This summary is not a full review of the SEO architecture and search strengths of the new platform.  A full review will come when PCG Digital Marketing presents the 2010 ASMA Awards and Study Report on October 13, 2010 in Las Vegas. 

It is hard to improve on a product that has so many strengths but Rick Gibbs, CEO of Dealer.com, has managed to inspire his team to greatness.  One of the highlights of the presentation was the demonstration given by Eric Mayhew who is the chief architect behind their TCD Platform (Total Control Dominator).  The Dealer.com TCD platform is truly one of the most important automotive advertising tools that car dealers can utilize for digital marketing success.

TCD is best described as a car dealer’s personalized digital advertising dashboard. TCD directly communicates with Google, Yahoo and Bing paid advertising networks so car dealers can adjust Pay-Per-Click budgets and targets without being a Digital Marketing Geek. 

TCD is Google Adwords on steroids! 

(If I had to rename the product I would call it Total Competitor Domination.)

Dealer.com TCD digital advertising platform takes business operating rules and translates them into actionable tasks in Google, Yahoo and Bing’s paid advertising network. One rule could be to advertise all off-make used cars as soon as they come into stock.  

Another rule could be to start a weekend advertising campaign which offers a $2,000 reduction off of MSRP on select new models starting at 5:00 PM on Friday. Google Adwords out of the box is not designed for the average Internet Sales Manager to operate proficiently and in many cases, self-managed Adwords campaigns can be very costly to dealers.

In the screen shot above, a dealership executive or Internet Sales Manager can easily see their current cost per lead and current balance.   Need to make a change? Slide the $ button to increase or decrease spending.  The Marketing Focus panel allows high level adjustments of spending by marketing focus.   Do you want to increase the distribution of spending in your current budget to include “Used Vehicles”?  Simply click on stars 1 - 5 to activate those keyword goals.

Innovative Phone Number Tracking

Dealer.com has integrated phone number tracking with all Pay-Per-Click campaigns.  You may not be impressed by that fact since other companies offer similar services.  However, Dealer.com takes it to the next level by scraping all pages on the dealer’s website that has a phone number and replacing it with the PPC tracking number.  This includes all custom text content pages created by the dealership staff or advertising agency that may have embedded different phone numbers.

This creates more accurate PPC campaign metrics so more calls can be attributed to their true source of visitor engagement.

What is brilliant with TCD is that once campaigns are setup, these high level executive controls can really keep the dealer engaged with digital advertising success.  I could write a 20-page report on the unique benefits of TCD but that is not the focus of this overview.  Suffice to say that Dealer.com clients have a distinct advantage in automotive digital advertising if they choose to leverage the power of TCD.

Automated Integration of Dealer Inventory

TCD is the leader in integrated car inventory management that is seamlessly connected to Google Adwords as well as Yahoo and Bing PPC services.  Pay Per Click advertisements can utilize information in the dealers DMS about any new or used car in stock.  (See graphic below) Dealers who use PPC campaigns for used cars will save significant setup time if they compare the time it takes to create campaigns for individual used cars.

Behind these well-designed executive level controls is an amazing drill down user interface that can control every detail of a Google Adwords campaign from inside TCD.    In the graphic above, dealers can decide what time slots to allocate their paid advertising dollars.

This panel also provides check boxes to turn on or off their powerful integrated inventory advertising features. Other automotive website providers can operate Google Adwords from inside their administrative panel but offer little in terms of user interface and integrated business intelligence rules.

Dealer.com has even enhanced the Google Adwords platform by adding new geo-targeting functionality that even Adwords does not provide.  Dealer’s ability to create custom advertising “bands” could not be easier with the custom interface provided by TCD.  What this means to potential critics is that TCD does not “dummy-down” Adwords so proficient PPC experts will not be held back.

It is hard to capture my excitement for the TCD platform because there is nothing on the market more perfectly designed for car dealers who believe in paid digital advertising, aka Pay-Per-Click (PPC).  I tip my hat to Eric Mayhew, TCD’s chief architect, because not too many people can claim that they reinvested Adwords functionality for the automotive industry.

