Vertical Dealer

Sunnyvale Ford Review

Sunnyvale Ford just completed a total engine rebuild of my 1996 Ford F250 Super Duty. The service was exceptional, and the workmanship was impeccable. The truck was back on the job in just three weeks, running strong and pulling her load just like she always has. Good job guys.

Thanks,

Rufus M.
San Jose, CA.

Tags: Sunnyvale Ford

Sonnen Motorcars Review

After searching the Internet for a used car I came to Sonnen Motorcars and purchased a Certified Pre-owned Volkswagen Passat. The price was fair and the sales team was cool, no pressure, no hassle. Much better  than I expected.

5 stars for Sonnen Motorcars for a good car buying experience.

Helen G.
Mill Valley, CA.

Tags: Sonnen Audi VW

Sonnen Porsche Best Deal

Sonnen Porsche gave me the best deal on a 911 Cabriolet. I had been to several other dealers in the Bay Area and none could give me what I wanted. Sonnen came through with better price and terms. Thanks to Sonnen Porsche for the best deal in town. You get a gold star from me, you earned it.

Samuel, K.
San Francisco, CA.

Tags: Sonnen Porsche

Sonnen Motor Cars Review

I just picked up a new Audi TT coupe at Sonnen Audi Volkswagen. The sales experience was one of the better ones I have had. The sales team was attentive but not over bearing. We came to terms quickly and I was on my way in about two hours. Good service, I would say.

Trevor L.
Black Hawk, CA.

Tags: Sonnen Motor Cars

Capitol Volkswagen

Capitol Volkswagen has always been good to me. I have brought my wife’s VW Passat here for service for several years and I have never been disappointed. Quality work and very good service from the staff.

Todd S.
Sunnyvale, CA.

Tags: Capitol Volkswagen, Del Grande Dealer Group

Capitol Mazda Review

Capitol Mazda will get all my future business. They are honest and helpful. One of my best buying experiences in a long time.

Cindy B.
San Jose, CA.

Tags: Capitol Mazda, Del Grande Dealer Group

Capitol Hyundai Review

I bought my Hyundai Genesis here in August. The salesman was very friendly and the staff treated me with respect. I was very satisfied with the experience. I have since come back for my 6K tune up and the service was first rate as well. Fast and efficient. A very good place to buy a car or go for service.

Paula P.
Los Gatos, CA.

Tags: Capitol Hyundai Review, Del Grande Dealer Group

Sonnen Audi VW Excellent Service

I just wanted to thank you for the excellent service and our new car. You made it really easy to get our new car and we appreciate it. We just love the Audi and are very happy with it. Lots of fun road trips and happy driving for tears to come.

Kirsten A.
Santa Rosa, CA.

Tags: Sonnen Motors

Dealer Public Relations

Dealer Public Relations is the new buzz going around the automotive marketing world. This is partly because a key factor for dealers in this tightening market is  squeezing every penny out of your dealer marketing, and that means more and more dealers are moving to the web for their marketing efforts. Dealer public relations professionals have known for some time that a dealer’s online reputation is as important as brand positioning.

Whether you advertise on TV, radio, or in print eventually 90% of your potential customers will go to the web to research your dealership prior to a showroom visit. Dealer public relations professionals will tell you that your dealership’s online reputation will be the deciding factor in almost every case. Research has shown that a typical dealership with a negative online reputation will lose as much as 41% of potential sales.

In a recent article from JD Power a negative online reputation was partially attributed to the total collapse of Bill Heard Chevrolet, one of the country’s largest dealer groups with over 2 billion in annual revenue.

With so much at stake it’s no wonder discussions of dealer public relations and dealer reputation management have reached a crescendo.

Here are some excellent resources for further information: Dealerpr.org - Dealerpr.net

Tags: Dealer Public Relations

The Cost Per Click Spend Control Formula

Every dealer knows the value of a properly managed Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign. It is relatively easy to get involved with Google AdWords as well as Yahoo and MSN pay per click (PPC) advertising. While it can be relatively simple to launch a campaign, if you expect to turn a profit you had better understand the math behind your campaign ROI and have a strategy to not only manage campaign spend but also improve landing page conversion.

Consider this:

If you sell a product for $500 and realize a 10% profit margin with a 2% conversion rate. For every 1000 visitors (click-throughs) to your landing page you will achieve 20 sales for a total of $10,000 gross income with a net profit of $1000.

If we take the $1000 divided be the 1000 visits we can now see that our maximum or break-even bid per click is $1.00. So the maximum cost-per-click (CPC) we can spend on any Ad without losing money must be $1.00 or less.

In other words:

(I/M)/V = MCPC

Income/Margin = Profit
Profit/Visits = Max CPC

This formula is of key importance to the potential profitability of your online business. CPC will rise over time and you had better know where your Max CPC limit stands before you get into a bidding war over a top position Ad placement.

Under the above conditions at the 2% conversion rate if the CPC required to place an Ad for certain prime keywords rises above the $1.00 mark you are effectively priced out of the market for those keywords.

So what would happen if you now were able to improve your conversion rate to 4% or 10%? At 4% conversion with the same 1000 visits you now have 40 sales for $20,000 gross with $2,000 net profit. Your Max CPC now also rises to $2.00 and you can once again compete for the higher priced keywords. At 10% conversion your PPC program becomes extremely profitable with 1000 visits bringing 100 sales with $5000 net profit.

So beyond the control formula to protect against runaway CPC spending the most important activity you can undertake as a PPC advertiser is… drum roll please… Landing page optimization. Let me say that again, “Landing Page Optimization is the key to increased profit through PPC advertising”.

Every Ad group should have a unique landing page and every landing page should be involved in a continuous A/B testing strategy.

You can test:

1. Page Layout
2. Fonts and Color
3. Graphic Treatments
4. Content Copy
5. Incentives

You need to test each page thoroughly to achieve optimum returns and then keep testing trying to beat your top performing pages. If you do this level of continuous testing you will make more profit. There is simply no excuse not to.

Here is another CPC strategy for your consideration. Take your current CPC and reduce it by $.05 every 4th day. Do this until you see a point of diminishing returns. What you will find is that as price is reduced your daily budget goes farther and clicks will actually increase as a result. You need to track your clicks and conversions religiously during this process but what you learn about click to spend ratios will be invaluable to your bottom line.

If you employ the cost control strategy, landing page testing, and the minimum cost exposure strategy you will be well on your way to protecting your Ad spend investment and increasing your dealership’s profits.

Tags: Cost Per Click, PPC