Product News & Updates
Check out the latest Dealer.com product news and updates to help you make the most of your products and help your dealership succeed.
Electric Vehicle Education Page Now on ROI Motors
Gain Better Insights Into Electric Vehicles
With available tax incentives and a fast-growing network of charging stations, more car buyers are considering Electric Vehicle (EV) ownership. Dealer.com is leading the way to evolve the website experience to meet these new consumer needs. The first step is an Electric Vehicle Education page to equip consumers with foundational knowledge about the special attributes of EV vehicles.
This education page allows you to inform your customers about the different electric vehicle types, benefits to ownership, how charging works, and even a map highlighting charging stations.
Product
News & Updates
December 2022
What does Cookieless Future mean to Dealer.com Dealers
Cookieless Futures
One of the many benefits of digital marketing is the ability to track and measure. Tracking has always allowed marketers to optimize the consumer experience and better understand behaviors to deliver more relevant messages. There are changes coming to how we track and measure online behavior, and you may have already heard about the “cookie-less future” and “updates to third-party cookies.”
First, let’s explain what a cookie is, what will change and how those changes will help automotive dealer in the US.
What is a cookie?
Technically, cookies refer to files or bundles stored on a user’s computer that hold data. They are two types of cookies
- First-party cookies are unique to a specific website, and user data can only be collected and activated on that one specific website.
- Third-party cookies are added to a device by other parties in agreement with the website they are visiting. Third-party cookies allow marketers to follow users around the internet to learn about their behaviors, and, in many cases, retarget them and build custom audiences.
As a marketer, the more we know about behaviors online, the more relevant ads we can present.
What is changing with third-party cookies and how it affects dealership marketing?
As consumers have expressed increased concern over personal privacy and data, and as new regulatory laws have been passed, companies have had to adjust. Apple sparked the beginning of the end when it started blocking third-party ad tracking to protect its users. Google followed suit, it is currently set to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome by 2024.The new changes to stop supporting third-party cookies are designed to benefit the consumer.
These changes will have a major impact, though audience size may decrease, audience quality will increase. Placing third-party tags all around the web, to make a bunch of guesses about human behavior, is a poor way to build an audience. This practice can waste time and money and is not very effective.
In reviewing many automotive data companies, there seems to be a lot of guesswork when building marketing audiences that are being resold. This system doesn’t help the car shopper or the marketer and can waste a lot of money — quickly.
And as you’re building out your audience strategy, there are some important questions to ask your potential conquest/big data partner. Make sure your potential partner can answer these questions with facts, stats and deep knowledge.
- How are you collecting or buying data?
- How are you activating on an audience?
- How are you identifying in-market car shoppers?
- How often are your consumer insights updating?
Review Widget Update
You may see a change in the Review widget for your Dealer.com website.
The FTC recently updated regulations around the transparent display of consumer reviews on retailer websites and has begun to heavily enforce them. In order to ensure our dealers remain compliant with FTC guidelines, we’ve made several updates to the Dealer Reviews widget to increase transparency of the reviews displayed on dealer websites.
The issue stems from the perception of the widget provides. The current Title and Label of the widget implies that the reviews are include all reviews when in fact they a curated set are only based upon recency and rating. The default preference of the widget is to ONLY show 4 stars or above ratings. Based upon recommendations from DDC’s Legal team, DBI plans to adjust the default preference to be 0 from 4.
G4 Analytics Update
Update: Dealer.com continues to evolve its GA4 offerings! Custom events are now available in the GA4 retail integration
Why are custom events important?
- Custom events allow dealers to capture important interactions with inventory, forms, and digital retailing that they wouldn’t get out of the box with GA4 reporting.
What are the benefits of Dealer.com’s GA4 retail integration?
- Designed specifically for GA4
- Custom events are tailored to the new data structure and intended to maximize the benefits of GA4
- Low effort!
