About a year and a half ago, we did an Automotive News webinar with Google and Yahoo on how search engines have revolutionized the auto shopping process. One of the key points of that presentation is that search and auto shopping is evolving at such a rapid process, and the way people shop for a car is dynamically changing between the time they purchase the last vehicle and their next one.

With that in mind, we went back and looked at that presentation and updated the facts and figures. Incidentally, it’s changed exponentially since we last made this presentation. Here’s how search is revolutionizing the auto industry:

Search Is Exploding Faster Than You Know It

Estimates put the 2011 monthly search volume at 143 BILLION searches per month. That’s up from a mere 2.7 billion in 2006 – an increase of over 5200% in just six short years. Combine that with JD Power’s report that the average age of a trade-in is 6.2 years, that means that the way a consumer is shopping for a vehicle today, is drastically different than the way they did the last time they purchased.

Search Marketing is Bigger Than You Think

Go to a trade show or a seminar and you’ll hear about a lot of different digital marketing outlets from social media to email, mobile phones and more. The simple fact of the matter is that 54% of all digital advertising dollars go to search marketing – close to $19 billion. After that, display advertising (banner ads) makes up the next 32%. Put those together and 86% of all digital marketing is either search marketing or online display. Major marketers are putting their money where customers are.

The Internet is Replacing Newspaper

In 2000, 52% of all dealer advertising dollars were devoted to newspaper – which made it the number one dealer advertising outlet. Today, more dealer advertising dollars go to the Internet than any other single medium (Internet 23.7% newspaper 22%, television 20.10%, radio 16%, direct mail 9.7% and other mediums 9%). If you look at the trends over the last ten years, almost all the mediums stay in line with the exception of newspaper. Newspaper lost about half of it’s share to the Internet.

Customers Select Dealerships Online – Not in Person

It’s a really scary concept to wrap your head around, but the simple fact of the matter is that most consumers select the dealership they’re going to do business with online and they do it with little or no interaction with the dealership. JD Power reports that in 2005 the average customer shopped 4.1 dealerships when purchasing a vehicle and today a customer visits just 1.3. That means, on average, a customer buys from the first dealership they walk into. What does this mean? They’re selecting the dealership they want to do business online. Furthermore, they’re doing it with little to no interaction with the dealership. In the past six years, Internet usage in the auto shopping process is up 16%, while lead submissions are up only 2%.

Google is Destroying the Organic Space

If you take a look at a SERP (search engine results page), you’ll see that the organic results are actually the minority of results. On a typical SERP, you’ll have 1-3 top search ads, several to the right or bottom, a map result and a Google Places listing. In many cases, there will be only a single organic result on a SERP. There’s good reason that Google would want to do this. Google generates 96% of its revenue through advertising – and Google is a business with a market capitalization of close to $200 billion – and the majority of it is generated through those little ads wrapped around search results.

Google is More Important to the Auto Space Than the Market at Large

It’s well known that Google is the dominant search engine in the space – comScore reports that Google garners a 65% share of the search market. However, independent research shows that in regard to traffic to dealership web sites, Google accounts for close to 77% – close to a 20% increase.

Search Marketing Crushes The Competition

While most advertising agencies don’t want to admit it – advertising is an incredibly wasteful effort. Let’s compare: The Superbowl, which is the highest rated program of the year, pulled a 34 rating last year (34% of the population viewed it). Let’s assume there will be 19 million units of inventory sold this year through franchised dealers (12 million new and 7 million used). If you multiple 19 million by 34% and then divide by 12 to get the number of people who will buy a car  a Superbowl commercial reaches – you get an astonishing number of 0.17%. If someone types ‘honda accord’ into a search engine – what’s the likely hood they want to buy a Honda Accord? Let’s say it’s just 50% – compare that to 0.17%. Result: search marketing is incredibly targeted.

All Those Great Features on Your Web Site? They’re Basically Useless.

You spent a lot of time selecting and working on your web site – guess what – it’s useless. People really just go to your site to find inventory. Take this statistic: only 24% of your web site traffic visits a page that’s not your inventory or specials.

So What Do You Do?

