After reading about Google’s latest algorithm update, I started poking around to see if any major car related websites took a hit. Although I’m not a big fan of Alexa Rank, I do visit Alexa.com to see other data.

What I found was interesting:

30% Of Internet Users Come From Google Before They Visit AutoTrader, and 29% Go Back To Google After They Visit AutoTrader

Now it’s common knowledge that AutoTrader dominates as far as traffic goes, and they’ve secured the number one Google Organic Serp listing for “used cars” and other highly relevant search terms. For obvious reasons, a car dealer should at least have their inventory on AutoTrader. It’s well worth the money.

So what advertising should come next? Cars.com or local newspaper classified sites? In my opinion you should be advertising on Google. Matter of fact that should be the first choice, because it’s no secret that 80% of car buyers start out on Google.

If you look at the above screenshot, 29.85% of AutoTrader’s visitors go back to Google after they visit AutoTrader.com. If you think about it, that’s a lot of people.

Here’s another interesting screenshot I took while researching Cars.com:

Cars.com Data Was very Similar

For this reason alone, you should be advertising on Google with Google Adwords. I’m sure most dealers have attempted to create and manage their own campaigns, but without a lot of research and conversion data the cost per click will usually be twice the amount as an AdLogic Google Campaign.

Another important factor is support. Have you ever tried to call Google for help? Good luck if you haven’t, it just won’t happen. We are lucky to be a partner with Google, and with that we get 4 Google reps that we can call directly with any issues or questions.

Every 3 months we either visit Googleplex or they come to our Miami Office and share some very valuable data with us. This allows us to continuously improve AdLogic.

We have some huge changes in our algorithm coming on January 1st, 2012. Some the the features include:

1. Better New Car OEM Campaigns: We’ve been collecting data from millions of searches, and we now know what keyword phrases convert into a lead or phone call better than ever. Now we can adjust the bid on every single keyword depending on the conversion rates.
2. Scarcity Index: We have exclusive rights to the automotive industries largest scarcity index, and we rolled this into our algorithm as well. Now we can adjust bids depending on the popularity and price of a dealer’s vehicle.
3. Aged Inventory: We can also give our dealers the flexibility to stop running ads on vehicles that have been on their lot for any X amount of days.

AutoTrader Buys Homenet

The Atlanta Georgia based digital automotive giant has officially announced it’s buyout of Homenet. The makes the third buyout in as little as 3 months, trailing the Kelly Blue Book and V Auto.

I still can’t find a price, but I’m sure it was a big one. I’ll add more as details come.

You can see more details at drivingsales.com.

I currently run 2 blogs for them, plus a microsite. Each blog post I do performs well in the search engines, plus each post is sent out as Facebook and Twitter Updates.

I was a bit skeptical at first, because I felt it was AutoTrader’s way of getting backlinks from many dealers to further juice up their website. Lately, Autotrader has been getting their butts kicked in the serps from companies like Cars.com and LemonFree.com.

Before I did anything I checked out where the affiliate link would go. I was relieved to discover that it went to a page with no external links or internal links pointing to AutoTrader.com. On the second page of the process there were some links, but they were using Java Script so I wasn’t worried about giving them any link love.

If they were doing this to get backlinks, I would of included the “nofollow” tag. For now, everything seems legit…but they can always change it later on.

After adding it to their car blog and a few other places, I noticed some decent traffic from the keywords I selected. Last week when I was talking with the internet sales director, I expressed my concern about “due credit”.

If I am going to flow traffic to this program, I hope AutoTrader isn’t going to get all of the credit. I sincerely hope that AutoTrader monitors where these leads actually come from, and offers the data to each dealer.

So far, it seems like a great program. They’ve received some quality leads and purchased some decent vehicles from the public. I think it’s a great idea, for two reasons:

1. Autotrader will guarantee the amount to the dealers if there is a miscalculation.
2. The prospect doesn’t have to trade in the vehicle, they can just sell it outright if they wish.

I would definitely recommend this program. At a cost of a bit more than a G a month, I see big potential in this. I would love to see some comments or concerns from others about this program.