The Dealer Impact Blog

Video Has Officially Arrived

Nothing has changed the way consumers use the Internet quite like video. Youtube.com and its brethren have fulfilled the true multi-media promise that was made back when we were all still on dial-up. We knew the day would come… and it has arrived.

So what’s made it happen? Well first of all, well over 50% of all internet users in the United States now have high-speed internet access. Secondly, simpler video editing software and less expensive video cameras have made user-created video affordable to middle America.

Video and multi-media are no longer nice-to-haves for dealership websites… it’s a must have to remain competitive. In fact, video has been shown to increase click rates and the time a user spends on your site.

In short… It’s time to make video a part of your dealership’s web system.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

A Brand Is A Promise

I’m often asked about “branding” in terms of a company’s name, logo or tagline. Although these three elements are important, they constitute a small fraction of your brand.

Instead of thinking about your brand in terms of logos and taglines, think of your brand as a promise. Your brand is the promise you make to customers, employees, strategic partners, the media and everyone else. When you talk about brand, you’re really talking about experience — the experience an individual can expect each and every time they interact with your company. This extends to every touchpoint of your business, from calling customer service, visiting your showroom, clicking out to your website and returning to your dealership for service.

Thinking about branding in these terms forces you to ask different questions about how you run and position your business. Branding in this way can have dramatic effects on your business — effects that changing up a logo or tagline will never have on their own.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Web Marketing Grows, but How Much?

JULY 3, 2008

A Look Behind the Numbers

“More than one-half of the average marketer’s budget is now spent online,” according to a press release from lead generation company Clash-Media. The firm conducted its “Online Lead Generation (B2C) Report 2008″ in May with E-consultancy.

But the press release may be a misreading of the report. According to respondents, a greater proportion of lead generation budgets is being spent online (on average, 53%) than offline (44%).

The survey’s methodology seems to confirm the point.

Of those polled, 73% said their channels to market were “online or multichannel,” and 23% said “online only.” Only about 4% said they were “offline only.”

So respondents were focused largely on online approaches. The rest of the summary issued with the report was more accurate. Among the findings:

• Seven out of 10 responding marketers said their companies used search engine optimization, paid search and e-mail marketing to in-house lists.
• Offline marketing methods largely decreased, with only press and television advertising growing. Over 90% of marketers saw online lead generation as a growth area.
• Print media was still the most commonly used offline method to generate consumer leads (65% of organizations).
• Natural search (79% of respondents), e-mail marketing to in-house lists (75%) and paid search (71%) were the three most commonly used online methods for lead generation.

Without question, online ad spending in the US is rising quickly. eMarketer predicts double-digit growth will continue for the next several years.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006376

Where Is the Top of Google?

by Mitch Turck

If I had a dime for every dealer who demanded to be at “the top” of Google…trouble is, most of them don’t know where the top actually is. Or, they know where the top is and (as usual) prefer to invest money for instant ROI rather than invest time and effort for long-term ROI. In both of these cases, the dealer inevitably lands on spot #2: the top of paid search.

But folks, that ain’t the top.

If you’re a dealer asking questions about getting to the top of Google, then you already have some understanding of the power and value of search engine presence. But what you haven’t realized - or refuse to realize - is that “paid search” (PPC) marketing is not the magic bullet of search engine marketing. While PPC is highly cost-effective and can be tracked and analyzed to no end, it’s still just rented ad space. If you don’t pay for your ad to be there tomorrow, some other competitor will take your place… just like print ads.

Organic SEO on the other hand, builds upon itself. These are the results that “naturally” list out along the left side of the page; the sites which Google has deemed relevant to what users are searching for. The closer your site gets to the top of that area, the more clicks you receive, the more Google values your site, and the higher your site will go. It’s the snowball effect, and there’s really nothing like it in any other area of automotive advertising. Build a high-quality site and maintain it frequently, and you could be on top of the natural listings within a few months. That’s the discipline to keep in mind: the top of Google is in the organic/natural listings, not the paid listings.