Increase your search marketing budget – big time. Our average customer spends $3,200 on search marketing, $21,000 on television or radio and $62,000 overall. If someone were to take $2,100 from their television or radio and move it to search marketing it would do the following: increase a medium that’s 50% targeted by 65%, decrease a medium that’s 0.17% targeted by 10% – and not change your advertising budget a single penny. Make sense?

Want to see the full presentation? It’s live on SlideShare. If you’d like someone from Moore & Scarry to make this presentation at your 20 group or other event, contact us.

Recently, Google announced that it has named Moore & Scarry Advertising as one of their select Google AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partners. The AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partner program is Google’s designation for their digital advertising partners that have achieved the highest levels of training, performance and customer service.

Duncan Scarry, CEO

“We’re incredibly excited about Moore & Scarry Advertising being named an AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partner by Google. I think it’s recognition of the power of our Haystack automotive search marketing platform and the high level of expertise and service our staff provides,” said Duncan Scarry, president of Moore & Scarry Advertising.

Moore & Scarry is one of the first companies to be named an AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partner in the automotive space.  Moore & Scarry has held numerous other Google distinctions for their performance including the AdWords^TM Authorized Reseller.

Google selected AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partners based on stringent qualification criteria, including a proven market track record and the ability to deliver an exceptional end-to-end service to advertisers.

Ben Wood | Google

“We are excited to launch the Google AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partner program with hand-picked, highly qualified companies like Moore & Scarry Advertising,” says Ben Wood, head of Google’s Americas channel sales partnerships. “Automotive dealers will not only benefit from Moore & Scarry Advertising’s in-depth training, but from their years of experience in the local market.”

To learn more about the Premier SMB Partner program directly from Google, visit google.com/ads/premiersmbpartner.

About Moore & Scarry Advertising

Moore & Scarry Advertising is the nation’s third largest automotive advertising agency and North America’s third largest automotive search marketing company. Innovation, bright minds and a lot of hard work have made Moore & Scarry Advertising one of the fastest-growing automotive advertising agencies in the nation.  Moore & Scarry Advertising has represented over 400 automobile dealers, including the vast majority of domestic and international manufacturers, dealerships of all types and sizes, including numerous Automotive News Top 125 Dealer Groups. The agency has offices in Fort Myers, Florida; Chicago, Illinois and Denver, Colorado.

About the Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program

The recently announced Google AdWords^TM Premier SMB Partner Program (PSP) connects Google’s trusted and experienced AdWords^TM partners with small- and medium-sized businesses that want expert help in creating, managing and optimizing their online advertising campaigns. In addition to in-depth AdWords^TM expertise, PSP partners provide full-service campaign management, detailed reporting, one-on-one customer support, and broad marketing guidance to help advertisers make the most of their campaigns.

Premier SMB Partners meet Google’s highest standards and criteria for qualification, transparency, and customer service, which includes completing extensive Google product and account management training. This ensures they can provide small businesses with the most effective AdWords^TM advertising solutions.

“We knew that the new features in this release were going to increase traffic by creating more relevant ads, but this was quite a bit more than we anticipated,” said Duncan Scarry, President of Moore & Scarry Advertising.

Haystack’s Dynamic Inventory Marketing feature taps into a dealer’s DMS system, pulls inventory and creates ads for each unit of inventory. This release updated how vehicles are processed. In addition to creating search marketing ads for each unit of inventory, the system now bundles like models into groups and like makes into groups. This allows the system to advertise more inventory to customers and be more targeted in doing so.

When the release went live existing customers saw major traffic increases.

“This release, along with seasonal increases in search, should present an opportunity for customers using the Haystack automotive search marketing platform to reach nearly twice as many customers as before,” said Scarry.

Haystack v2 was a major upgrade released in October of 2010. Since then, Moore & Scarry Advertising has had two minor releases and upgrades to the platform.

The release of Haystack version 2.1 added the VBBM and ABBM features – value based bid management and age based bid management. With Haystack version 2.2, vehicle make and vehicle make/model groupings were unveiled.

For more information on how these features can help you capture more relevant customers, please contact your account executive or a Haystack sales representative.

