Learn how to make your DrivingSales blog blow up! Our recent webinar gave tips on posting a blog, getting a great topic and title, and our other promotional and general tips will help you get your blog the success it deserves. Take a look at the webinar recordings below to learn how to help your blog blow up!

Check Out The Slideshow Here

27,000 retail locations to benefit from automated online reputation management solution

Lehi, Utah – March 17, 2017 – Podium, the platform that enables businesses to build and manage their online reputation through user-generated content and online reviews, today revealed a new partnership with CDK, the largest global provider of integrated information technology and digital marketing solutions to the automotive retail industry.

The partnership will enable CDK’s customers to fully automate the customer reviews process in over 27,000 retail locations - helping dealerships boost local search ranking, increase trust and loyalty with consumers, and improve business operations.

“We’re excited to become a member of CDK’s Third Party Partner Program, and provide dealers with value-added services through data integration,” said Eric Rea, CEO and co-founder of Podium. “By automatically sending out a review invitation immediately following a car purchase, CDK’s customers will now be able to capitalize on customer insights to make faster, better-informed decisions while also building an online reputation to drive purchase decisions for the dealership.”

CDK customers represent approximately 65% of the automotive, truck, motorcycle, marine, and recreational vehicle dealers throughout the United States. Through CDK’s strategic relationships with other Dealer Management System (DMS) providers, the Podium partnership will also allow a broader network of dealerships to benefit from Podium’s automated review technology.

"Podium and CDK's technology will help us increase visibility and reach to prospective customers across our 27 dealerships in the Chicago and Indiana area,” said Ryan Rohrman, Director of Operations, Bob Rohrman Auto Group. “This integration will help us more efficiently grow our online presence on the sites that matter most to our prospective customers.”

About Podium

Podium helps businesses drive user-generated content in the form of online reviews to increase visibility, improve business operations, and drive purchase decisions. Podium serves 50,000+ users across nearly 10,000 local businesses and is redefining the modern relationship between businesses and customers. Headquartered in Lehi, Utah, and founded in 2014, Podium has received funding from Y Combinator as well as the CEOs of DOMO, Pluralsight and Vivint Smart Home, among others. To learn more, visit www.podium.com or contact us at press@podium.com.

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DrivingSales is thrilled to announce that Adam Shiflett will be a moderator during Presidents Club. Here's a sneak peek of what Adam will be doing while at the event, and how you can learn from him!

It takes about 22 seconds for a mobile landing page to fully load, according to a new study by Google. That might not seem to be a lot of time, but there’s a problem. The same Google study found that 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page if they have to wait for longer than 3 seconds for it to load.

3 seconds.

That’s not a lot of time.

Shoppers want a fast mobile experience, that’s a given. If there are issues with getting through the site, they’ll leave. So it has become critical to make sure that web experiences are fast. Google shows that more than half of all web traffic comes from mobile, but mobile conversion rates are lower than desktop. This tells us that speed = revenue. Mobile loading takes longer than desktop, so even though more people are seeing your site on mobile, it’s not moving quickly enough to make them want to purchase.

Imagine, if you could speed up your mobile site, what the conversion rates could become.

Google shared this in their recent story, “Last month, in an effort to get a better sense of how Google's advertising partners are doing, we did an analysis of 900,000 mobile ads' landing pages spanning 126 countries.5 That new analysis confirmed our thesis: The majority of mobile sites are slow and bloated with too many elements.”

Google found that auto, retail, and technology sectors have the longest load times on their websites, as well as some of the most bloated pages.

Further research found that 70% of the pages analyzed took at least 7 seven seconds for visual content above the fold to display, and more than 10 seconds for all visual content to show.

Google trained a deep neural network, a computer system modeled on the human brain and nervous system, with a set of bounce rate and conversion data. This neural net found that as a page load time goes from one second to seven seconds, the bounce rate increases 113%. Check out the graphic to learn more.

Simply compressing images and text could be a game changer, making mobile pages smaller and thereby helping them load faster.

So how is your site doing? Test Your Site now to see how you compare, and start figuring out what you can do to improve.

Check out the Google research here.

DrivingSales is excited to announce the 2017 finalists for the Most Valuable Insight Contest! These three finalists will have the opportunity to present their insight at DrivingSales Presidents Club. Winner will be announced LIVE at the event!