One more kicker that Eric added to TCD put a smile on my face.  Dealer.com looks at the top organic search phrases that bring consumers to a dealer’s website and that produce leads.  If these keywords are not in the current Adwords campaigns, they can be automatically added.  Slick!

 Those that don’t believe in the benefits of PPC will be out of business shortly.  Why?  Because Automotive SEO strategies cannot place a car dealer on Google Page One for broad search terms like “Toyota Camry,” “Used Cars,” or “BMW Dealer.”  As long as consumers continue to use broad search phrases, dealers will need to invest in Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns to stay on Google Page One.

Managing OEM Incentives

Dealer.com announced a new integrated Incentives Manager package after the 2009 ASMA Study was completed. This month we had the opportunity to drill down into the features of this add-on product.  Car dealer websites are notorious for having “specials” pages blank and clumsy integration of manufacturer incentives.  Normally, these incentives are not listed on inventory pages where consumers spend the majority of their time on a car dealer website.  Go figure!

With Dealer.com Incentives Manager, dealers can leverage direct incentives data streams to their dealership website.  These incentives can be controlled to integrate with car inventory listing pages as well as car detail pages.  Attempting to integrate incentives manually is impossible and that is why this feature is a great value to Dealer.com customers. Since consumers “shop price” as part of their online purchasing decision, having the lowest price in real-time can make a big difference in lead volume.

Not to dwell on the TCD platform again, but Dealer.com can also take the real-time OEM incentives and create PPC campaigns that advertise their current programs.  This is another innovation that is ground-breaking and a time saver for dealers who like to advertise OEM incentive programs and be first to market.

Automotive SEO Architecture

Once again, the Dealer.com administrative management tools show careful consideration to the skill levels of car dealer employees. The user interface to change SEO Page Titles and META tags continues to be a breeze.

One of the nicer elements of editing pages in Dealer.com is that once you are in editing mode, you can navigate through the website using the same menus that visitors use.   This may not seem important but it is a time saver. Try matching website pages to cryptic back-end file naming conventions and before you know it, you can waste hours of your time.

The Dealer.com Page Builder tools continues to grow with more widgets (see graphic on right) to create pages on the fly.

The Page Builder tool is intuitive and customers do not need to call technical support to create a blank page to edit. 

One limitation in the current version of the software is that custom pages cannot be placed more than two levels down in the navigation tree.

Content is King

Consumers search for answers and recommendations for the questions that are top of mind and car dealers need to build content on their websites to meet this need.  Dealer.com has a multi-pronged approach to adding content; video blogging, integrated car reviews, and consumer reviews. 

The video blogging feature creates optimized blog pages for each car in stock with unique text and META tags based on the audio script for the vehicle.  This feature creates a large number of content pages that are indexed by Google which has many benefits from an SEO perspective.

Consumers who purchase a car from a Dealer.com dealer can add their comments on the car that they purchased.  Dealer.com will compile and leverage these positive consumer comments on similar cars in stock.  Over time, this feature will allow car inventory pages to have more content and targeted keywords to increase the authority of their website pages.  This is another example of Dealer.com’s leadership in applying proven Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies.

Dealer.com offers a blog with their base platform which is a customized WordPress installation.  This was also added after last year’s ASMA Awards.  This move further reinforces the automotive industry’s growing love affair with content building tools.  I’ve been preaching that all dealers need to have content writers as part of their advertising budget.  Dealer.com’s latest platform offers many ways to leverage content writers and third party SEO companies.

Fixed Operations Marketing

Lastly, Dealer.com and DriverSide made an announcement in April 2010 which an excerpt has been included below:

The two companies are partnering in an exclusive agreement to launch a series of products for new and used car franchises, the first of which will add robust fixed-ops content to Dealer.com’s industry leading platform. A full line up of further Fixed Operations and service marketing products will follow in coming months.

