Dealer.com Releases TotalControl DOMINATOR™ to All Auto Dealerships

Regardless of website vendor, dealers can take advantage of the next generation search solution that delivers relevant traffic, higher conversion rates and first party leads at an average cost of $8

Burlington, VT -- Dealer.com, the leading provider of online marketing solutions for the automotive industry, announced November 10, 2008,  the release of its next-generation search marketing platform, TotalControl DOMINATOR™ (TCD) to all dealerships, regardless of which vendors are hosting their websites. Now, TCD can be fully integrated into any dealership’s website solution, allowing dealers to easily and instantly create and manage the most effective search campaigns in the market.

“Most search marketing solutions are nothing more than humans running the consumer interfaces to search engines, but TotalControl DOMINATOR is completely class-leading and unique to the market,” said Mark Bonfigli, president and CEO of Dealer.com. “TCD has a ‘big brain’ that automatically creates optimal search terms, ad units and bidding strategy based on seven years of collected data and millions of search dollars spent on behalf of clients.”

TCD has been proven to increase relevant traffic, conversion rates and delivers an incredible ROI with average lead costs of just $8. In addition, the TCD ‘brain’ includes advanced features that no other search marketing solution offers, such as:

Smart Bidding
Google and other search engines keep track of which keywords get the most click traffic and provide tools to help dealers optimize the number of clicks. The problem is that search engines focus on click volume and not on return on investment (ROI). How many of those keywords convert? What is the ROI for each keyword? TCD answers these questions so dealers can determine the exact value of each keyword in terms of dollars generated rather than the number of click-throughs.

For example, compare the search term “2008 Ford Mustang” which gets fifty clicks, with the term “Ford Mustang windshield wiper,” which gets 1,000 clicks. At equivalent conversion rates, the value of selling a car is much higher than that of selling a wiper. But blind search engine optimizers don’t know that and would bid up the term with “windshield wiper” in it. However, TCD’s Smart Bidding “brain” knows the difference, because it connects the click expense directly to measurable revenue.

Deep Linking
TCD creates ads that deep link to the correct areas of a dealership’s website or microsite.  If a person is searching for “brake service Atlanta”, most SEM ads will take them to the dealership home page rather than to the service page. Statistics have shown that when customers click through to a website, 25% will leave after only two clicks. Ads that deep link to the relevant content will retain many more users than traditional SEM ads.
Automatic Inventory Ad Updates

One challenge many Internet dealers face is keeping their SEM ads current to what is in their inventory. It’s difficult enough to update inventory listings daily, let alone having to notify an SEM vendor or spend time creating new SEM ads. With TCD, this is no longer a problem. Every night, TCD automatically updates a dealer’s SEM campaign strategy based on inventory feeds it receives from a dealership’s system. This greatly reduces wasteful spending and translates into extremely efficient and targeted ad spending

Call Tracking and Recording
TCD provides a new level of phone tracking so dealers can see detailed ROI for every dollar spent. For each SEM campaign, TCD assigns unique phone numbers to every search engine for the following departments: sales, parts and service. That’s at least 15 unique phone numbers for every campaign. This leads to a better understanding of the value each search engine provider brings to different campaigns.

Integrated Lead Management
TCD’s lead management tracking system provides full life-cycle tracking of every campaign, from the first click-through to sales. Located in Dealer.com’s SmartSites™ Control Center™, it’s fully integrated into the system so a dealer can see exactly how much revenue every SEM ad generated.

Automatic Refreshing of Ad Content
Every week, TCD monitors all updates made to a website; including content, inventory, specials, new models, new information on vehicles, etc. Then, it automatically refreshes keyword lists with Google.

About Dealer.com
Founded in Burlington, VT in 1997, Dealer.com is the leading provider of online marketing solutions to the automotive industry. Dealer.com offers NADA award-winning SmartSites™ website design incorporating dynamic video; user-friendly lead management tools; the best in search engine advertising and unparalleled metrics and web analytics. Excellent customer service, innovative training and proven results are just a few of the reasons why more of the top 100 dealer groups use Dealer.com than any other vendor. For the last several years, dealerships across the country have voted for Dealer.com as the best website provider, resulting in the company being awarded gold and platinum in Auto Dealer Monthly’s Dealers’ Choice Awards.

Dealer.com’s suite of online marketing solutions is the only set of tools that effectively creates a 360O view of auto dealers’ online and traditional marketing investments and results. Dealers are easily able to track spending and determine which activities are leading to the highest return on investment, allowing them to streamline advertising and marketing efforts into targeted activities that increase sales and improve the bottom line.