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I really don't know who I'm going to offend on this one. We've been researching so many vendors over the last couple of months that work with chat, lead-gen widgets, and website platforms themselves that we haven't taken the time to explore PPC vendors. Maybe that's why I was blindsided to find out that there are at least two vendors out there charging 20% and one that we found who is charging 25%.

Is it me or is this insane? We'll put aside the 25% vendor for now. I'm hopeful that it's some sort of accounting mistake or something. Focusing on the 20% charge, it really bugs me that this may be more common than I ever knew. I've always hung around the organic side of search, so PPC hasn't been a focus. With that said, I've managed dozens of PPC campaigns over the years and I could never imagine charging anything other than a flat fee.

To me (and again, I might be on the wrong side of this argument and would be very open to some education on this one), if a dealership is spending $10,000 per month on their PPC, $2,000 of it going to management seems high. If the software is driving the bidding and the feeds are generating the dynamic ads, wouldn't it seem that very little manual effort and development costs are going into the service on a monthly basis?

I've always been a fan of flat fee PPC management because of transparency. I want to be able to recommend to a dealer that they raise their budget without them wondering if I'm just trying to make more money and I want to be able to recommend that they reduce their budget without reducing my service fee. To me, adjusting a budget is a matter of changing a number or two in the backend and I cannot justify charging hundreds of dollars more per month for clicking a few buttons.

Here's the math:

• 20% service fee
• $10,000 per month initial budget
• Dealer wants to raise to a $12,000 per month budget
• Vendor clicks a few buttons, adjust some daily budgets
• Additional monthly cost for clicking those buttons: $400/month
• Yes, that's $4,800 a year for 5-10 minutes of effort

I'll say it again. I'm willing to hear why I'm wrong. I'd love to see the additional monthly effort that goes into a bigger budget. If that's not the case, I'm open to hearing why the cost is justified. If there are vendors out there charging a lower percentage or a flat fee that dealers (or vendors) are willing to recommend, I'd love to hear about those as well.

Someone, please set me straight on this issue. It's bugging me.

http://www.dealersynergy.com

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Mercedes-Benz Dealership Drives 200+ Website Leads Per Month With PPC

A Mercedes-Benz dealership, who is part of a large auto group in North Carolina, invested in online Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising with ReachLocal in November 2010. Their goal was to reach potential car buyers in their metro region, and to win business that might otherwise buy a vehicle from a competitive Mercedes-Benz dealership, or buy another Make of vehicle altogether.

The dealership worked closely with their Internet Marketing Consultant to build out a comprehensive list of keywords that a car buyer might use in searching the web for a vehicle. This list included every model of new and used vehicle they sell, as well as competitive keywords that might attract other buyers online. Their final keyword list was comprised of hundreds of keywords, both stand alone, and those paired with the major city names their customers likely come from.

Text ads were created to describe the dealership’s strengths and to create a compelling “call to action”. Effective text ads work by attracting the right searchers, and deterring the wrong ones. These ads were then mapped to the appropriate pages within the dealership’s website so that the searchers experience was seamless.

Once all of the elements of the PPC program were created, ReachLocal implemented them across 98% of where people search, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL and Ask. Tracking was set in place to identify any phone call lead that came in through the campaign, as well as any email or request for more information.

The program ran for 12 months, averaging 157 inbound leads per month for the dealership. After the first 12 months, they were so pleased with the performance that they increased their budget. After the budget increase, they experienced an average of 220 inbound leads per month. This averaged out to be an $11 - $12 cost per lead. Not only was the volume of leads impressive, but they were also highly qualified leads. People searching online for a vehicle are doing their research and have a better idea of what they want when they do make contact. So the leads that came in through their PPC program were better quality than those they were receiving from offline forms of advertising.

The Mercedes-Benz dealership not only grew their own PPC program, they also expanded to create similar programs for the other dealerships within their automotive group. Currently their entire group is advertising online with ReachLocal to generate qualified, inbound auto leads.

To learn more about how you can implement a successful online PPC program for your dealership, Respond to this post-