Distributing Leads in the Fast Lane. Speakers: Mike Kissman (FordDirect.com), Nat Plane (Wambatech.com)
Mike started with some background info on FordDirect. FD is 80% dealer owned. 5MM unique visitors/month, 200,000 leads/month. First and foremost they are a lead generator - focus is at National, Regional and Local levels. Are also a lead aggregator. They cannot generate all the leads their dealers want - so they rely on affiliates to generate additional volumes - cast as broad a net as possible. They scrub 15-20% of their leads.
Areas of focus: Lead follow up, lead treatment, lead enhacement.
FD Technology requirements: insight (on demand reporting), flexibility (integration with other systems), reliability
Nat Plane, WambaTech:
Company background: alternative solution to expensive homegrown systems. focus on lead aggregators, management and distribution. Dozens of clients from mom & pop to OEMs.
Challenges WT helped FD solve: need for on-demand reporting, flexible pricing schemas, integration with 3rd party systems, reliability.
WT has built an extensive suite of tools to allow FD to change their business rules in real-time (reject leads on the fly, manage affiliate lead sources, management pricing schemas, margin rules, etc.)
Another major area of support - 3rd party integration (new suppliers, CRM vendors, etc.)
Nat ended by focusing on the WambaTech Lead Server platform.
I will be blogging from the Automotive Track from the TARGUSinfo Online Lead Quality Summit.
First up - Mike Kissman (FordDirect.com) and Nat Plane (WambaTech.com)
Stumbled across this very interested site today: http://www.dontclick.it
I’m always amazed by the level of creativity out there. Personally I found the no-click experience a little frustrating. Everything worked the way I wanted it to without clicking, but my right (dominant) hand experienced some weird muscle tension as I tried to resist clicking anything on the site. I had one ‘intentional’ click, and zero ‘accidental’ clicks.
I especially like the ‘mousewrap’. A simple, yet effective device that helps train your brain to stop clicking.
One big downside - no SERPs. Check this out: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.dontclick.it&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Another BIG downside for Flash-Only type sites.
eMarketer just published a story that automotive ad spending has fallen to No. 2 behind retail - something that hasn’t happened in a long time.
The automotive industry is having a rough year, and the effects are spilling over into its advertising. In Q1 2008, online was the only medium for which automotive ad spending did not fall compared with Q1 2007, according to Bernstein Research.
The research firm said that even Internet ad spending by automakers rose only 3.8%, accounting for 8.6% of total advertising—down from Q4 2007 when it reached nearly 10% of the industry’s total. [click to continue…]
by Jeff Raab on August 21, 2008
in vendors
J.D. Power and Associates has released their 2008 Dealer Satisfaction with Online Buying Services Study with AutoTrader.com ranking highest in satisfying dealers with new-vehicle leads, while Cars.com ranks highest in satisfying dealers with used-vehicle leads. [click to continue…]