We agree with Dealer.com that the next area of opportunity for car dealers is in Fixed Operations SEO and digital marketing. Dealer.com has tightly integrated customer data into their product offering for targeted direct marketing.  The Fixed Operations package can also be integrated into TCD to drive more service revenue via PPC.

Summary

We look forward to testing the new content management features in the latest Dealer.com platform as part of the 2010 ASMA Study.  The product development team at Dealer.com should be recognized for not resting on the laurels and delivering a cutting edge product.  Bravo!

Dealers searching for a well integrated digital advertising platform that masters Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing and integrates a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) infrastructure should get a demo of this stellar performer.

This is a very promising trend and will make attending the upcoming October automotive conferences critical for any car dealership looking to significantly grow their business in 2011.

The XIGroup, owned by Dominion Dealer Solutions, is no exception. The latest XIGroup platform we reviewed showcased many features that will surely please their user community as well as attract new customers. This article is not meant to be a full review of the XIGroup website technology.  The XIGroup platform will be included in the 2010 ASMA Report that will be published on October 13, 2010 which recognizes and awards the leaders in automotive search technology.

Focus on Data Quality

I was impressed with Joe High, General Manager of XIGroup, who made the presentation because his focus was not the same as other companies that we have reviewed as part of the 2010 ASMA Study.  Joe started his presentation with a focus on the quality of data presented on car dealer inventory pages.

Inventory pages are the most popular pages used by consumers when visiting a car dealer website.  XIGroup has leveraged automotive data from Data One to create what Joe High considers the highest quality car detail data in the industry.   You don’t have to look hard to find car dealer website with inaccurate data for options and configuration data by VIN Number.

I was also impressed how easy the car detail pages could be configured to give car dealers the ultimate granularity in how their cars are presented online.  In the screen shot below, you can see that dozens of features can be turned on or off on a car listing page to make the consumer experience powerful.

XIGroup Administrative Tools

In fact, this degree of customization is integral in the entire platform.  I give XIGroup high marks for their back-end administrative menus on how easy it was to change website features. Some car dealer website platforms have so many features that dealers can get lost in finding configuration settings.

The XIGroup administration controls were clean and followed a user interface design that even novices could follow. The menu design is a hybrid between “old-school” menus that dealers like and new navigational aids that the next generation of dealership employees demand.  Shown below is one master menu that controls some of the user configuration options:

One of the most interesting features was their rules based engine.  Dealers can quickly update inventory  pricing, tags, call-outs, visibility based on business rules.  If dealers wanted to add a “special” tag on all cars in inventory over 30 days, that can be done in one click.  Dealers who want to take any car out of inventory without waiting overnight for a new feed can do so quickly.  The rules based inventory management features will save dealers a lot of time when compared to manual editing.

Consumer Friendly Car Listing Pages

Another feature of the XIGroup platform is that all car photos can have a custom overlay with the dealer’s information.  Photos on a car dealer’s website look so much better when a consistent photo overlay is used.  This is branding 101! The XI platform can automatically take plain photos and dress them up with the dealers phone number, website address and logo.

The integration of car photos and videos is very smooth and the car detail pages are very clean and attractive.  I like that consumers can bookmark cars, save them and create a side by side comparison.  This feature is useful when consumers find similar new cars in stock that have significantly different prices.  The tool can show them how the installed options change their delivered cost.

In the screen shot below, you can see where I highlighted in red the two visual navigation controls that are visible on car detail pages:

XIGroup SEO Functionality

The new XIGroup platform has one of the strongest page editors on the market and gives dealers full control over SEO Page Titles, META Descriptions and Keywords.  Their platform allows dealers to create unlimited content pages and these pages can be placed on multi-level nested navigation menus.

XIGroup is one of a handful of website platforms that offer specific upgraded packages for Automotive SEO.   Their offerings to car dealers who want managed SEO include Basic SEO, Enhanced SEO and SEO Elite, which are all priced very reasonably.   These packages are what I would consider “On-Site” SEO and on-site optimization is a very important part of the overall success of any car dealer’s website.