- Automatically capture most important user interactions without any additional code
- Lays foundation for conversion tracking
- Capture on-platform form submissions and mobile click-to-call, both critical to accurate conversion tracking
What interactions are captured in the retail integration?
- On-platform form submissions & mobile click-to-call
- Accelerate DR interactions
- Inventory photo carousel engagement
- Specials slideshow & banner engagement
- Intuitive content categorizations
- Metadata related to inventory, form type, content details and more!
Provide your Performance Manager with a GA4 measurement ID and let them take care of the rest!
Webinar Now Streaming: Unlock Your Digital Retailing Leads with VinSolutions and Accelerate My Deal
Are you taking advantage of your most valuable leads? Customers who have engaged in your digital retailing process are indicating they might be ready to buy, and your dealership needs to meet them exactly where they are in the buying journey. Watch our webinar to learn how to leverage VinSolutions Connect CRM and Accelerate My Deal to be more proactive and close more digital retailing deals.
Dealer.com Now Has Vehicle Ads on Google
Dealer.com now has Vehicle Ads on Google that allow you to promote your inventory to interested and relevant shoppers online by featuring ads on the search engine.
These are performance-focused ads that appear right at the top of Google’s search results page. These ads could increase your inventory visibility and engagement and bring shoppers to your digital storefront.
You may show shoppers key information like make, model, price, and location along with a visual of the car before they click. You could, measure and grow both online conversions (e.g., leads, quotes) and offline conversions (e.g., store visits)
Showcase your car inventory and let the power of automation serve your ads to the right users at the right time. Complement your whole search page strategy and display vehicle ads alongside your text ads on Google.com
Contact your Performance Manager for more information.
Find It for Me Dealership Page
Check out the new Find It for Me page that has been added to the Dealer.com platform that launched on June 21, 2022.
The Find It for Me Page provides dealerships with an out-of-the-box dedicated landing page where they can communicate their unique approach for connecting a shopper with their desired vehicle match and ensure that limited inventory does not halt the ability to engage shoppers in conversations. The Find It for Me page is available now via Feature Preview for those programs that have adopted it. If you need more information, contact your Performance Manager.
Contact your Performance Manager for more information.
GA4 to Replace Universal Analytics (UA) Soon
Features Preview Tool
Optimizing your website with new features has never been easier! With our Feature Previews tool, you’re now able to activate new pages, or updates to existing pages, with all your customizations in place at your own pace.
Contact your Performance Manager for more information.
Electric Vehicle Spotlight: Charging Station Map
Feature Specials Landing Page Release – Now Available
Meet Our New Online Chat Partner, ActivEngage
Streamlined Chat Experience
Cox Automotive has partnered with ActivEngage to provide a single chat platform across Dealer.com, Accelerate My Deal, and Autotrader. This consistency offers a streamlined experience with threaded conversations for your shoppers and deeper insights into their journey, resulting in increased leads.
Dealer.com Google Partner Recognition
Helping our Dealers Grow and Protecting from Fraud
Dealer.com has been named a 2022 Premier Partner in the Google Partners program and is now also recognized as a leading Google Ads expert. Premier Partner is only awarded to the top 3% Google Partners. Dealer.com has also achieved a Certified Against Fraud seal by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) for the fifth year in a row. We are committed to ensuring our client’s advertising investments are spent on real car shoppers, not bots.
Contact your Digital Storefront Performance Manager for more Dealer.com Advertising information.
reCAPTCHA Badge Positioning Update
Cox Automotive has developed the ability to move the reCAPTCHA badge positioning. Previously, the badge was covering third-party tools with no option for movement. This new version will enable you to adjust positioning of the reCAPTCHA badge, choosing right or left along with determining the vertical offset.
Questions about the update? Contact your Performance Manager.
Additional Specials Campaign Manager Vehicle Filter Options
Dealer.com has added five additional vehicle filter options within Specials Campaign Manager. These options include Modal Code, Status, Classification, Fuel Type, and Featured Inventory.