The #1 result in the organic listings (Spot#1) gets about 40% of the click share on Google and other search engines. The #1 paid result doesn’t even come close (maybe 20% of the click share on a good day when listed above the organic side (Spot #3), and more like 10% at the top of the sponsored side (Spot #4)), and often you get better results as the #2 organic listing (Spot #2) than you would as the #1 paid listing. That means the majority of people are going to look past your PPC advertising efforts to find the page that Google has declared the most relevant page on the queried topic. That’s because users know PPC marketing listings are ads, and to a degree, they’ve trained themselves to avoid looking at such listings. It’s also because the organic results deliver more information in their results, so the user has a better idea of what they’re clicking on.

Now there are still a ton of people who mistakenly or purposefully click on paid listings, and I’m not suggesting you give it up. It is, after all, the second best marketing expense in this industry right now. But it’s still an expense, and that’s why it’s in the same boat as newspaper, direct mail, radio and TV advertising: when you stop paying, you stop getting leads. If you’re on a tirade about being #1 in Google, your first step is to realize that it’s not going to happen overnight, and that PPC marketing is not what gets you to #1. Your second step is to find a website developer who rocks at SEO and can build you a killer site… unfortunately, that means looking outside the offerings within this industry.

How to win the search position game

By Chris Lien 

Sometimes being in the third or fourth paid search position is actually more effective — and a lot cheaper — than winning the top spot. Find out when it pays and when it doesn’t.
When marketers buy keywords, they often get caught up in the idea that their ads have to come first on the page — and they pay a premium for that placement. But first position isn’t always the best. Sometimes, position three or four will actually convert at the same or higher rate than position one, and at a fraction of the cost.

First position keywords can cost two or more times what a third position one does, and in some cases, it makes sense to pay that premium (for example, when you’re more interested in brand building than conversion, you’ll want to make sure your brand comes out on top). For campaigns for which conversion and profitability are also factors, position three or four can be better.

But how do you know which keywords should be in position three or four, and which are worth the splurge for the top position? How can you measure and test campaigns to find out which should be top-tier and which should be third-tier? How can you maneuver within Google, MSN and Yahoo to get the positions you want? Here are some tips that should help you win the position game.

Focus on what each click is worth, not on what position it should be in
In general, if a purchase conversion is worth $10, and one out of 10 people purchases, you should pay about $1 per click. You should offer that maximum price to Google (or another search engine) for the specified keyword.

After you launch campaigns, continue to test them for conversion metrics and adjust your top bid accordingly. Many marketers think that if the clickthrough rate is higher, the keyword should be more expensive. But you should determine the value of a keyword based on conversion rate, not clickthrough rate, because you only pay by the click.

Heads or tails?
Head keywords are generic terms that people search while browsing or doing product research, such as “mp3 player.” Head keywords often benefit from being in first position, because they capture a lot of “browsers” who just click on the first link and may be exposed to your site for the first time. These people may not buy now, but they’ll connect with your brand.

Tail keywords are often best in third or fourth position. These keywords are specific and appeal to committed buyers, such as “black ipod nano 8gb.” People searching for these keywords are usually more ready to buy, so they’ll look at — and even click through — several ads to find the best deal, even if that deal appears in a link halfway down the page.

The upshot? Head terms get much more volume and are often more expensive to boot, so to justify your investment you may need to measure carefully which visitors return to your website.

Set a top position
This is a tool on Google you can use to hold your keywords down in the rankings, even if you are bidding enough to be #1. It’s always better to figure out first how much your keywords are worth to your bottom line, and then find out where that places you. But this tool can be useful if you find that position #1 gets a lot of poor quality traffic that never converts.

Focus on the dirty dozen
Most marketers spend the majority of their budgets on a few top keywords, usually about a dozen, which are high volume and have a strong conversion rate. Focus on fixing the position of these keywords first, because correctly placing these top keywords will have the biggest impact on total revenues. Let the others fall where they will according to their conversion rates as described above.

