Annual announcements are nothing new for Google. If nothing else, Google rolls out new marketing elements, metrics and key performance indicators on a daily basis. If any company knows change, it’s Google. The Google algorithm changes approximately 500 to 600 times a year.

As SEO and SEM experts know, you have to test your assumptions when changes occur and redevelop strategies accordingly.

Historically, Google’s changes have involved three key concepts:

   *more relevance for today’s consumer

   *more clean-up of spammy activities

   *more money in Google’s pocket – aka financial changes

Late last year, Google made a change to Google Ads whereby the Ad Rank Score now calculates the speed of the target page and categorizes the user experience. It affects your online presence, your cost-per-click, and impacts cost since page speed is now a major ranking factor for mobile searches.

For stores that have deep linked VDP URL search campaigns—and who doesn’t? —for used cars, you should be wary of internet service providers that encourage you to take 49 photos of used cars. The corresponding impact of how quickly those pages load is key, and the more photos that exist on a single VDP can absolutely affect site speed.

Additionally, are you looking at page speed on a desktop with a Wi-Fi network? 70% of your website’s pages are visited through a mobile device. Slow-loading pages are like an invisible force field around your dealership ironically keeping customers out while driving your costs up.

The good news and bad news of it all is that your Ad Rank is recalculated each time your ad is eligible to appear. It’s a real-time, online auction.   Whether or not it’s ADESA, Barrett Jackson or Google, each car that runs down the lane will have bids that are affected by your competition, by the context of the consumer’s search, by the speed of your website’s pages, and by the relevance of those pages at that moment.

Keeping track of your mobile page score affects your advertising budget. Your Quality Score and loading speed on mobile devices make up your Ad Rank—a key to success in today’s retail automotive environment.

CEO & Founder Local Search Group Jim Flint discusses how dealers can have a good defensive strategy in their pay-per-click campaigns.

A few days ago, I wrote about the Fundamental Attribution Error. It’s when people place the motives for behavior on an individual’s character even though the environment is likely the most important driver.

Today, let’s discuss the Fundamental Conversion Error. It’s more straightforward than the Fundamental Attribution Error. Conversions don’t sell cars. Even though many would tell you that they do—err, statistically speaking, they don’t.

Making resource decisions—read: spending your advertising dollars—based solely on conversion metrics is essentially the equivalent of the warning sign placed on stock purchases. In either case: “Past performance is NO guarantee of future results.

In this video blog, CEO & Founder of Local Search Group Jim Flint shares why dealers shouldn't confuse their digital efforts with its effectiveness.

The Fundamental Attribution Error reminds us that people tend to unduly emphasize internal character, rather than external factors when trying to understand people’s motives. We tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people. The oft-overlooked reality is that the environment matters more, if not most.

A thief steals an upscale car from the valet at your favorite upscale restaurant while you’re enjoying your steak dinner. Is the thief a bad person? Or does he have a family too to feed at home? External factors.

A car shopper doesn’t show up at a dealership until they are ready to buy. Are they a bad person? Are they even a good person? Or do they have everything they need for shopping completely and painlessly at home? External factors.

As more and more of today’s information moves online, as more and more of today’s transactions move online, and as more and more of society’s interactions move online, a good bet is to know the external environment the consumer is in and to start bringing the products closer and closer to them.

It’s more than digital retailing, too. Anyone can see that coming. It’s humbly beyond the concept of a transaction. It’s to a place of completing the transaction on your phone and having the car delivered to you at your home, at your place of work or wherever is most convenient to you—steak dinners or otherwise.

CEO & Founder Local Search Group Jim Flint explains Impression Share Bidding in this video.

Local Search Group CEO & Founder Jim Flint shares some advice for dealers on how to best prepare for the Spring selling season.

The time is now. Spring selling season is upon us. When your inventory, personnel and plans are in the right spot on February 20th, your 2019 is set up to work to your maximum advantage. Five of the best six seasonally-adjusted sales months over the years happen between March and August.  Working the details and making sure that you’re taking care of them makes the difference.

Stay out of the “Automotive Bermuda Triangle” in March and each and every month by checking three key measures: Personnel, Product and Pace.

Pace is best summed up by your Moneyball Factor. Do you know where you are with your Moneyball Factor: your total vehicle sales divided by your total dealership website sessions, for your store?

Driving your performance well past a Moneyball Factor of 1.0 helps drive advertising productivity as well as dealership profitability. Looked at another way, are you selling at least one vehicle for every 100 visitors that come to your website?

If you’re not, you should re-evaluate your sales plan and resource allocation starting with these 4 details:

• * Check your Mobile Page Speed scores and recognize that it affects your advertising expenses.
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• * Set up Google Analytics and place values on your conversions.
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• * Set up Google Alerts to monitor activity for your dealership as well as for your competitors.
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• * Know your dealership website’s Keyword Quality Scores; it’s just as important as knowing your Cost-Per-Click.

Additionally, know that Google is bringing an enhanced emphasis to Impression Share. Staying up to speed with your Auction Insights will help you know how you are doing while also helping you to see what your competitors are doing in your backyard.

Take some of the guesses and wishes out of your dealership’s decision-making. Make this a more productive and profitable year by establishing your Moneyball Factor and updating the Google metrics that you track for your dealership.

Are you paying "tax" on your website to Google? CEO & Founder of Local Search Group Jim Flint explains in this video blog.

The hottest new models in the automotive space aren’t relegated to cars anymore.

Cars are key, but statistical models are catching favor and acclaim. Rightfully so.

The Houston Auto Show recently debuted the 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera TAG Heuer Edition at their Havana Nights Charity Preview Night. With a carbon fiber interior and a matte Monaco Black exterior, the car provided the kind of power and possibility that one dreams of when looking at a new, exotic supermodel of a supercar.

An incredible car to behold, some of the hottest 2019 models available are multiple regression models. Some of you would otherwise know this to be predictive models, predictive of when people will buy. There’s a lot of buzz in this space presently and just like this Tag Heuer edition of watch acclaim, it’s all about being on time AND in front of the right people at the right times with the right information.

Speaking of on time. Google’s predictive model--also known as its algorithm-- produced 263,000 results for “aston martin dbs superleggera tag heuer edition” in 0.54 seconds. Fast car. Hot model.

A cautionary tale about fast cars and fast models though—a company can no more explain 100% of the variation in a model than you can guarantee a customer’s 100% satisfaction with a vehicle purchase.

For what it’s worth, Google’s algorithm is a model, a real-time, multiple regression algorithmic model that cranks predictive results in nanoseconds. AT&T advertising delivers the same, and Amazon, and Facebook, and . . . you get it.

The hottest search models are looking to predict sales for the hottest car models.

And as a dealer, your predictive models should tie back to your sales models. Otherwise they’re not so hot.

In working with a vendor, your models should explain 40% of your sales. Your Super Statistical Models should explain 70% of the variation in your sales. If someone tells you they can explain 100% of your sales, run for the hills! It’s not possible.

Interested in moving past first click, last click, time decay and other attribution models and into the world of sales-minded statistical models? Find a service provider who can help you.

It will cost you a lot less than a new Aston Martin and will help stack the selling odds in your favor.