Auto Media Corp - "Our ads Mean Business"

Limited Posting

Admin — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:52:20 +0000

Due to a substantial work load our blog posting will be limited at best-

Thank you

Autobytel pimps MyRide.com

Admin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:49:35 +0000

Autobytel pimps MyRide.com

Spending on traditional classified ads is dropping and car dealers are looking for more cost-effective ways to generate traffic to their local dealerships.

by Helen Leggat

Eighty-six percent of consumers use the Internet to look for local businesses, according to research from Nielsen, and that extends to buying a car. Many consumers find researching car purchases online overwhelming, especially when using the big search engines, and even third-party websites are deemed much the same.

At the same time, car dealerships want to retain the timeliness and targeting capability of print classifieds. Enter LocalConnect from Autobytel which enables car dealers already using their MyRide search function to display ads on their site. Ads can be targeted by region, promotion dates and make/model and contain rich media presentations and calls to action.

“Clearly, consumers are turning to the Internet, and away from newspaper classifieds, to make their vehicle purchasing decisions,” said Jim Riesenbach, Autobytel president and CEO in an earlier announcement. “With LocalConnect, dealers can easily market their weekly specials to in-market car shoppers in their local area with far greater specificity and at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.”

Out of Autobytel’s 3,700 or so U.S. dealer franchises only 10, including Asbury Automotive and Van Tuyl Group, Inc., have signed up for LocalConnect

Getting local dealers to put more money towards this type of online advertising remains a challenge. "Eighty to 90 percent of our total [ad revenue] is still national," said Riesenbach, who believes the challenge is to convince local dealers to get on board with online geo-targeting. "It's still very early."

Dealers Web Savvy

Admin — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:01:42 +0000

Auto dealerships increasingly web savvy

Auto dealerships are becoming savvier in their use of the Internet and are spending more of their ad dollars online, according to a recent Kelsey Group survey.

by Helen Leggatt

The findings pointed to a rise in the use of various online media including rich, social and search engine optimization.

In particular, more video content will feature on auto dealerships’ websites. Currently, just 33% of auto dealerships include video content and this, according to The Kelsey Group’s research, will rise to 59% during the next 12 months.

Similarly, auto dealerships’ use of consumer reviews and ratings will rise from 29% to 43% and social networking from 15% to 33%.

“These findings point to a significant disruption in the auto dealer advertising space,” said Neal Polachek, CEO of The Kelsey Group. “There are valuable opportunities for traditional and new media companies that tune into dealers’ adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and align with dealers’ online media-buying intentions.”

Also evident from the research was that the number of dealerships employing staff specifically to run online activity is on the rise, with 9% of the dealerships surveyed having an Internet manager or similar.

Auto Retailers Benefit from Direct Marketing

Admin — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:24:00 +0000

DMA: Auto retailers benefit from direct marketing

It isn't print ads and it isn't the internet. According to a recent Direct Marketing Association (DMA) report, auto retailers benefited most from direct marketing efforts in 2007. According to the report, retailers spent $7.3 billion on direct marketing efforts and saw revenue from that spend reach more than $243 billion.

by Kristina Knight

That is a return on investment of more than $33.80 for auto retailers.

“Direct marketing plays a key role in the economic vitality of the automotive industry,” DMA Senior Research Manager Anne Frankel said. “DMA and Global Insight measure 52 industry verticals in their direct marketing econometric model. Compared with all other measured verticals, automotive retailers/service stations have the highest ROI and the largest annual direct marketing-driven sales volume.”

The majority of the direct marketing campaigns are geared toward consumers with more than three-quarters of direct mailings aimed at buyers. During the third quarter Toyota, Ford, Chrysler and Dodge sent the most direct mailings.

The report predicts that by 2012 auto retailers will spend more than $9 billion on direct marketing efforts and will see their revenue from those ad dollars reach $108 billion. That is a slight decrease in ROI to about $33.67.

The best way to convert via direct mailing is to include an offer - a percentage or dollar amount off or some kind of free offer.

Google Adwords Demographic Bidding

Admin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:45:15 +0000

"Demographic bidding helps you display your ads to specific gender and age group audiences on some sites in the Google content network," was written on the Adwords blog, "giving you more control over who your audience is and greater insight into how your ads perform with certain demographic groups.

The demographic change is available to advertisers using both the contextually targeted and placement targeted platforms. The system works especially well for social network advertisers because users on social platforms give some demographic information when they create their account. These reports don't give personal information like name or address to advertisers, instead it gives age or gender and send the information to Google. From there Google adjusts which ads are shown to members of that demographic; only demographic data that users specify can be shared is sent to the platform.

Marketers can bid demographically by telling the platform to increase keyword bids on certain demos, say males between 25-34 years of age. Once that request is sent, advertisers request that ads not be shown to other demographics, say males between 16-24. Once data begins coming in from the campaign marketers can adjust the demographic data as needed. Google offers performance metrics throughout the campaign to clicks, click-through-rates and conversions.

Credit To Kristina Knight

Basic Linking & Linking Popularity

Admin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:55:09 +0000

Linking Basics

Relevant content may not always be enough, especially for highly competitive search terms. (Just for fun, search for 'lawyers' and see how many results are returned). If your page has great keyword density but nobody knows about it, it doesn't do well in search engines. Search engines favor pages that are linked to by several other websites, especially if they have good content with good keyword phrases. Consider how many times have you clicked on a link to a site from another site? This is called "link popularity." Websites that are linked-to by other sites tend to be good, informative and helpful websites. Search engines tend to view these back links as "votes of confidence." Search engines have software programs called "spiders" that "crawl" from one link to another so they can catalog the amount of back links each site has.

