Dealer.com and Chrysler Deal – Conflict of Interest
Having one car dealer website vendor to represent all dealer points nationwide for a specific brand creates a huge conflict of interest. While we do believe that having multiple web properties can help a dealer maximize their exposure online many dealer chose not to look beyond the one that is force fed to them by their brand’s manufacturer and resign their other web properties.
Same brand same market dealers only have one keyword(s) that they do not compete with their neighboring dealers, their name. Other than that they all are going after the same search phrases and keywords. Terms such as Doug Henry Chevrolet are owned uniquely by the dealer where as terms such as Greenville Chevy are terms that several dealers will compete for. One vendor cannot ethically represent dealers that are competing in the same market with website solutions, automotive SEO or search engine marketing.
The recent deal between Chrysler and Dealer.com in many markets creates a huge conflict of interest.
Here is an example take for the search term on Google for Jacksonville Dodge Dealer
The question is if all dealers are paying for the same car dealer website service via Chrysler’s deal how does one dealer get two entries in the top spot and the others dealers websites lag behind them. Is this dealer paying dealer.com for seo service, did they hire and outside automotive SEO firm or did this happen naturally via search engine algorithms? From our research it shows that it is the latter with a little more emphasis based on search engine trust and offsite seo efforts.
In dealer.com propaganda marketing style they made the following statement on Automotive Social network Drivingsales.com
It all comes down to Google.
In an industry dominated by search engines, your account reps have to know the ins and outs of that business. And these days, that means they’d better be Google trained and Google certified. You might hear vague promises about how that doesn’t matter so much or how there are ways around it, but there’s one truth in the search engine business: Google rules. And until that changes, and there’s no reason to believe it will any time in the near future, having the training and certification necessary to run your ad words program and to help you with search engine marketing and optimization is an absolute necessity.
While we are not going to take the time dissect the comment specifically other than Google does not provide Search Engine Optimization training or certification and their adwords certification is geared to help them, Google and Dealer.com, sell more pay per click advertising.
Google says this about Search Engine Optimization:
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
In another search engine query for Orlando Dodge dealer it completely negates Dealerdotcom’s marketing hype. All of the Dodge dealers in that market have Dealer.com SmartSites as forced on to them to get leads and links from Chrysler but only one dealer.com website shows on page one at position #5 despite their alleged “relationship” with Google.
It makes us wonder what Chrysler’s cut is in forcing dealers to take these non effective websites. The conflicts of interest runs deep and wide and all dealers are not receiving the same level of service from dealer.com. Even in the Orlando Dodge dealer example if all dealers are treated equally there are four dealers that are not being properly serviced by dealer.com.
If you have a dealer.com website we can help you out run your competition even if your are competing with other dealers using their platform. Drop us a note in the comments below or give us a call at 800-406-1794, you’ll be glad you did.
Great post Paul. Having all dealers forced on the same platform creates some unique competitive problems which will force dealers to seek a competitive edge with marketing consultants like youself.
It is impossible to treat multiple dealers in the same region fairly when optimizing their sites for better Google visibility. I couldn’t imagine any answer that a platform provider could give a client to make them feel better if their competitors were ranking ahead of them, and all were on the same “package”.
Web platform providers who seek to do everything will create conflicts of interest and eventually lose credibility. They should have a 50 miles, 75 miles or 100 miles non-competete deals for Internet marketing services if they plan to offers SEO, SEM and Social Media.
Paul:
Thanks for taking an interest in the Chrysler and Dealer.com dealer website program. Your post brings up many great points from an SEO perspective. What’s missing is the overall bigger picture of OEM marketing and branding.
Chrysler needed a solution to ensure that their dealers had some consistent “operating system” to ensure that branding was being carried through the channel from Tier 1 all the way down to tier 3. If a manufacturer has a fragmented approach to the digital space with every dealer using a different system, there is a disconnect from a marketing perspective. The advertising, incentive, branding and other messages get lost from tier 1 as they make their way down to the dealer base where the actual vehicle transactions occur.
Not only was branding a concern, but if you’re a manufacturer and all of your dealerships are using different systems, how can you get an accurate reporting picture of the performance of your stores? How do you compare one region to another? How do you measure the effectiveness of a digital marketing initiative if none of the systems carrying that message talk to one another. The problems Chrysler was addressing were vast.
Overall, the Chrysler deal with Dealer.com has helped Chrysler dealers in many ways as well… allowing them to see how they stack up digitally against other dealers in their market from a digital marketing and lead flow/management perspective is a big win for them. The knowledge base of best practices that is shared throughout the Chrysler community is now being delivered much more effectively, allowing less competitive dealers to start using tactics that will help them get up to speed.
In my opinion the Dealer.com platform is very much like a windows operating system. Every dealer has the same set of tools at their disposal to merchandise their cars effectively. They have the ability to edit their sites, add video, go nuts on what they want to accomplish to set themselves apart from the pack without losing the importance of the OEM brand and national incentive programs.
I’ll point to a recent post on ADM by Larry Bruce, who we both respect in the industry stated that over 50% of traffic to the dealer sites he’s working with comes from direct hits. These people are typing in the URL of the dealership directly.
This is where the effectiveness of the OEM program really takes shape. Those visitors will have the ability to use a fully functional site and when they cross-shop dealerships, the branding and merchandising message that Chrysler has put in place is not lost.
