Marketing Mike

Stop pretending everything is fine. You’re running a multi-rooftop group, you’ve invested thousands into a cohesive brand identity, and you’ve finally aligned your data. Then, you look at the weekend Facebook ads for your Chrysler store and see a neon-green “Credit Amnesty” banner that looks like it was designed in 1998 by a hungover intern. […]

Stop paying for “activity” and start demanding “outcomes.” If you are a Dealer Principal or a General Manager, you likely get a monthly report from your website provider or a big-box agency. They show you a bunch of green arrows. They talk about “organic sessions,” “keyword rankings,” and “domain authority.” They tell you that their

Stop looking at your monthly marketing report and pretending you understand why your cost-per-lead is skyrocketing while your showroom remains empty. If you are like most dealer principals or general managers, you feel the weight of a massive marketing budget that never seems to produce a predictable return. You’ve likely hired an automotive marketing agency (or three)

Stop looking at your Google Analytics “Users” chart and smiling. It’s lying to you. Most dealers are obsessed with traffic. They pay agencies thousands of dollars every month to drive “eyeballs” to their VDPs. But here is the hard truth: Traffic is a vanity metric. If those visitors aren’t converting into appointments, and those appointments

Stop looking at your marketing dashboards and smiling. If your vendor reports show “record-breaking traffic” but your CRM shows a ghost town, you aren’t winning: you’re being lied to. Every month, dealership owners across the country sit through “performance reviews” with their digital marketing vendors. You see green arrows pointing up. You see “cost-per-click” dropping.