I just thought I had a task before. Now I have a real rebuilding process to go through, the difference now is I have a defined budget and complete latitude to make all of the decisions on where the money is spent. My job is to produce ROI. All “paid” services were shut off when I arrived other than the crappy Reynold’s sites, which are not charged to my budget.

Here is what I have for Free:

• Two Reynolds Sites that will eventually be merged into a “Group” website by the end of this quarter. Already in place before I arrived. Will kick and scream to get a location only site back on it’s own domain after this takes place. Those cost will be charged to my budget then.
• Cobalt’s LMCC – For being a 5 Star Dealer. I personally don’t like it other than the price.
• Inventory inside of the 5 Star Site, new and used. It does generate some leads and the price is great.
• Hyundai is rolling out some new features which will be similar to the 5 Star deal it appears. I do not have full details yet, I was made aware of this late this afternoon and did not have time to look at it.

My budget for the next 30 days is only $3000.00 and here is how I am spending it:

• Secondary Finance Leads – $1050. I am not real fond of this but I need to breed some fast activity and this seems to be the best way right now. We have a strong F&I manager and we have some new secondary finance sources available, which I did not have before.
• Automotive classifieds with Cars.com – $900. If it were not for a co-op that we have in place I would not of done it.
• Regional Classifieds – $175 on a rollout package the price is right!!
• Vehix.com – $250 again a rollout. Comcast has a high penetration of the TV market here and they are advertising it like crazy. Being sandwiched between two major metros with Comcast as the main cable provider as well as my local market’s only provider it is another no brainer.

So in all I have spent $2375 in just three days in reworking this. While that does leave some room to take on another project or lead source chances are I will not utilize it unless it is the right opportunity, I may start a PPC campaign with a microsite or two.

Of course I have some blogs going that are delivering leads to affiliate programs and may change their direction in the near future. However since the returns on this are known it may benefit me better to leave those alone as they are not subsidized by my employer. This is a fine line I am walking I know but in the for what it is worth category those are mine and were not developed on their time or dime. Any benefit I receive from them is mine alone. This does not mean I will not create or outsource some user generated content in social networking/publishing platforms to benefit the store, but even then I will maintain control.

Technorati Tags: automotive, benefit, budget, Carl Gregory Chrysler, Cars, Cobalt's LMCC, Comcast, Free, Hyundai, Internet, Inventory, ISM My, leads, Now I, Ok I, PPC, Regional Classifieds, Reynold's, ROI All, Secondary Finance Leads, Sites, Star, Star Dealer, Star Site, TV, Two Reynolds Sites, Vehix, While I

A leak is any action that a surfer can perform on a site that does not benefit the affiliate, advertiser or encourage lead submission. Cars.com and Autotrader.com have huge leaks in their platforms that provide no benefit to the advertiser and cuts into the advertisers profit centers.

Both AutoTrader and Cars.com have advertisements for automotive financing even on premium listings. These are not minor leaks to the advertiser. I was quoted buy an executive at Cars.com that ValueClick pays them $20,000,000.00 a year for their affiliation. So not only is Cars.com making a huge profit from their dealer advertiser base they are also knocking it dead with their onsite affiliate offers.

Profit is not dirty word by any means. But let me ask you this question, If your newspaper required you to place an advertisement for the Local Credit Union on everyone of your display ads encouraging car shoppers to get preapproved before visiting your showroom would you advertise with them? If you answered no, then why would you continue to advertise with online classified providers that do the same thing? Why let a vendor cut into your profit center!!

These leaks are prevalent on every mainstream automotive providers sites. I would not dare send a surfer from one of my sites to cars.com as an affiliate unless I was paid by the click, not the paltry $1.50 they pay if they create an account when there is so many distractions for the surfer when they hit their landing page. That is why they have an almost nil EPC for affiliates inside of the affiliate networks. Adsense would be more profitable at .05 per click than the Cars.com affiliate program.

Which brings me to another leak that I see in salesperson blogs out there. Why in the world would you place AdSense on a blog that you are using to capture leads to sell cars to? I saw one such blog that an Online Automotive Guru was proud of. The only benefit that I see by placing contextual advertising on a salesperson blog is to attempt to monetize the out of area surfer that would not buy from that salesperson anyway. What is the cost? Chances are these blogs don’t generate much contextual advertising revenue, but if you loose one buyer to an advertisement about buying cars at invoice from that blog what have you accomplished?

This is what could really bite. A surfer hits your blog sees the contextual advertisement clicks it and fills out a lead form about buying cars at invoice and then you are sold the lead that now has a price whore mentality. So you made $1.00 for the click, the dealership to pay $10 for the lead that is shared with two other dealers in your market area. If you do sell that price whore lead a car you have made a minimum commission plus $1.00 in adsense revenue and your dealer paid for the lead. Not a smart scenario.

Here is an example from the Used Car Queen blog.

I know as a full time online marketer I would never place my revenue in jeopardy the way car dealers and salespeople do! My time efforts and money are more important than that. As an affiliate I may have more than one choice for the surfer that generates revenue, but when I sell my own products online there are no leaks on my sales page.

Not only do car dealers not understand online marketing, neither do the small players in the Online Automotive marketing circle. Cars.com and Autotrader have it down pat. They take dealers inventory to provide content to their sticky sites, charge the dealers for providing them content, push affiliate offers to surfers and their own lead programs and make money hand over fist while the dealers gravitate to their venues. The only reason they get away with it is because dealers do see a positive ROI if they handle the leads properly, but in the long run a dealer would be better off to reallocate that money to other online advertising to capture their own leads. They would see an improved ROI.

But for Automotive Gurus to place AdSense on a Salesperson blog is ignorance.

Technorati Tags: AdSense, advertisers, affiliate, Automotive Gurus, Autotrader, blog, Both AutoTrader, car, Cars, Chances, EPC, lead, Local Credit Union, Online Automotive, Online Automotive Guru, Profit, ROI, Salesperson, Used Car Queen, ValueClick, When I