Duncan Scarry was a feature speaker on Wednesday with his enlightening presentation “Digital Marketing Hacks: Ten Digital Marketing Secrets That Will Save You $100,000 Next Year.” Session attendees learned about the best kept digital marketing secrets the industry doesn’t want you to know about and how to save on unnecessary expenses and shift focus to the highest ROI efforts. In case you missed it we recorded the session which you can watch on-demand now, as well as download the presentation for more valuable information.

People who dropped by our booth learned about another highly regarded secret of some of the nation’s largest dealers – the Haystack automotive search marketing platform. As the digital revolution continues shoppers are doing more research and shopping online. Dealers know that if your inventory is not properly presented and marketed on the internet, you will miss out on many opportunities to sell vehicles.

Enter Moore & Scarry Advertising’s Haystack - the most powerful online marketing solution the industry has to offer. The system creates custom pay-only-for-performance ad campaigns specific to your dealership profit centers. With powerful new features such as dynamic inventory-based ad creation engine, value based bid management and age based bid management tools, Haystack can create more internet leads, reduce advertising costs and offer increased accountability for you. Contact us for an in-depth presentation and a no cost analysis of your marketing.

Another great highlight of the 10^th Digital Dealer event was our Tech A Day Giveaway we held daily at our booth. We announced giveaway dates/times on Facebook and Twitter and handed out great items like a Sony Google TV and new MacBook Air. Congratulations to our winners Kevin Galer of Ziegler of Plainwell and Kristin Garini of Carter of Manchester.

We concluded the conference with an exclusive party we co-sponsored with our partner, DealerOn, at the Ice Bar Orlando Wednesday night. Literally the coolest bar in town, it was a hot event with a great turnout and a lot of fun.

We will keep you posted on our plans at the 11^th Digital Dealer event in Las Vagas in October and look forward to seeing you all there. As always, make sure you follow us on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-minute company news and updates.

In January we started the year here at ARI with the warning that digital may be our biggest competitor for advertising budget in 2011. Now let’s look at a view from an agency that opened in 2002 and today is one of the biggest leaders in the entire USA in digital strategies for over 250 car dealers nationwide. Our guest is Duncan Scarry, a partner in the digital marketing agency Moore & Scarry.

Here’s a look at some factual observations and opinions made by Duncan, as he was quoted recently on eMarketer.com. (We recommend their website as another great source of digital advertising trends.)

On Digital Growth
In the past two to three years, we’ve seen our dealerships increase the digital portion of their advertising budget from 12% to 18% to 28% to 33%.

On Dealer Ad Budgets
The vast majority of budget that auto dealers are putting towards digital is coming from print or other types of traditional display advertising. (ARI comment: that’s YOU.)

Search usually comprises one-third to one-half of a dealer’s digital marketing budget. We have dealers that do upwards of $25,000 a month in search engine marketing.

On Web Shopping
Roughly 70% of people who visit a dealership website get there from search, and almost 20% of dealer website visitors get there from search engine marketing.

Online search ads are the third most influential medium used in the purchase process next to television and print. (ARI: sounds like print is not as dead as we’d hoped.)

Our dealership clients attribute 10% of their sales to email marketing. For many dealerships, we’ve replaced large chunks of direct mail spending with email marketing, which they have tracked to increased sales.

Consumers are increasing the time they shop for a car from what used to be one to two weeks to two weeks to a month.

On Social Media
Right now I think social media plays a negligible role in auto sales, and I think reputation management is going to be more influential sooner than social is.

On Online Video
Online video is great. The more content you can create, the better. The difficulty – we call it the “celery and the cheeseburger theory” – is that dealers hear they should do more video, but their site isn’t properly indexed, or search optimized. They’re not spending money on search marketing, so when they put a video on a poorly optimized, poorly indexed, poorly marketed site, it really makes no difference. If you put celery, which is healthy, on a cheeseburger, it doesn’t improve your diet.

 ARI interviews Duncan Scarry:

ARI: With your 250 dealers have you developed some basic marketing rules that you apply to all media? For example, what is the biggest mistake you see them making with their entire marketing?

Duncan: Marketing fragmentation – spreading the budget all over the place. Owning nothing.

