum, Aleksandra Banas, Dave Hicks, Doug & Andrew Maciver. Brent Wees (Glovebox) was also invited to share his knowledge on responsive web design and mobile strategies. Bringing everything to a close and validating everyone's presentations was Al Awadia (Google).

Later on Sunday master of ceremonies Charlie Volgleheim opened up in the festivities tighter than ever and with his unique blend of professionalism and wit. Jared Hamilton wasted no time in delighting the attendees with what to expect over the next couple of days. He then delivered what I believe to be one of his strongest keynotes to date. He whipped the audience into a frenzy with fixed operations stats and performance data over the years and how this segment has fared against other dealership departments. Bottom line - it isn't pretty. His presentation ended like the finale of a fireworks display. He rattled off performance numbers in a Ran Man-esque manner that was not only impressive but made clear and simple sense: dealers need to pay attention to their fixed ops activities, how they manage this department and how their marketing activities can impact their fixed ops efforts.  

- 62% of drivers research the service technicians recommendations before coming in.

- 43% of drivers search online when deciding where to take their car for service. 

- Dealers must go with a fixed ops approach in your BDC structure.

Scott Hernalsteen took the stage next and shared some of their and insights on how to help improve merchandising efforts. While he offered some general best practice reminders, the data points can clearly help any dealership with regards to their 3rd party merchandising efforts: 

 - VDP views increase by 34% when vehicles arelisted below MSRP.

- 186% more VDP views when priced below the market and also have multiple customer photos.

- 70% of new car buyers actually pay more than the price they saw online.

 - 26% more people traveled 30+ miles to a dealership when there are custom vehicle comments

Up next was Leif Babin, US Navy SEAL Officer. This was an intense keynote with one simple message: Leadership. Also important to note, Leif is only the second person in DSES history get a standing ovation after his presentation. (Gary V. was the 1st) 

Rather than try to convey the emotions his keynote elicited, I'll share some of the hard hitting items Leif provided us: 

 - If the team fails, everyone fails. 

- Laws of Combat: 1. Cover & move. 2. Simple. 3. Prioritize & Execute. 4. Decentralize Command.  

- Orders need to be given in a clear & concise manner so everyone understands them.

- When it's overwhelming, relax, look around and make a call. 

- Talk through what could go wrong with your team so they're prepared. 

- Your team needs to understand not only what what to do, but why they need to do it. 

- Leaders take ownership when things go wrong. 

- (And my favorite) It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate.

I'll follow up tomorrow with the rest of the DrivingSales recap - so much more to review. 

Wow. Five and half years years ago I received a phone call from Jared Hamilton. He asked, no - told me, I had to head out to Las Vegas to attend a new event he was holding specifically for "progressive dealers." I had no idea what he meant by that; as a relatively new dealer on the scene I just assumed every dealer was progressive. It sounded awesome and I knew I had to be there. so off to Vegas I went. 

Jared described a conference that would speak to dealers about their current problems, provide greater awareness and help dealers actually improve operations. I recall him telling me how this was going to be the best thing ever and that someday, eventually, it would be the biggest & best retail conference. I also remember getting off the phone saying to myself, "I like that kid - he's a dreamer, but I like him." 

True to his word Jared has delivered on that promise to the retail industry. After five years the DrivingSales Executive Summit has become the defacto retail automotive conference to attend. Nearly 3000 people have attended all five events over the years, thousands more have followed along online to soak up the knowledge from the speakers and the attendees. (The event has even been a national trending topic on Twitter. Twice.) 

Jared and his superstar event planning team have attracted the best industry speakers, world-class keynotes from outside the industry and the best retail dealers to contribute their experiences with attendees. This year was no exception. In fact, this year's event was extended to include a special pre-DSES Canadian section for our dealer neighbors to the North. This group of dealers, vendors and speakers nearly equalled the same number of attendees from the 1st DSES. 

The Canadian portion of the event signifies a new shift in the retail industry. The Canadians appear to be even thirstier for the information flow US dealers have been sipping at the past few years. The speed at which they're absorbing and implementing this content is staggering. These dealers needed their venue due to the culture changes and DrivingSales was able to respond with the help of Jay Radke. (Did you know that Canadians are the largest consumers of YouTube content in North America?) Jay assembled an all-star cast of successful Canadian dealers such as: Robert Karbaum, Aleksandra Banas, Dave Hicks, Doug & Andrew Maciver. Brent Wees (Glovebox) was also invited to share his knowledge on responsive web design and mobile strategies. Bringing everything to a close and validating everyone's presentations was Al Awadia (Google).

Later on Sunday master of ceremonies Charlie Volgleheim opened up in the festivities tighter than ever and with his unique blend of professionalism and wit. Jared Hamilton wasted no time in delighting the attendees with what to expect over the next couple of days. He then delivered what I believe to be one of his strongest keynotes to date. He whipped the audience into a frenzy with fixed operations stats and performance data over the years and how this segment has fared against other dealership departments. Bottom line - it isn't pretty. His presentation ended like the finale of a fireworks display. He rattled off performance numbers in a Ran Man-esque manner that was not only impressive but made clear and simple sense: dealers need to pay attention to their fixed ops activities, how they manage this department and how their marketing activities can impact their fixed ops efforts.  

- 62% of drivers research the service technicians recommendations before coming in.