View the Release Notes in ControlCenter.
New Interior Website Page Designs Now Available
Dealer.com’s User Experience team has designed new Interior Pages to help you enhance your overall brand perception and dealership experience. These new About Us, Contact Us/Directions, Service and Parts Center, and Schedule Service pages give site visitors a quality digital dealership experience from any device that is driven by user experience research and best practices.
Talk with your Performance Manager to see if these new pages are right for you.
New to Accelerate My Deal: Shopper Document Uploads
Increase the actions your shoppers can take to speed up their vehicle purchase.
Dealer.com is proud to announce new functionality within our digital retailing solution, Accelerate My Deal, that helps your customers securely submit personal documents from any device. Once a deal has been submitted from your website, your customers can quickly upload necessary paperwork including Driver’s License, Proof of Insurance, W2 and Paystubs. Documents are stored within Dealertrack for easy retrieval, giving you a more complete deal jacket, saving time in-store, and minimizing document management errors.
Doubling Down on the Data
Cox Automotive Data Solutions and Dealer.com work together to synthesize first-party buying signals from across our brands, and we put that data to work to help you understand in-market shoppers in your region.
Are You Sending Your Dealership to Tokyo?
Nearly 60% of U.S. adults plan to watch at least some Olympic events later this month.* Event-based video and display advertising buys are a great way to capture the attention of shoppers consuming new media. Dealer.com can help you reach shoppers streaming the Olympics, and other big events, across Connected TVs and other video platforms.
*Source: 22 June 2021, nscreenmedia.com
Managing Risks to Your Reputation
According to the SEO experts at MOZ, customer reviews shape your reputation and impact conversions, sales and service*, so how do you ensure your customers are reading the right things about your dealership? Dealer.com’s holistic Review Generation and Reputation Management services can help your dealership collect and thoughtfully respond to all customer reviews, so you can showcase your dealership’s commitment to customer service across key marketing channels.
*Source: Moz, The State of Local SEO Industry Report (2020)
Cox Automotive Digital Retailing is Now Accelerate My Deal
Cox Automotive Digital Retailing, the solution trusted by more than 7100 dealerships and endorsed by 30 manufacturers, has a new name. Effective June 14, 2021, the product name has been changed to Accelerate My Deal. There is no impact to functionality. The new name will be reflected in your next invoice. Please reach out to your Performance Manager if you have any questions.
Our Advertising solution has been honored for the fourth consecutive year with a Certified Against Fraud Seal from the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), the leading global certification program fighting online ad deception and increasing trust in the digital advertising industry. Dealer.com is the only automotive advertising company to attain this important certification from TAG, and joins a roster of global brands including Google, Adobe, AT&T, WebMD and more.
Advertising in Action
Moe Saab, General Sales Manager of Downey Hyundai of Southern California, was looking for expert guidance. In a very competitive market, Saab was looking for a way to dominate his local market, go toe-to-toe with two bigger area competitors, and grow his dealership. In the search for a competitive advantage, Saab found Mario Martinez, his Dealer.com Advertising Analyst.
Now in ControlCenter: Watch the Page Designer Tutorials
Build full-width, responsive pages in minutes!
Previously, we told you about Page Designer, a new tool in ControlCenter that will help you build great looking pages for your Digital Storefront. Page Designer provides a flexible and powerful framework for you to design and deploy dynamic website experiences. Two new tutorials are now available in ControlCenter to help get you on your way!
Turn Data into Digital Marketing that Works
Dealer.com is powering consumer experiences from anywhere.
It takes powerful data to personalize digital experiences for your shoppers – wherever they are. With Dealer.com, you unlock the power of Cox Automotive data, which touches 75% of all automotive consumers in the U.S., to create conversations relevant to your customer’s place in the car shopping journey.