Turn off Google Search and Content Networks
If you don’t opt out of Google’s search partners, like AOL and Ask.com, your position numbers will reflect a blend of your positions across all of those properties. To get an accurate picture of where your keywords are positioned on Google itself, turn off the additional distributions. You can always turn them back on after you finish your measurement.

Turn off Google Content Network. Ditto as above
To figure out what your keywords’ true positions are, focus on Google itself, not your position across all its content partners, such as New York Times, MySpace and About.com.

Work weekends
Some keywords perform stronger on the weekend, such as “gardening” or “beach wear,” for example. Set up automatic bid increases for these terms to boost your position solely on the weekends. (Google supports this at the campaign level; MSN supports this at the Ad Group level; and Yahoo doesn’t support it right now.) Remember: These boosts should be based on changes in conversion rates, not click volume. Look for the pattern before you set the boosts.

Pony up for brand and “executive” keywords
If you’re Coca-Cola, you just have to pay whatever it costs to have “Coca-Cola” be in the top position — that’s crucial for your brand. Plus you can use your company name in those brand-term ads, and other advertisers cannot (call the support team at the search engine if you see any violations of this). Likewise, if your CMO tells you the company needs to be in top position for certain keywords, like “digital camera” or “PC” to build your brand in those categories, then just pay what it costs to be in the top spot (and pull the cost from the branding budget!).

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19624.asp

Auto Ad Spending Down, Except Digital

Double-digit Web ad growth

Automotive advertising spending in the US dropped to $1.99 billion in Q1 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence. That was down more than 14% compared with Q1 2007.Ad spending is “sinking as fast as new car sales,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS, in a July 2008 Detroit Free Press interview. Mr. Swallen noted that consumers’ focus on fuel economy has cut into truck sales, which has affected ad spending. “A year ago, for every dollar spent on truck advertising, they spent 80 cents on passenger auto,” he said. “This year, the ratio of truck advertising to car advertising is almost 1-to-1.”Automakers have traditionally been the biggest advertisers in the country. General Motors is the fourth-largest advertiser in the US, and the company spent $535 million in Q1 2008, according to TNS data cited in a July 2008 Media Life article. GM spent $2.1 billion on ads last year, which was the third year in a row of lower ad spending for the company.

Last year total auto ad spending was down 10.8%, to $12.3 billion, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus data cited in the Detroit Free Press article.

If there is a bright spot in auto ad spending, it is online. Internet spending was up 57.9% last year, to $441.6 million. TNS put GM’s Internet spending alone at more than $212 million (excluding search and online video), 79% over the previous year’s spending.

eMarketer predicts double-digit growth for auto online ad spending through 2012, when it will reach more than $5.61 billion.

Learn how auto marketers are using the Web. Get your copy of eMarketer’s Automotive Marketing Online: Negotiating the Curves report.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006426

SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC..please define

by Jeff Kershner 

I had a nice conversation with someone the other day and we were talking about how it’s so easy to get all these acronyms mixed up. You read an article in one magazine that talks about SEM and the next article you read refers to what seems to be the same thing as SEO. I myself have even been guilty of using different acronyms but not necessarily clarifying with the right terms.

So, I thought I would put together a few of the common acronyms to help clarify. I know these might seem elementary and obvious to many of us but it’s easy to get confused or just forget sometimes.

So lets review;

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

The term used to describe the technique of preparing your dealerships website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimizing a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process. This can also be referred to as Search Engine Positioning (SEP). Some companies commonly include SEO under the same umbrella as search engine marketing (SEM).

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

The act of marketing your dealership website via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings (search engine optimization), purchasing paid listings (PPC management) or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities (i.e. local listings, the new Google local coupon or link development). SEM is not always include SEO, so be sure to clarify this when you are speaking with an SEM vendor.

Cost-per-Click (CPC) or Pay-per-Click (PPC):

This is where an advertiser (or you the dealer) pays an agreed amount for each click a consumer makes on a link leading to your dealers web site. This is also known as “Paid Placement.”