ARI: WOW, we agree. We call it “The Glass Theory.” What media do you think works the best?

Duncan: We are media agnostics. That means we have zero media precedent. It all depends on the situation. It could be billboards, radio or TV, or print, or anything else. It all can work. It all depends on efficiencies and the market.

ARI: How about buying digital? What do you suggest a dealer should consider first?

Duncan: Buying the lowest CPM (cost per thousand) – ideally $5 to $7. This should be more important than placement.

 ARI: What’s the biggest mistake dealers make with their digital?

Duncan: Their creative. Usually they just pull their logo and put it up with no call to action. Ideally, we want a specific offer… a specific make and model, and a link to a page – not the dealer home page, but a page with more on the vehicle offer.

ARI: Another WOW – we preach this constantly. That’s why there’s an article in this issue on branding vs. the call to action. Do most dealers know how to buy digital?

Duncan: No, they’re just buying anything being presented to them by a good salesperson – usually it’s a package. They’re not sure how to do it. They really can’t pull it off themselves.

 ARI: What’s the best way to measure the success of a dealer’s digital marketing?

 Duncan: A spike in web hits.

 (ARI: Note) In his interview with eMarketing, Duncan made predictions about the future, which not only match up with the comments made by Ford’s CEO in this edition of ARI, but has profound implications for our dealers and the ads we write for them.

 “I see the future of auto advertising hinging more on inventory than on offers.”

 “Consumers have as much, if not more, information than dealers. For the dealer, the differentiation will become more about managing the inventory than trying to differentiate the dealership. Online tools such as Haystack  orient search engine marketing around a dealer’s actual inventory. This helps connect consumers to cars that dealers actually have on the lots, rather than ones that search engines estimate that dealerships have. Our dealers that have gotten their inventory mix right and brought it online have seen tremendous success.”

Auto Revenue Insights – March 2011 Volume 17 Number 3

Fort Myers, FL- (March 8th, 2011) –

Adwords Authorized Resellers are companies that have been carefully vetted by Google for their ability to effectively serve local business’s search marketing needs. Partners in the AdWords Authorized Reseller program provide advertisers with a fully managed AdWords product, high quality customer service and significant expertise.

Google requires Resellers to have significant experience servicing and supporting local businesses, to have a fully-equipped technology platform, to demonstrate proficiency in managing AdWords accounts and to have a rigorously trained and certified staff.

“We’ve been innovating and leading the automotive search marketing space for quite some time. Our new partnership with Google is going to allow us to continue to lead and innovate. Ultimately, we’ll be able to provide the best advertising return on investment for our dealer clients,” said Duncan Scarry, President of Moore & Scarry Advertising.

As a Google AdWords Authorized Reseller, Moore & Scarry is equipped to help auto dealers and groups tap into the power and reach of the Google AdWords online advertising platform.

“Moore and Scarry has a proven track record of delivering high ROI products to the automotive sector via AdWords. As such, Moore and Scarry is a key strategic partner of Google,” said Ben Wood, Head of North American Channel Sales Partnerships at Google.

About Google AdWords:
AdWords is a cost effective, efficient way for businesses of all sizes to advertise their products and services at exactly the time their customers are looking for them. Using the cost-per-click (CPC) model, businesses can select and bid on keywords related to what they are selling and pay only when an interested user clicks on their ad. Advanced targeting options, customizable ads, and detailed reporting enable advertisers to evaluate the benefits and performance of their cost-per-click advertising efforts. More information is available at adwords.google.com.

About Moore & Scarry Advertising:
Moore & Scarry Advertising is a full-service advertising agency and audio-visual production company that focuses exclusively on increasing automotive retail sales through the strategic combination of traditional and new media. The agency’s digital advertising services, such as paid search and Internet marketing management are what set the company apart from its competition. Innovation, bright minds and a lot of hard work have made Moore & Scarry Advertising one of the sought-after automotive advertising agencies in the nation.  Moore & Scarry Advertising has represented over 400 automobile dealers, including the vast majority of domestic and international manufacturers, dealerships of all types and sizes, including numerous Automotive News Top 125 Dealer Groups.