XIGroup Websites Summary

In conclusion,  XIGroup hit the bull’s-eye for dealer usability and consumer shopping tools.  Their new platform does a great job of providing a robust feature set that can be easily controlled by dealership staff; especially those that do not have a technical background.   With their mobile platform offering and a new website architecture, XIGroup  website technology demands a closer look.

We look forward to testing this new platform as part of the 2010 ASMA Awards and rating their search marketing strengths.  Results of our review of 46 automotive website platforms will be announced on October 13, 2010 and published on www.asmaawards.org.

Last year DealerFire was one of the nine award winning companies in the 2009 ASMA Study. (download a copy) It is clear that DealerFire has not been resting on their laurels with the amount of new products coming to market and their Engine 5 platform.

This is not a full review of their website technology however on October 13, 2010 their technology will be part of the 2010 ASMA Study.  This year PCG Digital Marketing will review 46 website platforms and recognize the leaders in a number of categories.

If we had an award last year for the best graphically designed websites , DealerFire would have been a frontrunner!  Our team universally agreed that DealerFire sites stand out from the crowd on their design merits. The consumer facing website controls are well thought out and reduce clicks. Dealers looking to break  away from the typical website interface, should take a look at DealerFire technology.

Some of the newest updates to popular automotive website platforms include the ability to change designs, colors and page layouts on the fly.  DealerFire already has the ability and they have improved on the flexibility of those changes this year. Their core technology has a number of design themes that can be selected and each theme has modules and components that can be used to create customized pages.  We were shown many of their new features on their demo site located at: http://www.customdealerwebsite.com

DealerFire Mobile Leadership

DealerFire has one of the strongest mobile platforms we have seen with SMS / Text to mobile integration and one of the cleanest presentations for the iPad.   Car detail pages allow consumers to save the car information to their mobile phone.  You can see the call to action box on the right column in the   screenshot below. The presentation on my iPhone was very clean.  When the dealer calls, this feature makes it easy to discuss the car with data handy in front of the mobile user.

The team at DealerFire has also embraced social media by releasing Facebook inventory and coupon tabs for Dealer Fan pages.  I like the idea that the coupons are synchronized on the website and Facebook. An active Facebook community  manager could leverage these coupons nicely online.

DealerFire SEO Openess

In regards to Search Engine Optimization, their backend tools allow full editing of Page Titles and META tags.  The administrative tool allows users to drop in Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics Code for full transparency of site data and traffic.   The company also strives for full W3C Compliance and has sitemaps for both the text pages and a separate video sitemap.

Since content is king, DealerFire has chosen to integrate a WordPress into their base website package which is a smart choice.  WordPress is the platform that I prefer and the WordPress blog can be configured either as a sub-domain or as a sub-directory.

There were a number of features that we thought created a better call to action, specifically I liked the ” adopt a car”  feature.  Cars in inventory can be assigned to different salespersons so that on a car detail page a photo and phone number appears offering assistance. See screenshot below in the green boxed   area.

Another feature we liked was the ability to show inventory counts by model in the drop-down navigation menus, which can be turned on or off with a click.  The website nicely integrates video and has some nice hooks for YouTube users. 

The team at DealerFire is clearly passionate about their automotive advertising platform and we look forward to putting it to the test with our ASMA  evaluation team. Dealer looking for a personalized website and hands on customer service experience, should call over the DealerFire and schedule a presentation.

When Mike McKenzie, Supervisor of Web Design, said that it was a ground up rebuild, he was not joking.

This blog post is not a full review of their SEO architecture and search strengths; that will come when we publish the 2010 ASMA Awards and white-paper on October 13, 2010.  That said, BZ customers who are on their old platform should know that some great changes are on the way.  On of the customers that is using their new platform is Seeger Toyota.

BZ Results Creates A Widgitized Platform

The BZ Results Virtual Dealership 2.0 is a powerful platform that allows dealers to create a fully customized website using simple drag and drop widgets, similar to how WordPress works.   Dealers can select from a number of “layouts” ( as shown above) and then within each layout, they can pick a theme.   Think of themes as the color palettes and textures that your website can use.