Giving Shoppers What They Want
Delivering a website experience personalized to each shopper’s needs is great customer service. In fact, recommending vehicles and relevant specials to your website visitors based on their preferences is a courtesy that helps your customer take that next step with greater expediency. In fact, last year, Dealer.com compared website visits where personalization was present with visits where it wasn’t.
Personalization Inspires Website Engagement
Experience Optimization, Dealer.com’s personalization technology, is an important part of your Digital Storefront. It is also a demonstration of how Cox Automotive data and insights are used to help you deliver the best website experience for car shoppers. Earlier this year, we studied the impact that personalized content had on shopper website engagement and digital retailing performance.
Contact your Performance Manager or click here to learn more.
New Media Library Experience Now Available
Simplified media asset management in Control Center
Dealer.com newly redesigned Media Library experience makes it faster and easier for dealers to upload and manage images and video assets within Control Center. This no-cost upgrade marks another important milestone in the modernization of dealer tools within Control Center.
This is a no cost upgrade available now. Simply login to Control Center, navigate to Promotions and Specials, then Media, and select New Media Library. To ensure a seamless transition to the new Media Library, clients will continue to have access to the older version of the Media Library until further notice.
Contact your Performance Manager or click here to learn more.
Display Your Remote Services at the Digital Point-of-Sale
More than ever, customers want contactless, remote car buying options. We’ve launched a new customizable widget for your Vehicle Deal Pages (VDP) to help communicate your dealerships’ remote car buying capabilities. Facilitate at-home car buying and give your shoppers more confidence to take that next step. Contact your performance manager for more information or click below to read more about this new feature for your VDPs.
Upgrade Your Browser. Dealer.com Is Ending its Support for Internet Explorer 11
Earlier this year, Microsoft opted to end its support for Internet Explorer 11 to focus on features with its newer search engines, Edge and Chromium. In order to ensure a safe and secure browsing experience for our customers and yours, the Dealer.com Platform will no longer support the Internet Explorer 11 browser after 12/1/2020. What does this mean for you?
- About 1.1% of all traffic to the Dealer.com network uses Internet Explorer 11. Shoppers using the outdated browsers will be notified of the upcoming changes when they visit your website for a period of 60days, andwill be encouraged to update their browser.
- If you currently access ControlCenter via through the Internet Explorer 11 browser, please ask your IT department to update your browser to a newer version, such as Edge, Chrome or Firefox. If you have any questions about this change, please click here or contact your Performance Manager.
New Features Provide Deeper Engagement in Video Ad Content
To help you deliver inventory, service, and sales messages with greater precision across key video channels, Dealer.com has released several key updates to our turnkey video advertising solution:
- Target Low-Funnel Shoppers on Facebook: Target in-market shoppers on Facebook, including those who have researched vehicles on Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book.
- True-ViewFor Action on YouTube: Win more clicks with your video ads by displaying a “Shop Now” call-to-action throughout the entire video. (Remember, you only pay when shoppers watch all the way through).
- New Fixed Ops & Digital Retailing Videos: Extend your marketing message with new Fixed-Ops and Digital Retailing video templates, now available with our flexible and fast turnkey solution.
For more information about our turnkey and custom video offerings, and about special promotions going on now, contact your Performance Manager, or click below to learn more.
“Start a Deal” with Shoppers with Digital Retailing and VinSolutions Connect CRM
Build trust with shoppers by sending personalized deals directly from VinSolutions Connect CRM. Shoppers can view complete deals through a simple link sent over email, text or messenger. Offers sent through Start a Deal are recorded automatically within the CRM.
New SRP Design Coming Your Way
Delivering a digital storefront experience for more than 12,500 dealerships gives us unprecedented access to data that helps us improve the consumer journey. This fall, we will begin upgrading clients- at no cost- to a new responsive inventory search experience. The new SRP features more convenient tools to help your shoppers reach the right vehicle and delivers a more efficient path to your VDPs from any device. Reach out to your Performance Manager for more information.
For personalized training, please contact your Digital Storefront Performance Manager or submit a Request Form below.