TAKE AWAY: Links are important and a huge determinant in search engine rankings

Best Days & Times to Advertise On The Web

Admin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:12:19 +0000

Ever wish you could see the best time to run ads on the web? What about the best day? What would your guess be? A Saturday, Maybe a Sunday with all the Newspapers? Nope.......Believe it or not, a Monday are the best Day closely Followed by Tuesday. Here is what we found while running Search Ads:

Monday's 8:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. and then 3:00 P.M. - 9:00 P.M. EST
Tuesday's 9:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. and then 2:00 P.M. - 9:30 P.M. EST
Wednesday's 11:00 A.M. - 8:00 P.M. EST
Thursday's 11:00 A.M. - 9:30 P.M. EST
Friday's 9:00 A.M. - 10:00 P.M. EST
Saturday 8:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. and then 5:00 P.M. - 10:00 P.M.
Sunday.......Very Minmal, Not worth running the ads

The above are the days and times we found had the highest "Impressions" and best "CTR" - Click Through Rate.

Year End Promotions

Admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:36:29 +0000

As everyone in the car business is aware, the year end brings sales events from many manufacturers. Some of the catchy ones are:

The December to Remember Event - Lexus
The Year End Event - Lincoln
The Mercedes Year End Event - Mercedes
The Season of Audi Event - Audi
Drive Home for the Holidays Event - Acura

To name a few......

So why not leverage the Manufacturers advertising blitz? It would be a good practice to tie out your home page too leverage these widely advertised and publicized events. In fact your dealerships should get creative and build a landing page or pages that tie out to these manufactures sales event. These event specific Landing Pages coupled with targeted Search Engine Marketing could spell holiday green for your dealerships bottom line!

Domaining for Dealers

Admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:41:04 +0000

Many people reading this may wonder...What is Domaining?

To make it simple it is purchasing multiple domain names to be used in the promotion of a specific program, sale or manufacturer event. Here are 16 Tips specifically for car dealerships when choosing additional domain names:

Keep it Simple.....The longer the domain name, the more difficult it is to remember and the more often there will be typo's by people trying to get to your site
Buy domains related to Manufacturers promotions. For example Nissan recently had the "Nissan Tent Event". Why not buy a domain that ties out to promo? Leverage the manufacturers broad spend.
Buy a .Com Name if Possible and remember the shorter the better
Dont be afraid to buy .Net and even .Biz, if a .Com is Not available. Or a shorter version of the name you are looking for is available as a .Net or .Biz. DotCom's are the most well known and get allot of "direct type" visitors, but A great name is a great name regardless if it is DotCom.
Opt for a shorter As mentioned above a shorter .Net is better than a longer .Com For example, DecemberToRemember.Net is better than TheLexusDecembertoRemember.Com (They are both pretty long but are very well known by consumers)
Try different variations of "keywords" when buying a domain, but think like a person searching the web, how would you look for a car? That is a great place to start when choosing a domain.
Use tools, perhaps the best tool out there to give you an idea is Overture Keyword Selector tool BUT use the SEO Chat version offered here: http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-suggestions-overture/
Type in your "manufacturer" name like "Toyota" and see what the most popular searches are, and whittle down from there. The sheer volume of searches will blow your mind when it comes to autos, AND here is a quick fact; The overture tool only reflects Yahoo searches...Multiply the numbers you see by 2.2 to have a tenative idea of how many searches were done on Google. Look At the attached screenshot for a glimpse of the #'s of Toyota Searches.

Overture Screen Shot
Geographic domains.....Ahh the bread and butter. We will be vague on this only because if you have something that is working well for your self why share it with competitors, but here is a hint people search by area when looking to buy a car. Does that help?
Avoid "-" (hyphens) when you can unless it is a Great Domain like New-Car.Com, otherwise there will be allot of typos as well or worse yet, people going to the identical domain, owned by somebody else with out the hyphen.
Avoid excessive use of #'s as they are not often searched.
Avoid domain names that are not .Com, .Net, and .Biz. Some people put a high emphasises on .Org domains but they don't really apply to a commercial business.
Buy a .Mobi, This is the extension for Mobile phone use. They have not taken off yet......BUT recent domain sales seem to show that .Mobi is gaining traction. Poker.Mobi sold for a whopping $150,000 this month.
Stay generic as possible. If your dealerships name is Sam and Sons Toyota of Jibum, break down into simple speak: SamsToyota.com.
Link your domains to your Main Sites Home Page. Preferably in the footer. This will give your landing pages a higher probability of being indexed by search engines.
Last and most importantly...CHECK YOU DEALER AGREEMENT, Many Manufacturers do not allow their dealers to have more than one domain name...Scary but you can work with the manufacturers to get important exceptions.

Any thoughts? Feel free to post.

Yahoo Vs. Google Ad Spends

Admin — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:05:19 +0000

Q3 ad spending on Yahoo higher than Google

A joint white paper, from RBC Capital Markets and search ad technology company SearchIgnite, has shown Yahoo to be making gains during Q3 both in share of search ad impressions and media spend.

by Helen Leggatt

While Google remains way ahead in terms of audience share, Yahoo has been slowly catching up the search engine behemoth, perhaps partly as a result of the revenues generated by their most recent acquisitions.

RBC and SearchIgnite’s joint white paper, entitled “Summer Heats up Yahoo”, found that advertisers increased their spending on Google by just 0.8 percent from Q2 to Q3, whereas their spending on Yahoo increased by 7.8 percent over the same period.

"The data suggests that Yahoo's platform improvements are taking hold at some level,” said Jordan Rohan, managing director and Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “This news should be encouraging to marketers hoping for a more balanced competitive landscape in the paid search space."