We encourage our dealers to work with outside vendors for a myriad of products. If a dealer wants to get more involved with SEO, choosing your company would be a smart move for them to help differentiate on the SEO side of things when they need more than what comes inherently with our platform. It would be great to see the relationship between our companies move forward in a positive manner. Dealers would really benefit from such synergy.
Thanks for the post!
Mike DeCecco
Mike I appreciate your reply and Chrysler’s need to get a better handle on their online marketing mix. There are less convoluted ways to accomplish the same goal. #1 Being if they are making dealers take a website in order to receive OEM leads they should have their own branded system and not rely on a 3rd party provider like dealer.com.
That is the direction the industry should be headed as a whole. Dealers and mfgs owning their online properties versus leasing them from third parties.
As far as a dealer generating 50% of their traffic from type in traffic, that means they are marketing their website with traditional media. I think we both would agree that there are more cost effective ways for dealers to market their website.
It is only appropriate that the automakers focus their efforts on building great cars and trucks, not online properties. That’s what WE do best. My firm manages Chrysler’s corporate websites as well as more complex processes on the backend. Such complexity requires expertise that OEMs can employ more effeciently via external partnerships.
It makes a lot of sense for a large automaker to want to setup a common web platform by which they can control their product marketing message at the retail level and track/measure how shoppers are engaging online. To that end, they would require a large, capable provider to deploy and manage such a platform. Would you turn away business from a large OEM if they wanted you to build them thousands of websites? If so, what would you do differently from Dealer.com?
Aside from this topic, I like your recent post re: “soft” industry publications and look forward to meeting you next week at the DS conference.
Mike I agree and disagree with your opening statement.. With the investment the OEMs are making doing an integrated inhouse platform my save them money long term.
Would you turn away business from a large OEM if they wanted you to build them thousands of websites?
Nope
If so, what would you do differently from Dealer.com?
I would take the business but make sure that marketing claims matched the results found with my products. They do not do that very well.
I too look forward to meeting you at the DSES
In this case, it seems like the Chrysler dealer has the competitive disadvantage being forced to share their platform with like dealers. Our Chevy store opted to keep our shared platform site (Cobalt), and also developed our own site (dealer.com). Good move for us since we have built a more unique identity and attacked other relevant search phrases driving traffic not available using the OEM-supplied Cobalt tool.
From corporate level it makes sense for Chrysler to have central platform to measure dealer and consumer activity. I’m sure as the dealership learning curve grows realted to online propeties, SEM, and SEO, these dealers will venture out from manufacturer recommendatios to find their competitive edge.
I want to clarify 2 things about the search you did for “Orlando Dodge Dealer”. Note the domain name of number 1 and 2. It is orlandododge.com. It’s a keyword domain so it isn’t very hard to rank on as long as the site is “mature”. It really has nothing to do with who made the site.
The number 4 position impressed me most. Why? Napleton isn’t even in Orlando. They are located in Kissimmee Florida (which is next door). So should we give credit to Izmo cars? No
If you cannot get your homepage to rank on any “type” of website you use than you lack basic SEO skills. What all dealer website companies need to learn is how to get deep pages to rank, and you should scour your analytics on a weekly basis and find out if your deep pages rank, like your inventory.
If you look at your keyword report, you should have at least a few thousand visits every month from “different keywords”. Focus on long tail keywords, and you will see that your bounce rate is lower and your pageviews and average time on site is higher.
Most importantly, don’t rely on server stats. Insist on Google Analytics. I have a friend in Tampa who runs the internet department for a large dealer. He thought for months he was getting 2,000 visitors a day. I new that was impossible, so I challenged him to install Google Analytics. Well, he did. He gets 400 visitors a day.
It’s important to keep in mind how important long tail keywords are, as Mike Annable said above. If you think about someone searching for a car on google, they are going to be specific. If I was looking for a Dodge Journey in Orlando, I would type in “Dodge Journey Orlando” rather than simply “Dodge dealer orlando”.
Anyone can get their home page ranked for a specific keyword. It just takes a lot of in-bound link juice with the right anchor text. The real winners are the ones that are able to get all of their cars indexed quickly and daily, so that specific make + model + city combinations are driving traffic to their site.
Which keyword is going to have a higher conversion rate? One that is “Orlando Dodge Dealer” or “Dodge Journey in Orlando”… I think it’s obvious the more specific one will ultimately convert higher.
Be more concerned about how many different car-specific keywords are getting users to your site, rather than ranking for the one big keyword.
I have yet to see any vendor handle the the sold indexed inventory properly. Those non competitive search terms do bring in a tremendous amount of traffic however it does pale in comparison to the more defined search terms.
Indexed inventory may not be the best way to engage the user when they arrive at the site, one statistic we see based on this traffic is the bounce rate is the highest based on direct inventory entries.
More important than ranking for terms is how engaged the site visitor is when they arrive. Of all the dealers we work with the vendor with the lowest bounce rate and longest time on site would surprise many, this is based off google analytics data.
The first thing we do with any client is install the G’s analytics.
Paul, I’m glad to see that you offer Google Analytics to your clients. There are many website providers that refuse, and I feel it’s deceptive.
I would advise anyone to shop around if your provider won’t. They are playing you like a fiddle
.
One other thing I would like to add concerning bounce rates. Believe it or not, when you look at your visits for long tail keywords the bounce rate will be high and the pageviews per user will be low. If you think about it, it’s not that bad of a thing.
If you give the searcher exactly what they are looking for, they have no need to browse your website further. If conversion analytics are utilized, you will see that they are impressive.
Of course, we can’t count the 50+% of the people that just show up on your lot.