Not too long ago, a customer’s first step when considering a car purchase was a trip to the dealership. That’s no longer true. Today, 88% of car buyers use the Internet to research and shop for a new or used vehicle. Almost half do their research

One of the many strengths of digital advertising is the broad range of possibilities it covers as a marketing channel. In just this one area, dealers can target customers in any number of ways, from dynamic search to programmatic display to social. O

It was a movie scene that predicted the future. In the 2002 blockbuster film Minority Report, Tom Cruise played a police officer on the run from a frame-setup. And as he walked through a mall on this near-future Earth, sensors scanned his retinas to

When I ask most dealers to tell me about their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiative strategy they instantly default to what piece of software they use and that is where it ends. Funny how we focus almost 100% of our faith and attention o

Research for my upcoming book “Who Sold It?” included asking Marketing Managers and General Managers how they evaluate the success of their marketing investments. While total sales opportunities and units sold per month is the ultimate KP

Why are you paying Google to drive traffic to your site? The automotive industry wastes billions on paid search, social, and re-targeting to drive consumers to their own websites – and consumer behavior data suggests that people are increasingly av

The number of automotive reports dealership managers receive in a typical month drastically differs from the number of reports that empower them to take immediate action based on sales data only hours old. It’s as if dealers in today’s world have

Part 2: Sales Attribution In part 1 of this series, I discussed Web Traffic Attribution, how that works and why most dealers are using it as their primary measurement tool when making marketing spend decisions. While web traffic is certainly importan

There has been a lot written about the “car buyer’s journey,” the path that a shopper takes in their quest to buy a new car. Through internet searches that turn into real contact, a user becomes a lead, who could then become a customer. Down th