For any layout and theme, dealers are presented with a number of universal widgets within the base build and dealers can create as many custom widgets as they like.  These widgets are CSS aware so that when they are dropped on to a page, they blend into the color palette and theme.

Widget examples are Contact Forms, Maps, Videos, Slideshows, Text Boxes, Inventory Lists, Search Boxes, Specials, Twitter Feeds, RSS Feeds, etc..  Critical widgets like inventory listing modules can be configured to the nth degree.  This will allow dealers and marketing professionals to create landing pages that can meet any business need.  The widgets for inventory had many customizable features that will make creating PPC landing pages very easy.

The process of customizing any existing page or adding a new page is straightforward and all pages can be edited for their SEO Titles, META descriptions and permalinks.  This represents a new attitude in BZ Results which once felt that they had to do everything for the dealer.  I like the fact that I can help a BZ customer directly with a custom on-site SEO strategies which in the past I could not do.

Today, their new platform is built on empowering the dealer to create a customized customer experience.  If the dealer doesn’t have the skills to customize their site, Mike reminded me that BZ has staff to do that work for the dealer.

Another nice feature was that dealers can create their own custom forms, slide-shows, change navigational menus, and even microsites. Yes, the new platform will launch new microsites on a new domain or sub-domain with simple tools.  This will keep all content and technology under one control panel.  (Now BZ is gunning at me!)

BZ Results Provides an Asset Library

As part of the new site architecture, BZ customers can store all their digital assets in a library that can be used in the future.  You can see from the Assets list on the right, that BZ has made sure that dealers can easily create, store and reuse their digital assets.

Dealers can also store common external and Internet links in the asset library (see Links on right) to use within their websites or as part of their content writing strategies.

I liked this feature especially when dealers rely on third party website partners that have cryptic links that may change over time.  By storing the link in the asset library, external links can be edited in one central place and be updated site-wide.

Another cool feature is that these assets can have a start and end date so that coupons, incentives and web pages can start on a predetermined schedule.

BZ Results Virtual Dealership 2.0 Summary

The new BZ automotive website platform is best described as “empowering”.  The system is a dramatic change from a closed platform for design and SEO to very open.

The design team at BZ has leaped ahead of many competitors in the marketplace on design and flexibility.  It will be interesting to see how the site indexes as well as being subjected to our search criteria.

In the meantime, if I was a BZ Results customer under a long contract, you should be calling to get your site upgraded.

The process of reviewing car dealer website platforms has started in earnest for the upcoming 2010 ASMA Awards.  The 2010 Awards will be announced at the 9th Digital Dealer Conference and Exposition on Wednesday October 13, 2010.

Today we had a demonstration of Reynolds & Reynolds latest website technology. This blog post is not a full review of their technology.  However. the thought of a candidate for the “Most Improved Website Platform” award came to our mind.  We may create this category this year for the ASMA awards as we see how some of the other major players perform based on last years results.

If you are a Reynold’s client, you may still be on their old platform because according to Joshua Muller, Product Planning Manager, about 25% of their dealer base has been upgraded.  If you have not been upgraded, I would place a sales call immediately. After witnessing the upgrades and enhancement to their platform on today’s webinar, it is clear Reynolds took the 2009 ASMA Report seriously.

Last year, Reynolds website technology lacked a search optimized inventory module that could be customized by dealers for SEO.  Their technology lagged the field and it is clear that the Reynolds Web Solutions team is aiming high this year.

Reynolds Creates A Competitive SEO Framework

Their new inventory module in WebMakerX^© 2.0 had all the right user interface designs and features to completely optimize their inventory pages.  Reynolds has raised the bar this year by being the first vendor I have witnessed who allows dealers to change the SEO Titles, Descriptions and keyword tagging on their dynamic inventory pages.  Normally, changes to SEO tags is limited to static pages and changes to inventory pages require a custom programming ticket to be filed.