Organic/Natural Listings:

Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings, CPC and PPC). Instead, your dealer’s website appears solely because the search engine has deemed it editorially important for your web site to be included. There is where your dealers’ website SEO comes into play.

There you have it. If anyone would like to share some thought or comments, please do so.

Source: http://www.dealerrefresh.com/my_weblog/2006/08/sem_seo_ppc_cpc.html

How will Flash alter the SEO landscape?

By Michael Estrin
News of Adobe’s decision to work with Google and Yahoo to make Flash searchable spread like wildfire. But so far, agencies aren’t sure what this change really means.

When John Romano, a senior web developer for marketing firm Capstrat, sits down to build a website for a client, he worries about a lot of things. But one concern foremost in his mind is whether anyone will see the cutting-edge work his team is tasked with creating. While Romano’s work is the kind clients pay handily for and users love, it’s not the sort of content that is search engine friendly. But that will soon change, as the two leading search engines and Adobe, which makes the tools Romano uses, have joined forces to help make his work more accessible by indexing the web for rich media files. 

For Romano, and many like him, the problem can be summed up in a word: Flash. Adobe’s powerful multimedia tool has become the instrument of choice for interactive agencies eager to deliver fully immersive online experiences that do more than simply hurl text at today’s fickle users.

But while 98 percent of internet-connected desktops have Flash Player installed, few users are likely to find a website rich in Flash.

“Getting Google [and other search engines] to connect users with specific Flash content has been a real problem,” Romano confesses, “and it’s been something the industry has been struggling with for years.”

Since the beginning, search engines have been fixated on text, rather than images or other forms of reach media. The result has been that pages heavy in images and rich media don’t rise to the top of the natural search results, even when they are more relevant than their text-based counterparts. To counteract this problem, digital agencies have employed an array of cumbersome solutions to help users find the more dazzling sites employed by major brand clients.

But the solutions — a patchwork of proprietary fixes designed to boost SEO efforts for Flash-heavy sites — have been far from ideal. Often developers find themselves duplicating efforts in both Flash and HTML, which can be both expensive and time consuming. The announcement earlier this month from Adobe, Google and Yahoo could change all that. At least, that’s the plan. But as is often the case, a barrage of questions followed from the agencies charged with leveraging the latest technology development on behalf of their clients. 

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So how much does Flash weigh?
Mention the words “SEO” and “change” and you’re bound to get the attention of a lot people working in interactive. Little wonder. Being found is the name of the game for anyone working on the web. But the decision to begin indexing Flash has raised the web’s constant question: what does this mean for my business?

According to Google and Adobe, developers using Flash won’t need to make any retroactive changes, and they won’t need to do any special work to make their files accessible to the search engine spiders. But finding the Flash content is only the beginning, according to Ivan Todorov, CEO of BLITZ, an interactive agency that has worked with clients ranging from FX Networks to Lincoln.

“In the long-term, we think this will have a huge impact for the future of interactive,” Todorov says. “But right now, the primary concern is how Flash will be weighed by the search engines.”

Unfortunately for Todorov, that question isn’t one Google or Yahoo is likely to answer because it would mean sharing proprietary information related to their algorithms. While Todorov and others say they would like to be part of that conversation — presumably to argue for giving Flash maximum value — agencies are likely to be kept in the dark where SEO is concerned.

But according to Tom Barclay, senior manager, Flash Player at Adobe, all parties fully expect the Flash developer community as well as SEO experts to develop best practices for optimizing rich media content under the umbrella of an Adobe/Google/Yahoo collaboration.

“Existing Shockwave Flash (SWF) content is now searchable using Google search and, in the future, Yahoo search, dramatically improving the relevance of rich internet applications and rich media experiences that run in Adobe Flash Player,” Barclay explains. “As with HTML content, best practices will emerge over time for creating SWF content that is more optimized for search engine rankings.”

But in the meantime, Andrew Lovasz, director of search marketing at Moxie Interactive, says the change is likely to reorder natural search results where smaller operations were benefiting because their competitors were relying almost exclusively on Flash.

