Automotive Marketing

I’m always looking for new places to syndicate auto listings, and people like me are currently unwelcome at Windows Live Expo.

Microsoft’s free classified service launched earlier this year, but you won’t find many dealer listings with a search. This service does not support data feed bulk uploads.

Windows Live Expo currently does not support bulk uploads of listings. We are not currently seeking to enable bulk uploads because we want the marketplace to grow organically in its early stages. In the future if we do decide to enable bulk-upload facilities, we will publicly announce the feature with all the relevant details necessary for you to use this feature.

Want to list an item? Start typing. This policy reminds me of craigslist’s “we don’t support businesses, we only tolerate them” business model. These days, everyone is trying to build their own passionate user base by copying craigslist.

Jake of HigherTurnover has concluded round one of his Autotrader vs Craigslist split test, and discussed his conclusion on the HT company blog.

If I made a living out of selling cars, I think first and foremost I would buy the right inventory, and second I would put more emphasis into Craigs List than Autotrader based on cost.

The vehicle history report scene just got a little more cheesey. When I see the words “vehicle history report”, I think of CARFAX. The Virginia based company has successfully created and branded this concept, and I doubt that it was hard to market a such a useful product.

Experian’s AutoCheck was a carbon copy, right down to the buy back guarantee, until today.

AutoCheck is launching an innovative new feature for the AutoCheck® service that all of our existing dealers begin to use on July 16th. This new feature is called the AutoCheck ScoreSM. The AutoCheck Score is a number between 1 and 100, and we also include the AutoCheck Score RangeSM that provides a benchmark of how similar age and class vehicles perform. This new feature helps dealers and their customers better interpret the data in AutoCheck report.

For those dealer customers that currently have AutoCheck report link for their on-line inventories, we are offering a new implementation mechanism to display AutoCheck Score on the vehicle detail page.

Attached are the instructions for the implementation of AutoCheck Score tile on vehicle detail page. See also a sample “vehicle detail page” that shows how the AutoCheck Score can look on your dealer’s Web sites, as well as all of the creative you need to get it implemented properly.

AkA AutoCheck’s latest effort to outbrand CARFAX. Create a free widget and expand your real estate on websites all over the web.

Click anywhere on AutoCheck’s section of your page and go to the AutoCheck report. AutoCheck ‘owns’ the AutoCheck Score tile, so who knows what else might start showing up as a feature. Widgets are a great marketing tool, and it is no secret. AutoCheck’s new car widget provides a snapshot of the history report that can be seen before the actual report, which draws more interest to their primary product. I like the simplified rating idea, but let us visit the contrast.

CARFAX is not interested in the idea of modifying their product. They disallow custom wording on dealer websites to the effect of “the full report is not available” and deliver only the report or their record check summary page.

Both ideas are interesting. I think CARFAX benefits from not changing.

The Google Adwords team has launched a quarterly Automotive Industry newsletter. The first edition is available online. Both AskPatty and CarTango get nice name drops (no link) in “Who’s in the driver’s seat”, and the following graphic from comScore is discussed in the “Get your motor running” article.

In the spirit of the Retail and TechB2B newsletters, we’d like to introduce advertisers to the new, quarterly AdWords Automotive Newsletter. The premier issue features optimization tips that will help you remain competitive in the face of shifting consumer behavior, as well as articles to keep you abreast of the latest industry tends. You’ll also find a brief introduction to Google Analytics, Google’s powerful web analytics service. Keep an eye out for future editions, which will include holiday optimization advice, consumer trends, and suggestions for automotive advertisers.As always, you can receive newsletters via e-mail by signing up through your AdWords account.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew at 7/06/2007 09:57:00 AM

UPDATE: I tried contacting the Adwords team with a question I had regarding this newsletter and syndication opportunities, but the contact email they supply, auto-newsletter@google.com, is a bad address. Looks like Google needs to “Get their motor running” OHH ZING!