In the photo below, you can see that their user interface can change SEO tags on static pages, like most vendor platforms.  The new twist is that the dynamic inventory pages ( called Vehicle Page-Level Tags by Reynolds)  can also be customized which can lead to some serious A/B testing to see which SEO tags work the best.  This is very important for dealers who operate in cities with common names that match other cities in the USA or if other dealers share their business name, like “Classic Chevy”.

Other Improvements

This year Reynolds has added a fully functional WordPress blogging module as a sub-domain of the primary URL.  This is a smart decision because it assists dealers with Google Page One Management.  The blogging module also allows dealers to use popular plug-ins so the SEO functionality of the blog is not weakened.

The page builder tool is very strong editor.  I asked the Reynolds team to test our CarPort App JavaScript  to see if the editor blocked or changed the code, and it didn’t.  The page cleanly displayed a feed of cars which members of the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) can leverage to advertise their cars on blogs and social media portals.

One very slick feature was that the website menus can have up to 4 nested menu levels.  The menu nesting is a key feature that is needed for car dealers who plan on heavy content development.  Some website platforms limit menus to one level which makes creating dozens or eventually hundreds of content pages messy from a menu standpoint.

More To Come

The full review the new Reynolds WebMakerX^© 2.0 platform and 45 other website platforms will be included in the 2010 ASMA report.  We will keep readers updated on some of the platforms we review along the way to give you some insights into the dramatic changes the industry is undergoing.

If you are considering purchasing a new website platform, you’ll be able to review the results on October 13, 2010 which may help you make a more educated purchasing decision.

The website platforms of all companies in this year’s study will be put through a series of tests and the results compiled and published in a whitepaper for the automotive industry.

The automotive website platforms that excel in various categories will be recognized in the report as well as select companies being chosen to received the coveted ASMA award of excellence. 

In 2009 35 website companies were reviewed and only 9 were selected to receive an ASMA award.   Three of the nine companies had the distinction of being a dual award winner.  Last year’s dual award winners were Dealer.com, TKCarsites.com,  and DealerTrend.com.

The 2010 ASMA awards ceremony will be held On Wednesday October 13, 2010 at the 9th Digital Dealer Convention & Exposition.  PCG is sponsoring the conference cocktail reception where the awards will be presented to an audience of over 1,000 automotive professionals.  The Digital Dealer Conference is the largest automotive conference and exhibition specifically focused on digital marketing and technology.

List of Companies in the 2010 ASMA Study

The companies that will be included in this year’s ASMA whitepaper , in alphabetical order, are:

For additional information on the 2010 ASMA visit: www.asmaawards.org or call Carrie Hemphill, ASMA Coordinator, at 732.450.8200.

Applications received between August 3-6th will be assessed a late fee of $300.

Applications after August 6th will not be accepted.

If you work at car dealership and love your website platform, make sure your website vendor enters to be part of this annual award of excellence. We will be once again selecting the best website platforms to assist dealers with their search marketing needs.

Digital marketing is THE place for growth in spending in 2010 and 2011 and the 2010 ASMA report will assist car dealers in selecting a platform that will reward that increased investment with a stronger ROI.

ASMA Vendor Features Grid

Some questions have been asked by automotive website vendors about the extended list of website platform feature questions in this year’s application.  In the 2010 ASMA report we will be creating for the first time a master grid of website features and applications offered by vendors.

For example, some vendors offer Video SEO and some do not. Some offer unlimited page building and other don’t. Some offer integrated chat and others do not. There is no master list that lines up platforms and features, but there will now, as a bonus in the 2010 ASMA report.

We also added some functionality questions that do not affect SEO like integrated CRM. We were asked why this question was included and our response is that it enhances the features grid. It is not being asked to add any weight in the award selection process for integrated CRM.

A few vendors offers their own CRM product and others use third parties. This does not impact the search visibility of a website but having that feature column will help dealers compare vendors for specific criteria they may be interested in.

