As we work with more and more dealers, we're starting to see some trends in the way that digital marketing is being handled. In some cases, dealers aren't fully aware of everything they're supposed to be getting from their vendor partners. This can be challenging because most vendors that we've seen over the years will only give you what you expect from them.

Part of my responsibilities with Dealer Authority is to make certain that promises are kept, not just by us (that's the easy part) but also by other vendors we have to work with on behalf of the dealers. A case in point happened last week when had to hound a website provider for a demonstration of their new product. One would think that keeping a current client happy would be the top priority, but after a couple of scheduled meetings postponed and a dealer wondering what was going on, we finally made contact. The strange thing is that the new platform they showed us seems to be a great improvement but the bad taste they left in the dealer's mouth by not making it happen more quickly might lead them to having us find them a new website provider.

There are many reasons that a dealer isn't certain about what their providers are actually providing. Sometimes, it's just turnover; a new internet manager can have a challenge getting to know everyone that their predecessor had established for the dealership. Sometimes, it's just a matter of having a fluid and accurate process for monitoring their vendor partners. This is what I want to addess here with some tips I've accumulated over the last couple of years.

• Know Everything in the Contract: This can be an Excel spreadsheet, it can be tied into a full-blown project management systemt, or anywhere in between. You should be able to go to one place and find out how much you're spending (broken down by components), how long the contract lasts, what the cancellation requirements are, and most importantly what all is entailed with everything you're getting. This last part is where we often find the biggest gap. We've worked with dealers who, upon closer inspection of the contract, were not receiving everything they were promised in the initial agreement.
• Schedule Monthly Meetings with Everyone Together: When going over results and adjusting strategy, it can be very useful to have all parties on the phone at the same time. We were on a call Friday with String Automotive who facilitated a meeting with the dealer, the website provider, the PPC provider, the SEO company, and the social media company to devise an attack strategy for this coming month. These calls are crucial to make sure that if we're trying to impove sales of a specific vehicle in a specific zip code, that we're able to all be lockstep in our strategy and implementation. Brainstorming together works well which is why we really appreciate all that String does to make this happen.
• Force Vendors to Keep You in Mind with New Developments: I've worked for several vendors since leaving the retail side of the car business and one thing seems to be universal: the new stuff goes to new clients. It's not fair. You should never have to hear about the latest development by a vendor by reading a press release. In our world, the squeaky wheel really does get the grease, so make sure they don't forget to give you the real stuff. When negotiating new contracts, remember to include a clause about it. You want the new stuff. You don't want to be a guinea pig, but you want the stuff that the new clients are getting.
• Keep a Record of Every Interaction: Just as you log every call and email into a CRM when talking to your customers, so do the vendors. They know every communication. You should, too. It can be tedious without an appropriate process, but if you have a CRM that you like, you can treat your vendors like your customers. Just make sure they're separated.

Every day, we're forced to hold other vendors accountable for our clients. This is great if you have us, but if you're doing it on your own, I hope that these little tips will help you make the most out of your digital marketing.

Over the years, I've grown used to having debates. Sometimes, people will oppose my perspectives for the sake of debate. Other times, they will truly feel like things that I recommend are truly wrong. This piece will likely fall into the latter category.

It's ironic that I often tell dealers not to use social media for the sake of branding. Don't get me wrong - it's a great branding tool. However, if you utilize the right strategies and truly promote concepts on social media that will help you sell more cars, the branding will happen as a result. In other words, branding is a side effect of great social media, not a goal behind most campaigns.

The reason it's ironic is because of the content marketing premise I'm about to divulge. When comparing search and social in regards to content, most would assume that social media is the place where content can be used for branding and organic search is not really a branding tool per se. My view is the opposite. There are distinct advantages to branding through organic search that propel aggressive dealerships ahead of the competition.

