Most OEMs are lacking when it comes to SEO/SEM certified people

Having  two websites totally throws off your local search ecosystem aka How Google finds you

Hey Kyle, I don't agree with this.

Organically, yes there may be two websites that users are seeing but the website the resources are put into will show up first and guess which link users will click, the first one. I have direct experience with dealers with two sites and know if they do things right, their traffic to their OEM based site is almost negligible compared to their preferred one. They still get leads from the OEM site and their inventory is still on there, it's just not where they want to invest their dollars in bringing people to - because a lot of the times, they don't convert the traffic in a way that provides strong ROI. 

Dealer's are typically heavy into SEM campaigns that are driving traffic to their preferred site which also decreases the likelihood that the users will find themselves on the "forgotten one" and even less so if a strong retargeting campaign is implemented. A step further would be dynamic, year, make and model SEM campaigns driving VDP traffic of users not even looking for specific dealership sites. Ultimately, the "user experience" argument doesn't really apply at this point. 

If dealers are confident that they can get a second website that will convert their traffic driving investments to leads or "engaged users" (a metric we use to analyze user behaviour on VDP's which predict sales) at a much higher percentage than their OEM sites are able to achieve, it's a no brainer. Why would they waste their money driving traffic to a site that converts 20% or less of it's users to spending at least 60 seconds on a VDP when they can be driving traffic to a site that converts at 30-50%?

In our experience, OEM based sites are also light years behind the technological curve. It's hard for these dealers to "work with what they have" because they may not even know what they need ask of their OEM company to increase conversions and if they do, it could be like pulling teeth to get anything meaningful accomplished. A company that's forced on to dealerships in our experience doesn't seem to have the same "edge" as the scrappy disrupters that have to be extremely adaptive, quick and technologically advanced to earn the business. 

Another thing to look at is competitive advantage. If two dealers of the same brand are competing in the same market - why would they both want the same website? How does that give an advantage to either of them? They are trying to compete with and be different than each other to gain a leg up.

Let me know your thoughts.

Regan 
VP Accounts
sMedia.ca

The other problem with using just an OEM website is that the OEM can block you from using tools or products that convert better than what the OEM wants you to use. Very sad. I thought the goal was to sell cars. I guess controlling the dealer and picking which vendors should win, regardless of how well they perform is  top priority. Any dealer with more than one point should focus on promoting a group site to maximize sales opportunities.