“This is definitely going to raise the barrier to entry,” Lovasz says, pointing out that big brands that are more likely to have Flash-heavy sites can expect to see a rise in their natural search results.

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The devil in the details
While searchable Flash raises the immediate and obvious question of “weighting” rich media as a content category, the truth of the matter is that the search engine ranking debate will always rage, whether the topic relates to text, Flash, video, audio or any other format. But behind the question of how all this newly ranked content will be integrated into natural search results, agencies will still have to grapple with the mechanics of developing for Flash.

“The headline was really nice to hear,” says Cheryl Haas, VP Fleishman-Hillard. “Hearing that Google, Yahoo and Adobe are all working together is a great start, but I think we’re still a long way off.”

What looks like the proverbial flip of the switch — Adobe’s decision to partner with the two leading search engines — in reality raises a slew of technical questions.

According to Lovasz, and many others, Yahoo, Google and Adobe have been long on excitement, but short on actionable details.

As a simple administrative matter, Google has said that it will take several weeks to index the vast amounts of Flash strewn across the web. Yahoo will begin indexing the web for Flash at an undetermined point in the near future. But while the indexing process is underway, Haas says her team has concerns that neither Google nor Yahoo will be able to crawl JavaScript, which is used to execute Flash content. That’s true, according to Google, but the search giant says it’s working on remedying that, and officials at Adobe say they’re attacking that problem as well.

But Haas’ concerns may highlight a larger problem for Adobe and its search engine partners. While agencies have uniformly praised the news, many have expressed concern that the Flash developer community remains largely in the dark regarding the establishment of best practices for building the Flash sites of tomorrow.

For its part, Google admits that there is no established best practices guide that is endorsed by all three companies. However, Google has its own online resource for developers, as does Adobe.

But a lack of communication — perceived or real — could slow the development of a Flash-friendly web, Romano says, and points out that it will be up to the armies of disconnected developers to figure out the mechanics of this latest tool.

“Our technical people have punched a lot of holes in this, and that’s not surprising given the fact that matching Google’s technology with Adobe isn’t easy,” Romano explains. “This is only the beginning of the solution, and it is likely going to take years to solve because it will require developers to ultimately build Flash sites differently.”

But that doesn’t mean that Adobe is operating independently of all developers. Stephen Jackson, CEO of Smashing Ideas, the largest independent developer of Flash in the U.S., says Adobe works hard to communicate changes with a core group of companies that use its products.

“I think a lot of the disconnect here is that there are millions of Flash users out there,” Jackson says. “So working with all of them makes it rather hard to conduct business.”

What will this mean for interactive?
Across the board, agencies do seem to agree that the decision by Yahoo, Google and Adobe to work together will be a good thing for the interactive advertising business. But just how good is hard to say.

What seems unlikely to some is the idea that improved search optimization for Flash will lead to more Flash development. As Haas put it: “You won’t see people building in Flash just for the sake of having Flash; there has to be a reason.”

But improvements in Flash should have an indirectly positive effect on the overall industry, according to Jackson, who says that getting cutting edge content in front of more users — especially from a Google or Yahoo query — should help drive impressions and clickthroughs.

“It all depends on impressions and clickthroughs,” Jackson says. “If this makes that happen, then you’ll see more advertisers increasing their online budgets.”

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20032.asp

No Indexing Guarantee From Google Flash Crawls

By David A. Utter

Crawlers may miss things inside SWF

Just because Google says they pry out the text content from Flash files and make them searchable may mean less than webmasters think.

Flash represented a surefire way to keep content out of search engines. The algorithms that could chew through massive text files without a hiccup hit a brick wall when it came to the rich media content of a Flash file.

Google became the first engine to enable its crawler to peek inside Flash files and pull out indexable content; Yahoo should offer this at some future date. SEOmoz maven Rand Fishkin said it’s too soon to get excited about Google indexing Flash.