Our industry always tends to view search as purely designed to drive business-relevant traffic. Every piece of content should be geared towards sales, service or any of the other important search terms that shoppers will type. This is all true to an extent, though not 100%. An aggressive strategy includes content designed to position the dealership in a positive light within the community and to take advantage of that through search.

This article cannot be long enough to go into sufficient detail about the strategy, so I'll resort to examples. Let's say your dealership supports a local charity. Building a page about that charity and optimizing it to rank for keywords associated to the charity can help in three ways:

• It helps the charity itself by giving it exposure on a new channel.
• Website visitors can see the page and get an understanding of how the dealership is involved in the community.
• In search, the branding associated with ranking for keywords associated with the charity can get you positive PR.

As I've written in the past, it's not about bragging. You're not simply tooting your dealership's horn. By doing it with the right heart, you're continuing to help the charity and allowing the dealership to act as the community leader that it should be.

Let's look at another example. Let's say you have a locational branding challenge. People outside of your city know generally where you are, but aren't aware of your exact location. If you happen to be close to a place known by the generally community, posting content about that place can help you gain associating by proximity. In other words, you can be known as "the Hyundai dealership by the mall," for example.

Final example: local car shows. It kills me when I see that a dealership is supporting or even hosting local automotive events and they have no content on their website about it. Sure, they might have a banner that leads to a page with a couple of paragraphs and contact form, but the page often doesn't rank about a participant's Flickr post, let alone close to the top for searches about the event. This is not acceptable.

There are those who will disagree and I'll happily discuss it here on Driving Sales or directly if you'd prefer.

There's a difference between posting irrelevant content and posting content with a valid business purpose even if it's not directly associated with the dealership. It's an advanced strategy that should only be applied by those who have all of their basics covered, but if that's you, chances are you could benefit from this type of strategy.

Over the years, I've grown used to having debates. Sometimes, people will oppose my perspectives for the sake of debate. Other times, they will truly feel like things that I recommend are truly wrong. This piece will likely fall into the latter category.

It's ironic that I often tell dealers not to use social media for the sake of branding. Don't get me wrong - it's a great branding tool. However, if you utilize the right strategies and truly promote concepts on social media that will help you sell more cars, the branding will happen as a result. In other words, branding is a side effect of great social media, not a goal behind most campaigns.

The reason it's ironic is because of the content marketing premise I'm about to divulge. When comparing search and social in regards to content, most would assume that social media is the place where content can be used for branding and organic search is not really a branding tool per se. My view is the opposite. There are distinct advantages to branding through organic search that propel aggressive dealerships ahead of the competition.

Our industry always tends to view search as purely designed to drive business-relevant traffic. Every piece of content should be geared towards sales, service or any of the other important search terms that shoppers will type. This is all true to an extent, though not 100%. An aggressive strategy includes content designed to position the dealership in a positive light within the community and to take advantage of that through search.

This article cannot be long enough to go into sufficient detail about the strategy, so I'll resort to examples. Let's say your dealership supports a local charity. Building a page about that charity and optimizing it to rank for keywords associated to the charity can help in three ways:

• It helps the charity itself by giving it exposure on a new channel.
• Website visitors can see the page and get an understanding of how the dealership is involved in the community.
• In search, the branding associated with ranking for keywords associated with the charity can get you positive PR.

As I've written in the past, it's not about bragging. You're not simply tooting your dealership's horn. By doing it with the right heart, you're continuing to help the charity and allowing the dealership to act as the community leader that it should be.

Let's look at another example. Let's say you have a locational branding challenge. People outside of your city know generally where you are, but aren't aware of your exact location. If you happen to be close to a place known by the generally community, posting content about that place can help you gain associating by proximity. In other words, you can be known as "the Hyundai dealership by the mall," for example.

Final example: local car shows. It kills me when I see that a dealership is supporting or even hosting local automotive events and they have no content on their website about it. Sure, they might have a banner that leads to a page with a couple of paragraphs and contact form, but the page often doesn't rank about a participant's Flickr post, let alone close to the top for searches about the event. This is not acceptable.

