5 Specials Pages Customers Will Avoid (And may never visit again!)

Your specials pages will be seen by many of your website visitors during their shopping process.

Unfortunately, most dealers don’t realize the problems they have with these pages. Dealer Principals and General Managers may not know the process used to market their specials. They know it's part of their website, they know it's something that needs to done every week, or once a month - the disconnect is real. Even worse, the marketing manager struggles with communicating their efforts to management.

Building effective specials pages is one of the oldest problems car dealers face every month. Why? It’s time-consuming, it’s hard to keep up with the OEM offers and they simply don’t have the tools to do it efficiently. So, dealers are forced to use dead-end tactics that don’t help car buyers find what they’re looking for.

Dealers are left using dead-end tactics that don’t help car buyers easily find what they’re looking for. 87% of all vehicle purchases are financed. So, why don't dealers show their lease and finance payments? Again - it's difficult to do. 

Are your new car incentives and offers similar to the pages I found? Check out these five examples of new car specials pages.

In this example, I searched for Chrysler 300 lease deals. This is what I found.

  • Unfortunately, the search results page didn’t show a link to the specials page, only the home page. It took four clicks to get to this page.
  • There were only four or five specials listed and didn’t include different trim levels.
  • It does show one lease price, not sure if it's with money down or zero-down.
  • No APR/finance rate or payment example shown.
  • Shows stock photos (someone had to build the banner images)
  • No additional vehicle info or model landing pages. (Additional vehicle info can be found by starting the search over from the search results pages.)
  • I’ll give them points for adding the text disclaimer, unfortunately, it’s not enough to help optimize and rank for additional relevant searches.


Limited selection of offers.

In this example, I searched for Ford F150 prices. This is what I found.

  • Again, the specials pages didn’t show up in the search results. Multiple clicks to find this page.
  • No paid search ad displayed, only third party listings.
  • I got exactly what I was looking for - the price. And just one price. $40,890. No payments, no APR’s and no lease options. (The intent behind a users "price" search may also be the desire for payments) 
  • The “More Info” CTA button links to a generic contact us form which defaulted to a used car dept. lead.
  • The lead form requires my zip code. A personal pet peeve a not necessary.


One price.

In this example, I searched for Grand Cherokee lease prices. This is what I found.

  • Yet again, the specials page didn’t rank on page one of the search results.
  • This page is one large image. (Google needs more signals regarding the context of the page, an image alone doesn’t help)
  • The page isn’t mobile-friendly. Pinching and zooming didn’t help - I left this page quickly.
  • The prices and specials displayed only show the discount off the MSRP. No payments. (At least none that I could see - they may have been there, just not visible.)


Where's the finance payments, the finance rate or even a lease offer?

In this example, I searched for Nissan Maxima Finance Offers. This is what I found.

  • No finance offers on the home page for this dealer. A paid search ad which took me to their Featured New Vehicles results page for Nissan Altimas. (I wanted a Maxima)
  • The paid search ad didn’t include relevant offer info. (Mid-funnel ads vs. a low-funnel ad)
  • Three more clicks and I found the page below. Another giant image. And no relevant page copy.
  • I had to dive into the fine print to determine if these were zero down or money down leases.
  • No finance rate or payment info. Just a lease offer. (Would have liked to see more options)
  • This page is a dead-end. No primary call to action. Yes, there is a standard click to call icon at the top, the chat icon on the left and the contact us links buried at the bottom of the page (which are for the College Grad, Military, and VPP programs) Shoppers need to be directed to the next step if you want deeper engagement.


One. Giant. Image.

In this example, I searched for Toyota Camry Lease Deals. This is what I found. 

  • There were two results on page one: a paid search ad and an organic result for the home page.
  • Neither result included any relevant information regarding lease deals - the paid ad text was simply, “Toyota Camrys in stock - knowledgeable well-trained staff.”
  • The paid search ad linked to the page below - 14 vehicles with the MSRP listed with a strikethrough and a link instructing me to sign-in to view the pricing.
  • I played along and clicked. The instructions described their “upfront and honest” approach to offering a “hassle-free pricing system” and requires users to sign up and log in. Squeeze pages are the opposite of hassle-free and very difficult to pull off successfully.
  • Several additional clicks took me deeper to the automated incentives page. This showed five different choices of 1.9% APR or either 36-60 months - with no payment examples, just choices for the length of the loan.


No, thank you. I'd just like to see the price.

I understand, the processes and tools dealers use to create, distribute and manage their new vehicle offers are broken. It’s safe to say the majority of dealers face these issues every month. The previous five results are not unique.

Common problems dealers experience managing specials

  • Specials pages are often optimized poorly and don’t rank organically on page one for long-tail or local branded search terms. (low-quality content, banners, poor on-page meta data, URL's, among others)
  • Paid search ads are not relevant, don’t include current pricing info and drive shoppers to pages that still don’t give the offer.
  • Home pages often don’t provide quick links to effective specials pages. (Pages showing aged inventory are not specials pages - they should just be called “Older vehicles we’re trying to sell quickly”)
  • Specials listed don’t provide enough relevance. Transactional offers such as discounts from MSRP’s, APR’s and multiple lease deals aren’t displayed.
  • Offers are usually for one trim level. What if buyers are interested in something different? There's a big difference between the base Chrysler 300 and the 300S with a Hemi
  • Landing pages don’t have direct, simple call to actions specific to the individual offers (forms or click to call)
  • None of the sites I visited had model-specific landing pages with additional information about the vehicles.
  • The marketing process should resemble an omnichannel approach. Offers and incentives need to be consistent when they’re distributed to your organic, paid and even your email marketing channels.
  • Landing pages need to be mobile-friendly. PDF images and static pages which prevent easy viewing even without zooming are frustrating and cause shoppers to bounce quickly. (Users remember poor mobile experiences and often don’t return!)

I recommend you take a look at your marketing process and consider the following items:

  1. How long does it take to publish your new vehicle offers and incentives - for each model you sell and their trim levels?
  2. Are your specials pages among your top five most visited pages - and are they easy to find organically and from your home page? (desktop and mobile)
  3. Do you have responsive model-specific landing pages that include your current offers? (And not content for the sake of having content)
  4. If you do have content pages - do they actually help convert, or contribute to assisted conversions.
  5. Are these pages integrated seamlessly for real-time management with your paid search marketing and email campaigns?

I'd love to hear feedback about your processes, what works for you, and what struggles you may be experiencing.

Feel free to contact me directly with any questions as well. 

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