Moore & Scarry North will be located in the Oak Brook Regency Towers at 1415 W. 22nd Street, Oak Brook, Illinois.  Existing and new clients will benefit from a full staff and marketing services conveniently located under one roof in the region.  msaNorth’s clients already include such leading dealerships as Family Hyundai Tinley Park, Fletcher Jones Audi, Fletcher Jones Honda, Fletcher Jones Volkswagen, Infinity of Orland Park, Mercedes-Benz of Chicago (a Fletcher Jones company), Orland Park Nissan, World Hyundai Matteson, Zeigler Chevrolet of Schaumburg, Zeigler Chrysler Dodge of Downers Grove and Zeigler Chrysler Dodge Jeep of Schaumburg.  Moore & Scarry plans to grow the Chicago office in terms of both new clients and staff members.

Automotive retail marketing expert Patricia (Patty) Wales has joined Moore & Scarry to head up the new office as president of msaNorth.  Patty hails from Elmhurst, Illinois and has worked in automotive marketing for nearly 20 years.  Her experience encompasses every area of retail sales and she combines this extensive knowledge with her strong creative background to deliver consistent results for clients.  Patty and her team will provide dealer and dealer group clients with expertise in comprehensive marketing services, both traditional and online.

“We are excited to open our Chicago office and expand our services in the Midwest.  Having the physical location will allow us to provide even better service to our dealers in the region,” commented Duncan Scarry, Moore & Scarry owner and president.  “Patty Wales is a great addition for our clients.  She brings her expertise and decades of experience with dealers and dealer groups in the area.  Midwest dealers now have access to more support staff and more marketing tools, combing the strengths of both online and offline advertising, and everything is under one roof.”

Most auto dealerships face the challenge of effectively marketing used vehicles via online search engines.  With an ever changing inventory of pre-owned cars on the lot, manually creating and managing search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns for each of these vehicles could be a full-time job for many dealers, yet most dealerships do not have the internal resources to accomplish this.  Marketing used vehicles on search engines is a huge opportunity for dealerships because automotive consumers nation-wide seek pre-owned cars on search engines every day.  Historically, the majority of dealers have missed these shoppers because there was no effective method to showcase used inventory via SEM.Alan Krutsch, director of marketing for Walser Automotive Group, a group of eleven stores based in Minnesota, faced this challenge.  He knew the group was missing valuable sales opportunities and he knew that there had to be a way to effectively market used vehicle inventory via SEM (also referred to as paid search).  Krutsch sought a solution to better showcase his dealerships’ used inventory and reach more automotive consumers online via search engines.  Through his extensive research, he found Moore & Scarry Advertising’s Haystack automated vehicle paid search solution.  The service and technology automatically create unique search ad campaigns for all used vehicles.

Search Results Showing Actual Dealership Inventory (click to enlarge)

Krutsch also discovered that Haystack uses “deep-links.”  With a single click, deep-links take consumers directly to website pages with details for the exact vehicles for which they search, rather than generic dealership information web pages.  This increases both search engine relevancy and ease of use for consumers who use SEM links to find vehicles, and ultimately increases the likelihood of a sale.  He also learned that Haystack updates on a daily basis with no effort on the dealership’s part.  These updates automatically create campaigns for newly listed used inventory and remove sold (whether to a customer or at auction) inventory.  For dealers, Haystack is a seamless addition to paid search and can also be used as a stand-alone product.

Walser began using Haystack in May 2010 and has been extremely pleased with the results.  Since implementing Haystack, the dealership has experienced a 400% increase in used vehicle paid search traffic.  In addition to the advanced technology, the dealership also benefits from access to top management at Moore & Scarry, including the agency president.

“The Haystack software and methodology are great.  But the best value is the consulting service and knowledge that we get from Duncan Scarry and his team,” stated Krutsch.  “Access to the company president is just not something that other vendors provide.  We have worked with other agencies and access to the most senior level of management is very unusual.  We get advice and insight for best practices and utilization of Haystack; it’s much more than just the technology.”