There are those who will disagree and I'll happily discuss it here on Driving Sales or directly if you'd prefer.

There's a difference between posting irrelevant content and posting content with a valid business purpose even if it's not directly associated with the dealership. It's an advanced strategy that should only be applied by those who have all of their basics covered, but if that's you, chances are you could benefit from this type of strategy.

Every time I think the cat is out of the bag, I talk to enough dealers and vendors to convince me that it's still only a small percentage. As a vendor, this makes me happy. As a car guy, this makes me a little sad.

Dark post advertising on social media has such a high verifiable return on investment that it's amazing how few are utilizing it. Then again, I've seen a good number of dark post campaigns that were simply not handled well enough to be powerful that were built by both dealers and vendors. I'll go into the full details in a future post, but since this post is going up right before Easter, it's best to simply touch on the basics.

"Dark posts" are unpublished posts on Facebook and advertised posts on Twitter. They do not appear on the public pages or profiles, but they do appear in the targeted news feeds and timelines of the target audiences. This is what makes them so powerful. There's nothing better than targeting in-market shoppers for your brand with messages intended to drive them directly to the inventory on your website.

Isn't that what digital advertising is really all about?

There is a bandwagon that is preparing to roll out. This bandwagon will include many of the top current vendors. New vendors will pop up because of the opportunities that dark posts bring to the table. It will start rolling in weeks or months, not years. Will your dealership be on it?

If you get ahead of the bandwagon, a couple of good things will happen. You'll be able to take advantage fo the market before it gets saturated. More importantly, your experience and established history will give you the edge over competitors.

Knowing what I've seen in the industry over the past two decades, I would predict that around 20% of dealers will be using dark posts by this time next year. The following year, it will likely be over 50% depending on what changes are made between now and then.

Anybody who tells you they can predict the future of the internet is a fool, so let me add my disclaimer: I could definitely be totally wrong. The only I have to go by is experience and trends. Don't take my word for it, though. Research dark posts for yourself (or simply wait until my post next week that goes into more details).

Some dealers hop on the bandwagon when it comes around. Others get the head start before the bandwagon even forms. Where will you be when the race begins?

Every time I think the cat is out of the bag, I talk to enough dealers and vendors to convince me that it's still only a small percentage. As a vendor, this makes me happy. As a car guy, this makes me a little sad.

Dark post advertising on social media has such a high verifiable return on investment that it's amazing how few are utilizing it. Then again, I've seen a good number of dark post campaigns that were simply not handled well enough to be powerful that were built by both dealers and vendors. I'll go into the full details in a future post, but since this post is going up right before Easter, it's best to simply touch on the basics.

"Dark posts" are unpublished posts on Facebook and advertised posts on Twitter. They do not appear on the public pages or profiles, but they do appear in the targeted news feeds and timelines of the target audiences. This is what makes them so powerful. There's nothing better than targeting in-market shoppers for your brand with messages intended to drive them directly to the inventory on your website.

Isn't that what digital advertising is really all about?

There is a bandwagon that is preparing to roll out. This bandwagon will include many of the top current vendors. New vendors will pop up because of the opportunities that dark posts bring to the table. It will start rolling in weeks or months, not years. Will your dealership be on it?

If you get ahead of the bandwagon, a couple of good things will happen. You'll be able to take advantage fo the market before it gets saturated. More importantly, your experience and established history will give you the edge over competitors.

Knowing what I've seen in the industry over the past two decades, I would predict that around 20% of dealers will be using dark posts by this time next year. The following year, it will likely be over 50% depending on what changes are made between now and then.

Anybody who tells you they can predict the future of the internet is a fool, so let me add my disclaimer: I could definitely be totally wrong. The only I have to go by is experience and trends. Don't take my word for it, though. Research dark posts for yourself (or simply wait until my post next week that goes into more details).

