Automotive sales may be down almost across the board, but that doesn’t mean that consumers aren’t interested in the vehicles – they just might not be able to afford them or may be delaying their purchase.  Juxtaposing new-vehicles sales data with automotive manufacturer site visitation provides some ... Read More »

With Twitter absolutely exploding, I thought it would be useful to put together a list of the major automotive corporate Twitterers.  Most are brand-oriented, although a few are run by individuals who mix official and unofficial tweets. A few notable players (all stats are as of March 24): Ford Motor Company.  ... Read More »

Our friends at Compete put together some analysis regarding a recent Ford Fusion Hybrid online promotion for which the prize is a trip for two to the NASCAR Championship in Miami.  The article explores whether NASCAR is an appropriate tie-in Fusion Hybrid prospects. One interesting finding is that mid-size car buyers ... Read More »

One of the great challenges for the automotive Internet is reaching lower funnel online shoppers.  The Request for Quote (RFQ) is the most prominent process to get buyer contact information to dealers, but its reach has proven to be limited.  As shown below, the rate at which new-vehicle Automotive Internet Users ... Read More »

While there are many macro and micro factors that have contributed to the automotive industry’s massive downturn, we should also consider the impact that feebly targeted marketing messages may have played. The current marketplace does not allow for misplaced messages or wide-angle targeting; the key to survival, as ... Read More »

XML has become almost ubiquitous online, allowing Web sites to easily and automatically pull in information from multiple sources.  To Internet users, it’s most visible in the form of RSS feeds that deliver content directly to the home page, feed reader, or aggregator of choice. Although RSS has been around for ... Read More »

As I discussed in a previous post, the growth of the Internet has not come at the expense of magazine readership among new-vehicle drivers. According to the 2009 Power Auto Offline Media report, the amount of time spent on the Internet by new-vehicle drivers has more than doubled since 2002, while at the same time the ... Read More »

The J.D. Power and Associates annual Automotive Internet Roundtable will be held October 14-16 at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.  As always, the focus will be on how to leverage the Internet to market and sell more cars by utilizing the online environment, while also providing opportunities to meet and ... Read More »

One of the dominant trends in vehicle sales over the past year has been the dramatic drop in large vehicle sales and the corresponding rise in small vehicle sales.  In many cases, consumers are moving into entirely new segments and therefore shop differently than the average repeat buyer.  On manufacturer sites, ... Read More »