Krutsch is also pleased with Haystack’s detailed and customized reporting, which he has not found with other inventory paid search marketing tools.  Haystack’s reporting helps the dealership make better decisions, and allows more flexibility and speed for campaign changes.

Detailed Tracking and Reporting

“It’s one thing to collect a lot of data, but quite another to accurately analyze it and use it for continuous improvement.  With Moore & Scarry, we get the data and we get high level consulting to help us make the most of the data.  That’s what we’re paying for, this winning combination,” commented Krutsch.

In addition to the significant increase in used vehicle site traffic, the dealership’s overall website traffic is up 20% and Krutsch attributes a large part of this increase to the work with Moore & Scarry.  He stated, “Haystack is a key ingredient of our overall recipe to increase sales.”  In addition to the increase in used vehicle traffic and overall site traffic, the dealership has increased new and used inventory views, map and direction views and email lead submissions.

Krutsch summed it up, “Moore &Scarry made it very easy to implement Haystack, and they did all the ‘heavy lifting.’  More importantly, they collaborate with us to establish our strategy.  It’s impossible to shoot a bull’s eye if everyone doesn’t know the target that we’re aiming for.  Now, Haystack runs seamlessly in the background and we have regular conversations with Moore & Scarry, and it takes very little effort on our part to achieve these great results.  They run our paid search, manage our website and more.  It is an outstanding partnership and our results are the proof.”

Duncan Scarry presenting at the 8th Digital Dealer Conference

Duncan Scarry has been asked to speak at the Morton Plant Mease Foundation’s Corporate Associates CEO Breakfast regarding the influence of technology on advertising. Scarry will be speaking alongside Jeff Lyash, President of Progress Energy and Karen Dunlap, President of the Poynter Institute.

The breakfast is an opportunity for Tampa Bay area business professionals to hear perspectives from the nation’s business leaders. Former speakers have been Brian Auld of the Tampa Bay Rays, Ed Crenshaw of Publix Supermarkets, Larry Morgan of LCM Investments and Debra Redmond of Nordstrom.

“Our Annual Corporate Breakfast was created to update our corporate members about what is taking place in our hospitals and share the current status of Morton Plant Mease  Foundation events, memberships and campaigns. This breakfast is one more way we give back to our corporate community and bring them together to promote business and social networking.” said Kathleen Simon, event coordinator for the Morton Plant Mease Foundation.

“I’m really honored to be speaking at this event. Technology changes advertising every day. It’s going to be a great opportunity to discuss how different industries are adapting to technology changes while doing something to help the Morton Plant Mease Foundation,” said Scarry.

The event will be held on September 28th at the St. Petersburg College EpiCenter.

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Duncan Scarry is President of Moore & Scarry Advertising, a nationally-recognized leader in digital advertising and one of the fastest growing advertising agencies in the nation.

The Morton Plant Mease Foundation provides philanthropic support to Mease Countryside, Mease Dunedin, Morton Plant, and Morton Plant North Bay hospitals. Over the past decade, Morton Plant Mease Foundation has granted more than $100 million to support the hospitals of Morton Plant Mease.

Prior to joining Moore & Scarry, Kevin served in a variety of automotive industry marketing roles, all focused on increasing dealership sales.  Most recently he was a senior district manager for American Honda Motor Co., Inc.  In this position he consulted with dealers across the nation to increase vehicle sales, profitability and improve customer satisfaction scores.  He has also held roles at Newgen Results Corporation, Direct Mail Express Inc. and Southeast Toyota Distributors, a division of JM Family Enterprises, Inc.

Agency president, Duncan Scarry, commented, “Kevin has spent his entire career in automotive retail and understands what’s needed for success.  His unique perspective and knowledge come from extensive work with dealerships, manufacturers and agencies.  He will be a huge asset for our dealer clients and help Moore & Scarry continue its growth as the leading automotive advertising agency.  In his new role, he will manage and develop key client relationships and we’re all excited to have him aboard.”

Kevin earned a ­Master of Business Administration, with an emphasis in marketing, from Florida Atlantic University.  He also holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Northwood University, in addition to successfully completing numerous industry and marketing training programs.   In 2007 Kevin was awarded the Honda District Manager of the Year for Auto Sales.