Some dealers hop on the bandwagon when it comes around. Others get the head start before the bandwagon even forms. Where will you be when the race begins?

It took a mini-debate with a potential client to bring me to a conclusion: numbers do lie. Conventional wisdom says otherwise, but in the digital age there is a huge gap between seeing the numbers and understanding them in a meaningful way.

I should go ahead and add an addendum to the premise before I begin. Numbers aren't really lying, but they can definitely be misleading if not discerned properly. The numbers I'm discussing specifically are mobile numbers. A brief look at Google analytics reveals that some of the old school key indicators like time on site and average pages per visit would put mobile traffic in a poor light. Then, cross-referencing these numbers to lead numbers would support the premise that mobile website visitors spend less time, visit fewer pages, and are less likely to fill out a lead form.

All of this is true. All of it is also false.

In the recent past, mobile internet speeds combined with slow dealer websites created an environment where most visitors on smartphones did exhibit these traits. Today, more people are using their smartphones to do the bulk of their surfing. Internet speeds are faster. Dealer websites are faster. The only other component now that would keep leads low would be the good ol' "fat finger syndrome" that shows people are less likely to fill out a lead form on a smartphone.

The truth is this: car shoppers definitely do use their smartphones to visit dealer websites in a meaningful way. You can see this anecdotally while watching customers just before they leave the dealership if they didn't buy a car. Sure, they'll make excuses that they have to pick up their kids or think about it or go to lunch or whatever, but many of them are finding the next dealership they're going to visit through their smartphone right before leaving.

Let's look at that person as an example. They went to a dealership and didn't make a deal. They do a search for another dealership and land on your website. They grab your address, plug it into their navigation, and head over. From there, they bought a car. Now, this person, based upon Google Analytics and lead form data, was "bad" traffic. They spent 10 seconds on the site. They didn't visit any other pages but the homepage. They didn't fill out a lead form or call the dealership. Three hours later, they're driving off the lot with a brand new car from your dealership.

Mobile usage on smartphones is different, but that doesn't make it less valuable than desktop traffic. In some cases, it's better traffic. We experienced this second hand last month when a client did nothing different but use dark posts on social media to drive traffic to a landing page on their website. Leads didn't go up much. Time on site went down while bounce rates went up. However, their $2000 investment yielded a 17% increase in sales month-over-month and a 29% increase year-over-year. They couldn't see any real difference in the numbers other than an increase in mobile traffic, particularly through Polk-driven dark posts.

There are different ways to measure the value of different traffic types, but our personal favorite is sales. If sales are going up considerably, and mobile traffic is the only thing that's new, then it is likely the culprit.

It took a mini-debate with a potential client to bring me to a conclusion: numbers do lie. Conventional wisdom says otherwise, but in the digital age there is a huge gap between seeing the numbers and understanding them in a meaningful way.

I should go ahead and add an addendum to the premise before I begin. Numbers aren't really lying, but they can definitely be misleading if not discerned properly. The numbers I'm discussing specifically are mobile numbers. A brief look at Google analytics reveals that some of the old school key indicators like time on site and average pages per visit would put mobile traffic in a poor light. Then, cross-referencing these numbers to lead numbers would support the premise that mobile website visitors spend less time, visit fewer pages, and are less likely to fill out a lead form.

All of this is true. All of it is also false.

In the recent past, mobile internet speeds combined with slow dealer websites created an environment where most visitors on smartphones did exhibit these traits. Today, more people are using their smartphones to do the bulk of their surfing. Internet speeds are faster. Dealer websites are faster. The only other component now that would keep leads low would be the good ol' "fat finger syndrome" that shows people are less likely to fill out a lead form on a smartphone.

The truth is this: car shoppers definitely do use their smartphones to visit dealer websites in a meaningful way. You can see this anecdotally while watching customers just before they leave the dealership if they didn't buy a car. Sure, they'll make excuses that they have to pick up their kids or think about it or go to lunch or whatever, but many of them are finding the next dealership they're going to visit through their smartphone right before leaving.

