I've taken some criticism over the last week for selecting CarChat24 as the dealer website chat provider that I like the most. Angry calls. Angrier emails. Nobody wants to hear that their product was not selected and I understand the vast majority of the criticism from other chat providers in the industry.

One piece of criticism that I do not understand comes…

There was a great article published by Motoramic about the most reliable car brands which you can read here. The author determined the most reliable automotive brands by looking at almost 350,000…

Here is this week's Used Car Market Report with the latest data from Black Book. It has been an extremely busy week for the Editors at Black Book attending physical auctions and watching other auctions online, while also analyzing thousands of records from remarketing data feeds from all across the country, We even had the opportunity to get hands on insight into a couple of significantly refreshed models that are soon to be hitting the new car market through the franchised dealers. Getting…

In a recent study, Time, Inc. and Nuance Digital Marketing discovered that women are increasingly attached to their mobile devices. In fact, the study (called “Women + Mobile: The Unbreakable Bond,” found that 60% of women say their…

In part one of this series, I discussed the importance of dealerships using their data effectively in marketing and how, when done properly, it can increase vehicle and service sales while improving customer loyalty. Now I’d like to…

No doubt, Tesla has become a highly successful car brand with a growing roster of fans. The company recently introduced a new, guaranteed "buy back" program that offers to buy back a Model S between 36 – 39 months at a guaranteed residual.



On the surface this is positioned as a lease program. But it's really not a lease because you have to finance and pay taxes on the full vehicle.



Why can't you just lease a Tesla? Government regulations mean the $7,500 Plug-In Electric…

Millennials are extremely tech savvy. They are a different breed that will significantly affect the customer experience, the speed of change, and your dealership’s bottom line. So, it’s critically important to develop a plan not just to deal with the buyer but your internal customers as well.

Key Point #1: Millennials multitask, walk, talk, listen and…

Today’s Women’s Wednesday is about becoming new leaders in the growing and dynamic market of women consumers.

As competition tightens, the need for exceptional leaders at dealerships couldn’t be greater. Wayne Gretzky, the hockey legend, explained the key to his success, “a good hockey player knows where the puck is – however, a great hockey player knows where the puck is going”.

To be an exceptional leader like Gretzky, a proactive and anticipatory approach is important.…

In October, 2013, I posted a controversial article about the differences between responsive and adaptive websites and came to the conclusion that, at that time, properly coded adaptive websites were performing better than responsive…

By Brian Pasch

Dealers who have been struggling to create a consistent social media presence, may turn to third party vendors to assist with their social media. However, many of the social media companies serving car dealers use cookie cutter templates and post the same content for hundreds…

As Digital Dealer wraps up and a brief lull occurs in the major automotive conference schedule, I'd love to take some time to reflect on what has been going on in the industry and where it's all headed. Over the last several months, really since attending a conference in November of last year, I've been putting a lot of thought into how to improve the conferences in…

Whether you are a football fan or not, unless you have been living in a cave you have probably heard a lot about Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow.  What Tebow and Manziel have in common is that both are former Heisman Trophy winning college quarterbacks.  What they both also have in common is that they are both very much hated and reviled by so many.

From the outside looking in, they are polar opposites in many ways. Tebow is publicly very religious and Manziel is not. Tebow is…

Transparency is critical to Generation Y and it starts with the job posting.  Dealerships should consider posting information regarding employment directly on dealership websites to include details on job responsibilities and expectations, compensation and benefit plans,…

One of the retail automotive industry’s greatest challenges is attracting educated and young talent.  Most career seeking university graduates overlook the automotive industry when considering employment.  Their distaste for the automotive retail industry is typically fueled by negative thoughts about long work hours and confusing, commission-only based pay…

This blog is the first in a series I plan based around how to better use dealer data in marketing to customers. There is a reason that ‘Big Data’ has been a hot topic in the automotive industry for the last few years. Many retailers in other industries are using it quite successfully to target their marketing and offers to their customers based on transactional and…

In a world filled with companies vying for consumer attention, many marketing agencies advise that making more noise is an efficient strategy. Think about many dealerships’ sales strategies in handling customers who have actually expressed interest in a vehicle. Many dealerships employ templates and strategies designed to bombard consumers for the first week or so with a…

Well this is it…

The final…

I hit all of my closing ratio targets for all of my stores, which is how I get paid. Great month, so why am I nervous?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I work in an area where TrueCar has a contract with every high-volume dealer for every franchise, and that TrueCar has been supplying more and more quality leads to our dealer group over the last several months. For April, they were nearly TIED with our own website for deals.

SEO, SEM, lead process, remarketing,…

Last Thursday, Facebook launched Facebook Newswire. In partnership with Storyful, a social media content verifier and aggregator, Facebook has entered the business of delivering news to its community. This service is designed to identify hot news topics and articles. It does this…