- 43% of drivers search online when deciding where to take their car for service. 

- Dealers must go with a fixed ops approach in your BDC structure.

Scott Hernalsteen took the stage next and shared some of their and insights on how to help improve merchandising efforts. While he offered some general best practice reminders, the data points can clearly help any dealership with regards to their 3rd party merchandising efforts: 

 - VDP views increase by 34% when vehicles arelisted below MSRP.

- 186% more VDP views when priced below the market and also have multiple customer photos.

- 70% of new car buyers actually pay more than the price they saw online.

 - 26% more people traveled 30+ miles to a dealership when there are custom vehicle comments

Up next was Leif Babin, US Navy SEAL Officer. This was an intense keynote with one simple message: Leadership. Also important to note, Leif is only the second person in DSES history get a standing ovation after his presentation. (Gary V. was the 1st) 

Rather than try to convey the emotions his keynote elicited, I'll share some of the hard hitting items Leif provided us: 

 - If the team fails, everyone fails. 

- Laws of Combat: 1. Cover & move. 2. Simple. 3. Prioritize & Execute. 4. Decentralize Command.  

- Orders need to be given in a clear & concise manner so everyone understands them.

- When it's overwhelming, relax, look around and make a call. 

- Talk through what could go wrong with your team so they're prepared. 

- Your team needs to understand not only what what to do, but why they need to do it. 

- Leaders take ownership when things go wrong. 

- (And my favorite) It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate.

I'll follow up tomorrow with the rest of the DrivingSales recap - so much more to review. 

Google announced another update to Penguin's algorithm that is clearly targeting website owners who have bought paid links. 

Simplest breakdown: If you have bought links that point back to your website, lose them. And they specifically said, "If your website rankings dropped after Google's Penguin update, you should try to get rid of the paid links."  

Think of Google as a bloodhound. They'll sniff these links out eventually. I'm going to keep pound the table on this topic - Google is turning into an "Answer Engine" and morphing away from simply being an index engine. they're going to make this transition by finding the old-school methods of trying to rank content and rewarding sites who are doing things the right way: Creating content that actually helps the user. 

Google's exact response has always been a very top-level approach:

We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can't divulge specific signals because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.

So, what can you do to act upon this? 

Stop thinking like a traditional SEO by relying solely on your ability to use a keyword suggestion tool and place those keywords within your website solely for the purpose of trying to rank for a keyword phrase. Sure, this will continue to work some sites based on the competition and the keywords chosen, but it won't be a successful long term strategy. This is what will separate the real marketers from the hacks.

Google is now in the entity optimization business. 

Think of the entities involved with your business - three simple factors need to be highlighted now more than ever: 

1. People

2. Places

3. Things

How will these be all tied together to provide better results? Elements such a Gogle+ profiles, stronger social content, Q&A content & leveraging the Structured Data Markup tool within Google Webmaster Tools will all contribute to the new wave of search marketing.

Google wants to find these entities and tie them together to create deeper meaning behind them using structured data (the semantic web) so they will have better methods of understanding user intent by drawing on larger databases of marketing information. 

See, SEO isn't dead. It's just being born. 

Google announced another update to Penguin's algorithm that is clearly targeting website owners who have bought paid links. 

Simplest breakdown: If you have bought links that point back to your website, lose them. And they specifically said, "If your website rankings dropped after Google's Penguin update, you should try to get rid of the paid links."  

Think of Google as a bloodhound. They'll sniff these links out eventually. I'm going to keep pound the table on this topic - Google is turning into an "Answer Engine" and morphing away from simply being an index engine. they're going to make this transition by finding the old-school methods of trying to rank content and rewarding sites who are doing things the right way: Creating content that actually helps the user. 

Google's exact response has always been a very top-level approach:

We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can't divulge specific signals because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.

So, what can you do to act upon this? 

Stop thinking like a traditional SEO by relying solely on your ability to use a keyword suggestion tool and place those keywords within your website solely for the purpose of trying to rank for a keyword phrase. Sure, this will continue to work some sites based on the competition and the keywords chosen, but it won't be a successful long term strategy. This is what will separate the real marketers from the hacks.

Google is now in the entity optimization business. 

Think of the entities involved with your business - three simple factors need to be highlighted now more than ever: 

1. People

2. Places

3. Things

How will these be all tied together to provide better results? Elements such a Gogle+ profiles, stronger social content, Q&A content & leveraging the Structured Data Markup tool within Google Webmaster Tools will all contribute to the new wave of search marketing.

Google wants to find these entities and tie them together to create deeper meaning behind them using structured data (the semantic web) so they will have better methods of understanding user intent by drawing on larger databases of marketing information. 

See, SEO isn't dead. It's just being born. 

Updating social media profile avatars, backgrounds and images is a basic necessity of managing either your personal or professional brand. Unfortunately it’s also the biggest pain; just when you think you’re all set, another social platform changes their design and your images simply don’t fit the new layout. (Yes, this applies to you, the OCD reader)

So, hopefully this nice infographic will keep you looking good. The helpful folks over at Raidious (Go figure, they help build brands) covers all the bases for you with the latest sizes and dimensions for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn & YouTube channels. Why these channels? That’s all you really need to help with your objectives and also keep it manageable.

Now go check your images and get something cool and unique in place.