The finalists are:

"Prioritize Your Prospects: Uncover Clues to Predict Who Will Buy Next" 
AutoLoop, Doug Van Sach

"How Well Does Dealership VDP Engagement Correlate to Car Sales?"
Speed Shift Media, Ian Cruickshank

"Using Artificial Intelligence to Prioritize Customer Engagement"
T2 Modus, Jim Roach

The Most Valuable Insight Contest is designed to reveal and showcase never-before-released data and research unique in the automotive industry. Don't miss it! 

We are also excited to announce that David Mead is one of the Keynote Speakers for Presidents Club. David is the Chief of What's Next at Simon Sinek, Inc. He'll be teaching us how to inspire our entire organization to develop accountability and lead our dealership to new heights.

It's not too late to register! Visit DrivingSales Presidents Club to get your tickets now.

DrivingSales Presidents Club

April 9-10, 2017
Grand Hyatt
New York, NY

We interviewed many vendors during NADA 2017 to hear what they think is ahead for the auto industry. Check out our interview with Dominion Dealer Solutions.

*The thoughts and opinions expressed by interviewees do not reflect the opinions of DrivingSales. These interviews are purely editorial content and are not sponsored by any party.
 

We interviewed many vendors during NADA 2017 to hear what they think is ahead for the auto industry. Check out our interview with Jazel.

*The thoughts and opinions expressed by interviewees do not reflect the opinions of DrivingSales. These interviews are purely editorial content and are not sponsored by any party.
 

Event on Feb. 25 will collect donations for local animal charity
and host local car club meetup

Peacock Subaru has never skimped when it comes to offering good deals, good service, and good times. For that reason, you won’t be surprised that Peacock Subaru has decided to host a launch party for the all-new 2017 Subaru Impreza. The More 2 Love event & Food Truck Fest on Feb. 25 will offer drivers a chance to test drive the new Impreza while also providing a wealth of other activities.

It’s an open secret that the new Subaru Impreza gives drivers more to love than any of its predecessors: from its high-powered performance specs to its brilliant technologies and its stellar safety systems, the Impreza promises to impress its drivers with the very best in automotive design.

There’s no better way to find out what makes this new car the topic of everybody’s talk than to test drive it yourself. Luckily, you can do so yourself by stopping by our More 2 Love event on Feb. 25. The first 30 drivers to test drive the all-new Impreza will receive a $30 Visa gift card, and all test-drivers will receive some awesome Subaru swag to take home!

In addition to letting you take this new Subaru out on the road for yourself during More 2 love, you’ll be able to stroll the grounds of our dealership while enjoying meals from a number of food trucks that will set up shop for our Food Truck Rally. At the same time, you can make a donation to Pug Rescue of Florida in exchange for a voucher toward a food truck item of your choice! We’ll also have Black Flag Racing on site with their rally Impreza as well as the Subaru Orlando Group will also hold their monthly meetup at this event showing off their Subarus.

Visit Peacock Subaru’s More 2 Love event at Peacock Subaru, located at 9951 Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando. More information: www.imprezalaunch.eventbrite.com You can also call us at 407-985-5500 or visit http://www.subarusouthorlando.com/2017-subaru-impreza.htm to find out why the Impreza gives you ever more to love!

Peacock Subaru is a franchise of Peacock-Griffey Automotive, a subsidiary of Peacock Automotive, which also owns Peacock Ford in Orlando; Hilton Head Hyundai, Audi Hilton Head, Hilton Head Volkswagen, Porsche of Hilton Head, Subaru of Hilton Head, Jaguar Land Rover Hilton Head, and Hilton Head Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, all in the Hilton Head, S.C., area; Savannah Volkswagen and Alfa Romeo & Fiat of Savannah; and Jaguar Land Rover Columbia in Columbia, S.C. Peacock Automotive also features the state-of-the-art New River Auto Mall Collision Center that provides car and truck collision repair, the New River Wellness Institute which is a full-service physical therapy, fitness and wellness facility, and Peacock Insurance, an Allstate Insurance agency located in South Carolina and Orlando.

We interviewed many vendors during NADA 2017 to hear what they think is ahead for the auto industry. Check out our interview with J&L Marketing.

*The thoughts and opinions expressed by interviewees do not reflect the opinions of DrivingSales. These interviews are purely editorial content and are not sponsored by any party.

We interviewed many vendors during NADA 2017 to hear what they think is ahead for the auto industry. Check out our interview with Team Velocity Marketing.

*The thoughts and opinions expressed by interviewees do not reflect the opinions of DrivingSales. These interviews are purely editorial content and are not sponsored by any party.