ASMA Award Integrity

The 2010 ASMA report is unique in that it combines vendor provided data as well as independently verified data by our ASMA review staff. The report is funded by PCG Digital Marketing and is wholly managed and owned by PCG.  Here are some additional points of clarification:

• If vendors do not submit an application for the awards it does not mean that the ASMA team will not perform  an analysis from public information and our own testing. In this case, the vendor has chosen not to clearly answer the matrix of questions about their products.
• We will review ALL vendors again who were in the 2009 ASMA report regardless of their formal participation and application submission. Any vendors that did not feel that their platform was accurately represented in 2009 should participate in the formal application process.
• Without vendor particpation in the application process, the ASMA team may be reviewing old technology. This is because we will pick websites at random unless otherwise dictated from formal applications.
• If there is a question on the application you do not want to or cannot  answer – leave them blank. If any question you feel would compromise your technological advantage, leave it blank.

Our independent analysis and honest reporting has won the respect of the automotive industry and this year will be no different.  Each year the ASMA study and awards will seek to be relevant to the needs of car dealers and the changing landscape of the automotive industry.  We encourage all members of the automotive community in website design to participate.

ASMA Applications can be obtained by contacting Carrie Hemphill at: 732-450-8200

Automotive website companies or their automotive advertising agencies are encouraged to contact Carrie Hemphill, ASMA Award Coordinator, to request the application and data entry forms via email.

ASMA Application Deadline: August 2nd

Participants in the 2010 ASMA Awards must submit their application by August 2, 2010.  This deadline is for all companies that plan to particpate and submit their technology and questionnaire.

The completed ASMA data form with all survey data completed is due by August 27, 2010.  The 2010 ASMA will be expanded to include survey data for mobile applications, chat, video technology and iPad applications.

The 2010 study results will be announced at the 9th Digital Dealer Conference which will be held in Las Vegas from October 12-14th.  A special ceremony for the award winners will be conducted during the conference luncheon sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing.  

In 2009, nine companies out of the 35 included in the study received ASMA awards.   The award is the most prestigious industry award for website design companies.  

2010 ASMA Awards

The ASMA study seeks to assist car dealers with evaluating automotive website platforms and integrated marketing tools.  The 2010 ASMA Awards will include a comprehensive grid of website features, tools and architecture of all vendors.  The report is the industry’s only comprehensive comparison of automotive digital marketing website technology.

Each year, over 50 automotive website platforms are considers for Automotive SEO compliance, data integration, user interface, and search marketing visibility.  in 2009, only 35 were included in the ASMA report and only a fraction receive an ASMA award for excellence.

All of the companies included in the annual study are given the opportunity to submit their most recent examples of technology for review.  This year, the participants can also elect to conduct a two hour presentation of their website and marketing technology to the ASMA review team.

2009 Winner Spotlight – Dealer.com

One of the dual award winners in 2009 was Dealer.com.  Dean Evans from Dealer.com and Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing, are photographed during the awards presentation.

For additional information on the 2010 ASMA Awards, contact:

Carrie Hemphill
ASMA Coordinator
PCG Digital Marketing
732.450.8200

http://www.asmaawards.org/

The event is by invitation only and the Top car dealers across the country will be receiving their invitations in the coming weeks. The 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit will be held at the Encore hotel, in Las Vegas Nevada.

DSES organizers have negotiated an excellent package for all attendees to enjoy the luxury of the Encore, at a very low rate. When registering for the event, please notify DSES if you will be staying at the Encore and they will book your reservation for you.

DSES Conference Format

The DrivingSales Executive Summit is an exclusive automotive event, laser focused on cutting edge dealership operations. It features an invitation-only guest list of the most successful and innovative dealership operators in the country and world-renowned speakers to educate and inspire the collaborative process. This years Executive Summit will be held at the beautiful Encore hotel in the electrifying city of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The event kicks off with a 30,000-foot view of the latest media and economic trends just starting to touch the industry. These high level discussions are then translated down to the 15,000-foot view of how some of the leading dealership innovators are incorporating these trends into new strategies that drive sales at the dealership level.