Let's look at that person as an example. They went to a dealership and didn't make a deal. They do a search for another dealership and land on your website. They grab your address, plug it into their navigation, and head over. From there, they bought a car. Now, this person, based upon Google Analytics and lead form data, was "bad" traffic. They spent 10 seconds on the site. They didn't visit any other pages but the homepage. They didn't fill out a lead form or call the dealership. Three hours later, they're driving off the lot with a brand new car from your dealership.

Mobile usage on smartphones is different, but that doesn't make it less valuable than desktop traffic. In some cases, it's better traffic. We experienced this second hand last month when a client did nothing different but use dark posts on social media to drive traffic to a landing page on their website. Leads didn't go up much. Time on site went down while bounce rates went up. However, their $2000 investment yielded a 17% increase in sales month-over-month and a 29% increase year-over-year. They couldn't see any real difference in the numbers other than an increase in mobile traffic, particularly through Polk-driven dark posts.

There are different ways to measure the value of different traffic types, but our personal favorite is sales. If sales are going up considerably, and mobile traffic is the only thing that's new, then it is likely the culprit.

Common advice in the automotive industry: "There are very strict rules that dealers should follow when posting to social media, especially as it pertains to timing."

Pop quiz: Who says things like this?

• Companies who post on schedules
• Gurus who want to demonstrate the need for their expertise
• Anyone who wants to automate their social media
• Any of the above

There are many reasons that people want to apply rules to how and when to post to social media, but here's the thing: throw them all out. You don't need rules. Social media is an art that requires an understanding of the science behind it.

The artistic aspect is easy to understand. You have to be creative. I've talked until I was blue in the face about the need for companies - both OEMs and vendors - to make certain that the creative was unique to each dealer, localized, and relevant to what a person would expect a car dealer to post. Both dealers and their vendors need to make every post count.

What you post and how it's received plays an important role in the overall success of a Facebook page. That sounds like an obvious statement, but there's more to it than what it sounds like on the surface. A post that does exceptionally well and resonates with the audience improves the page's ability to show future posts to more people. It's about momentum. Applying all of the necessary creative juices to each post, crafting it to be awesome every time - this is the key to the "artsy" side of social media.

All of this affects the scientific component. As I said, there is a major influence that comes from post momentum. Great posts make future posts more visible. Poor posts make them less visible. This is the biggest reason that we're completely against scheduling posts far ahead of time.

Sure, it's fine to schedule when necessary. If you're off on the weekends, for example, there's no reason to have to go into your Facebook page on your day off when you could have scheduled it while you were working. However, this is not a license for laziness. You absolutely do not want to schedule for the week or longer as many do.

Manage and monitor. Make decisions based upon the current situation. In a way, it's like in Star Wars Episode 4 when Luke is told to turn off his targeting computer and to use the force. There's nothing mystic about social media, but it's important to feel your posts to determine whether or not to post again.

For example, you might have a post that's doing exceptionally well, "going viral" so to speak, accumulating hundreds of likes, comments, and shares. With a post like that, you don't want to have another one scheduled for later that day and possibly not even the next day. This will "run it over" and kill the momentum that the post was accumulating.

Another similar situation occurs when you have an important post up. Let's say you're promoting a big sale this weekend. You don't want to run that post over with something else the next day. You'll want it to run its course and get in front of as many people as possible.

All of this is possible with ad budgets, of course. With the potential reach associated with Facebook ads giving you an exponential increase in reach, there's no reason to try to play the organic game. On Facebook, organic is dead. With properly managed Facebook ads, you can have the juice running to your important or viral posts for 1, 2, or even 3 days without a problem. This is much better than sticking to a 1-a-day or 2-a-day schedule that most companies and many dealers utilize.

Social is about science. It's about art. It's about ROI. It's not about a strict process or an arbitrary set of rules.