DETROIT, MI  — Dealer Communications, the leading multi-media information source for franchised automotive dealers and managers, and Dataium, LLC,  the largest aggregator of auto shopper behavior, have announced the winners of the Spring 2012 Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards.

Co-sponsors Dealer Communications and Dataium, LLC, established The Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards last spring to recognize automotive dealers, managers and their website providers for exceptional performance of the websites they design, host, and support.

Recognition is based upon independent, unbiased analytics of dealers’ websites performed by Dataium, LLC.  Dataium is the largest aggregator of auto shopper behavior and provides OEMs and thousands of dealers advanced website analytics and is the only company providing multi-make/model data collection, analysis, and benchmarking.

“The Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards competition is the first of its kind and is completely objective based on statistics, not judging or voting,” says Michael Roscoe, President and CEO of Dealer Communications, who initiated the awards.

“Promoting excellence by sharing the very latest information on digital technology and best practices is at the core of every service that Dealer Communications offers the automotive industry.  Co-sponsoring this competition with Dataium is yet another way to fulfill our mission,”  Roscoe noted.

“Websites are constantly evolving as new technologies, content strategies, and search optimization techniques are deployed and the Digital Dealer Excellence Awards provides dealerships and website providers an independent validation of how effective their innovations and marketing strategies have been within the marketplace and the competitive landscape,” says Dataium, LLC, Co-founder and CEO Eric Brown.

Dealership Winners of the Spring 2012 Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards, and the Website Vendors who support these dealerships’ websites, are being honored at the 12^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition, April 3-5, in Orlando, FL.

Spring 2012 Digital Dealer Website Excellence Award Winners are:

Winners of the inaugural Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards were honored at the 11^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in October, in Las Vegas.

The competition is held twice annually, with the winners being announced at the spring and fall Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition.

Dealer Communications invites automotive dealers nationwide to enter the Fall 2012 competition for the Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards by registering their websites at www.visicogn.com/dd

There is no entry fee and registration is quick and easy.

Each dealership that enters the competition will receive Dataium’s VisiCogn^® INSITE  (Basic version) at NO COST for one year — a $1,200 value.   Dataium will automatically analyze data from this application in order to evaluate each dealer’s website performance.

The benefits to automotive dealers are clear.  With Dataium’s VisiCogn INSITE, dealers will know who is on their websites, what they are shopping for, what they are comparing, and when they return.   This product lets users:

• Compare website performance against local, regional, or brand benchmarks
• Know which consumers are shopping for which products online
• Know where online auto buyers are in their buying cycle
• Target sales/marketing messages based upon consumer shopping activity
• Know which vehicles you are competing with down to the individual consumer
• Know if a consumer leaves and/or re-enters the market for a vehicle
• Know what the lead form abandonment rate on your website is
• Know which keywords deliver the most leads

Further, dealers can access “in-market” analysis services which allow local dealers to target past leads, customers, and current service customers based upon current online in-market shopping activity.

For more information about INSITE visit www.visicogn.com

ABOUT DATAIUM, LLC

Dataium, LLC, is the automotive industry’s largest aggregator of online shopper behavior.  By tracking billions of automotive shopping events across thousands of websites, Dataium is the only company providing multi-make/model data collection, analysis, and benchmarking. The company supports cutting edge data collection and reporting technology; VisiCogn^® Collection Utility, VisiCogn^® Knowledge Center,  and is also known for its ASI index. For more information, visit www.dataium.com, e-mail: [email protected], or call 877-896-DATA (3282).

ABOUT DEALER COMMUNICATIONS

Dealer Communications is the leading multi-media information source for franchised automotive dealers and managers.   Connecting with franchised automotive dealers and managers over ten million times per year, Dealer Communications publishes the monthly print and online editions of Dealer, magazine and Digital Dealer magazine. Online weekly newsletters include Dealer; Digital Dealer; Dealer Fixed Operations; Dealer Pre-Owned; Dealer F&I, and Dealer Sales and Marketing. Dealer Communications also offers the Digital Dealer Webinar Series, with online presentations throughout the year.  To see all that Dealer Communications offers, visit:  www.dealer-communications.com

Dealer Communications also owns and operates the Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition,  the ideal education and networking venue for dealer principals, GMs, Internet sales managers, e-commerce directors, BDC managers, CRM managers, pre-owned managers, F&I managers and fixed operations managers.  The 12^th Digital Dealer Conference and Exposition is being held April 3-5, at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort, in Orlando Florida.  There are 93 workshops, 100+ specialized technology exhibitors, and dealer roundtables.  For more information, visit:  www.DigitalDealerConference.com