To complete the event are strategy collaboration sessions at the 10-foot dealership view where dealer operators participate with their peers in round table discussions about implementing specific aspects of these newly inspired strategies. The program will inspire you and leave you with a strategic plan to drive measurable results at your store.

The topics and speakers presented are selected by group of dealer attendees. This insures the topics are timely, relevant and that the speakers are of the highest quality for the audience. The agenda is not sponsor driven, it is dealer driven.

PCG Digital Marketing

Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing will be attending the event and summiting a case study of their digital marketing work for the automotive industry. If you would like to book a private consultation with Brian Pasch out in Vegas, give our office a call at 732.450.8200 x12.

Completed applications are due by August 27, 2010 howver your initial basic application ad processing fee will be due on August 2, 2010.

If you have any questions about the 2010 ASMA Awards, please contact Carrie Valentine at 732-450-8200.

This year the criteria will be expanded to include mobile marketing as well as a more detailed examination of search marketing features that will include video optimization.

2009 ASMA Awards

There were 9 companies that were awarded trophies for the 2009 ASMA awards and three companies were dual award winners.  The dual award winners included Dealer.com, TK Carsites and DealerTrend.com

Here is a listing of all the winners of the 2009 ASMA Awards:

The Boot Camp will cover important elements of automotive digital marketing strategies: social media, blogging, video, microsites, link building, content creation, SEO and pay-per-click marketing.    

Brian Pasch is the CEO of PCG Digital Marketing, an industry leader in digital marketing and Search Engine Optimization for the automotive industry. 

Pasch will be among five keynote speakers at the Boot Camp and is also one of the instructors at the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp. 

The opening ceremonies for the Boot Camp are scheduled for Thursday evening February 11th with Keynote Speaker Jared Hamilton, founder of DrivingSales.com.

The first class instructed by Pasch “How To Create Content To Achieve Your Online Marketing Goals” will teach dealer professionals how to create content that the search engines will respect.  Pasch will demonstrate how to write search engine friendly content that attracts new traffic and meets car dealer’s keyword search goals.

Next, Pasch will deliver a seminar covering his top picks for the Best Digital Marketing Strategies of 2010.  There are hundreds of opportunities online for auto dealers looking to capture their fair share of the market, but only a select few will offer the best ROI. 

Pasch will show participants how to leverage these strategies to immediately increase the visibility of any car dealership.   He will also show the latest winning digital marketing strategies that have yet to be publically discussed on Brian’s blogs.

A complete description of these classes can be found online:  Boot Camp Classes

The full roster of speakers for the boot camp includes JD Rucker, a leading automotive social media expert and CMO of TK Carsites, Paul Rushing, respected leaders in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization, Eric Mayhew, Manager of Advertising Products at Dealer.com, and Tim Jennings, an 18 year veteran in the automotive industry who will be leading classes on video optimization online for increased traffic and sales.

The full roster of speakers and class descriptions can be found online at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/instructors/

The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp offers attendees hands-on classes which will deliver the abilities dealers need to understand, manage and catapult their online marketing strategy to the next level.  Every participant will be required to bring a laptop since the boot camp will feature hands on skills training.  This will enable participants to take back to their dealership and implement what they learned in class.

Registration is limited to 75 seats per class and is filling up quickly.  Automotive Principals, General Managers, General Sales Managers or Internet Sales Managers are encouraged to register online at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/paypal

For more information on Brian Pasch and the PCG Digital Marketing, visit http://www.dealer-seo.com

Click on this link for a full a list of all the 2009 ASMA Winners. Brian Pasch, CEO of the PCG Digital Marketing, congratulates the winners.

Six of the nine winning companies where at the conference to accept their engraved awards which included:

• Dealer.com
• TK Carsites
• DealerTrend
• Dealer eProcess
• DealerOn
• Dealer Fire

The three award winning companies not present at the show were VinSolutions, eBizAutos and eCarlist.