“Flash content is fundamentally different from HTML on webpage URLs, and being able to parse links in the Flash code and text snippets does not make Flash search-engine friendly,” said Fishkin. “But I don’t believe web developers should be any less wary than they’ve been in the past about Flash-based websites or Flash-embedded content.”

Out of several reasons Fishkin listed for keeping a wary eye on Flash indexing, one stood out. “There’s no ‘test my site’s Flash file crawlability’ feature that I’m aware of, leaving us very much in the dark about exactly how the engine’s going to parse your material,” he said.

One should hope that Google will work on such a feature, and add it to their Webmaster Central toolset. If Google demonstrates to webmasters what the crawler sees, that would be a boon for Flash’s owner Adobe.

Webmasters who avoid Flash for SEO purposes now may rethink its use with a reliable method of finding out how well Google indexes a Flash file. That would lead to more sales of Adobe’s developer tools, something we think they want to see.

Focus on the customers, not the clicks

By Chris Chariton

Traffic to your website is great, but engaged customers are what you really need. Here’s how to turn anonymous clickers into promising sales leads.

It’s time we re-framed the concept of “driving traffic” to websites.Just what is traffic anyway?Once upon a time, it wasn’t much more than a bunch of anonymous vehicles, people or things moving from one place to another. But since the dawn of the web, it’s what companies receive when visitors click from one place to another. And that’s the dissatisfying result: if your web strategy focuses on driving traffic, you end up with anonymous clicks and page after page of site traffic reports of limited value.

Rather than “driving traffic,” focus on getting motivated prospects and valuable customers to visit your websites and convert them into qualified sales leads. By re-framing your objectives, you may end up reallocating some of your online marketing investments.

Take keyword ads on general search engines. While these are important parts of an online marketing strategy, your ads may not be reaching the audience you are interested in targeting. You can end up paying for a glut of unqualified traffic — even if you have the right keywords.

One way business-to-business advertisers can avoid attracting unqualified traffic from the vast ocean of consumers visiting mass market search engines is by being more focused with your keywords. Instead of using “pumps,” consider using “turbine pumps,” a keyword geared toward a specific audience. Using long tail SEO keyword practices will attract people with the same specific and targeted interests.

Another strategy delivering motivated prospects — not just clicks — is displaying ads only to targeted audiences. You can’t always do this on general search engines, but you can with some B2B oriented destination sites — vertical search engines — where your filtered, targeted audiences are aggregated for you.

Other strategies to drive qualified prospects to your site include having a presence in relevant online directories, advertising in appropriate e-newsletters and showcasing your capabilities with banner ads on targeted web sites.

A robust, visible presence – more than just a link to your website — in online directories provides branding and messaging capabilities to motivate qualified prospects to visit you. Look for directories that are geared exclusively toward your B2B audience. They offer multiple options for showcasing your company and products. 

Purchasing ads in e-newsletters can also change the focus from traffic to qualified leads. When determining an e-newsletter advertising strategy, consider both the size of the audience and the mix of readers. Ask the publisher for both the number of subscribers and a subscriber profile, preferably by industry and job function. Review the subscriber profile and you’ll know if you’re targeting the right audience.

Finally, don’t forget online banner ads that appear on targeted websites. Seek out a partner that offers a banner ad network allowing you to reach targeted audiences across multiple sites with a single buy, helping to save media research, program management and tracking time.

These strategies drive prospects to your website, usually to a specific landing page deep within the site containing relevant content. Now the other half of the equation comes into play: You need to convert these visitors into qualified leads.

The easiest way to accomplish this is by offering valuable content that qualified prospects will register to obtain. In other words, exchange something valuable to you (their contact information) for something of value to them (a white paper or Webinar offer). Your lead-focused landing page should also include a simple form that captures an email address and a phone number.

Converting site visitors from nameless, faceless clicks to identifiable prospects also gives you a way to accurately measure the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives, allowing you to shift dollars to the programs that perform best.
Follow these suggestions and you’ll never again incorrectly focus on “driving traffic” to your website. Your focus will be exactly where it needs to be: on customers, not clicks.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19928.asp