Automotive Marketing

Here’s a screen shot of the Search Engines Goal Conversion tab on Google Analytics for a classifieds site I’ve been marketing since December 2006.  The goal Conducted Search is reached when a visitor to the site searches the vehicles for sale database. The percentages represent the amount of traffic from each search engine that searched for vehicles after arriving at the site.

I believe this is happening because the site was optimized for very few keywords per page, which resulted in something that MSN/Live.com loves: strong title tags. To find this report within your Google Analytics account, click Traffic Sources then Search Engines and then Goal Conversion in the middle of the page.

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.

Dear Vehix Inventory Provider:

We are pleased to announce that Vehix has selected HomeNet, Inc. to consolidate inventory polling services for our website. Vehix will utilize HomeNet’s Inventory Online (IOL) technology to upload new and used vehicle inventory data for the Vehix.com site.

HomeNet is a leading provider of vehicle inventory data solutions and has been serving the automotive industry for over ten years. They presently poll inventory for over 6,800 dealers and have more than 1.6 million vehicles in their daily inventory upload. HomeNet’s IOL software is compatible with all DMS types such as ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, Auto/Mate, UCS, Karpower, PBS, Arkona, EDS, and more. They also are capable of receiving inventory from most third party aggregators. HomeNet will also be handling vehicle photographs as part of the Vehix process.

We will be collecting and sending inventory information to HomeNet throughout May and June with the target to switch over live on July 1. This letter serves as our authorization for you to also forward inventory for Vehix dealers to HomeNet. Please continue to also send inventory to your current Vehix address until we notify you that the transition is complete.

We appreciate and respect the trust you place in us when you provide inventory information. You can be assured that HomeNet will also respect the integrity of your dealers’ data. To learn more about HomeNet, please visit their website at www.homenetinc.com.

Again, the plan is to switch over to HomeNet on July 1. If you have any questions about the transition process, please contact me.

Thank you,

Travis Janiszewski

Manager, Dealer Services

Vehix, Inc.

(801) 401-6063

Recently, a big shot dealership from the state capitol contracted me to handle all their third party data feeds. Autotrader, Cars.com and Vehix all get fat files full of vehicle data and pictures at least once a day to populate this dealer’s accounts. While this process is largely a set-it-and-forget-it, it could hardly be as easy.

The Car Lot Camera Guy

Big shot dealership doesn’t take hundreds of photos of all the cars they sell. Instead, they pay some guy with a digital camera and a barcode VIN scanner to do it for them. Great! The more nerds the better, right? I feel that any opportunity to bring more computer people into the dealership is a good one. Man am I wrong.

For the past six months of our relationship, I’ve battled countless “where’s my car” arguments with our transmission logs and carbon copied emails. Since I’m not shooting the shit at the dealership all morning like Car Lot Camera Guy, I’m the first to blame. The data distribution service I provide has never been disrupted throughout our entire contract, and I’ve been able to consistently back that up with evidence.

Car Lot Camera Guy has, well, a camera and a barcode reader. Each time there is a problem I ask for the stock numbers in question and report back within the hour with what happened. Car Lot Camera Guy thinks he uploaded the pictures on the 13th.

Autotrader claims that their website is a free service on their About Our Site page.

Someone should call every car dealer in America and tell them they’re getting ripped off. This FAQ page is obviously targeted at the shopper, but it says what it says.

Is AutoTrader.com a free service? Absolutely!

False.

This brand new vertical search engine combines classified listings from thousands of websites, providing a fantastic shopping experience. And out of the middle of bloody nowhere. I found out this morning that one of my classifieds sites (obviously just got listed and) just received a cool 200 leads overnight.

As search technology gets better and better, it doesn’t matter that Autotrader has 1.2 million more users; smaller websites with unseen content will become equally accessible.