I am a big fan of YouTube videos using people, which is what people expect when they go on YouTube. For this reason we selected 3 of our dealers to pilot the program. These dealers do not use stitch videos or any type of spammy commercial videos. They use real people and get results organically.

If you are using any type of stitch videos or online commercials this program isn’t for you, but if you have a proven channel we would love to talk to you. Not sure if your YouTube Channel is successful or not? Check out these simple metrics:

1) Take A Quick Look At Your YouTube Channel.

Many of these video companies post your videos on YouTube and low quality video sites like Daily Motion. Each one of these will have a “Channel”.  Simply go to your channel and see how many views and more importantly how many subscribers. Obviously if you don’t have many views or subscribers the channel is failing.

The red arrows indicate where to look. This is public and you won't need to sign in.

2) Dig a Little Deeper

If your stitch video vendor didn’t give you your logins, insist on getting them so you can look at your analytics. Never rely on the reports they send you. Here are a few important metrics to look at on YouTube:

Log In & Look At Your Analytics tab

By default it will show the the past 30 days of data. If you have a lot of views and good engagement numbers your channel should do very well for video pay per view. If not I would not recommend doing it.

If your engagement numbers are low your current method isn't working.

Engagement Numbers:

1) Likes

Obviously you want people to like your videos, and it’s not easy to accomplish this. If nobody likes your videos than you are wasting money.

2) Dislikes

Don’t take dislikes personal. No matter how good your video is you will always get dislikes by internet trolls.

3) Comments

Having comments means you have engaged your viewers, even if they are bad. These should be monitored often because there could be some bad language from the trolls. The more comments means more love from YouTube.

4) Shares

This number represents how many people shared your video on social networking sites like Facebook. Think of this as the ultimate pat on the back.

5) Favorites Added

If a YouTube user favorites a video, there is a good chance all of their subscribers will see it.

6) Subscribers Net Change

This number reflects the change in subscribers during the time period.

Each metric can be clicked for more data. There is even more data you can look at like demographics and traffic sources. My favorite is the Audience retention.

My Favorite Metric – Audience Retention

You can look at any of your YouTube videos and find out how long people watched it for, and you can even see if people re-winded it.

Now you can find out if your YouTube viewers are engaged

I normally don’t like commercials on YouTube, but this dealer uses his actual employees so his commercials are very successful on TV and YouTube. This is one of the videos we’ve been experimenting with, and they’ve had great success with it. 70% of viewers watched the entire video, and between 6 and 9 seconds 10% of the viewers actually rewinded.

If you are a dealer and you have YouTube Videos that match these statistics take advantage of this unique pilkot opportunity with Showroom Logic & Google. This is an untapped market. Contact us for more information

I am a big fan of YouTube videos using people, which is what people expect when they go on YouTube. For this reason we selected 3 of our dealers to pilot the program. These dealers do not use stitch videos or any type of spammy commercial videos. They use real people and get results organically.

If you are using any type of stitch videos or online commercials this program isn’t for you, but if you have a proven channel we would love to talk to you. Not sure if your YouTube Channel is successful or not? Check out these simple metrics:

1) Take A Quick Look At Your YouTube Channel.

Many of these video companies post your videos on YouTube and low quality video sites like Daily Motion. Each one of these will have a “Channel”.  Simply go to your channel and see how many views and more importantly how many subscribers. Obviously if you don’t have many views or subscribers the channel is failing.

The red arrows indicate where to look. This is public and you won't need to sign in.

2) Dig a Little Deeper

If your stitch video vendor didn’t give you your logins, insist on getting them so you can look at your analytics. Never rely on the reports they send you. Here are a few important metrics to look at on YouTube:

Log In & Look At Your Analytics tab

By default it will show the the past 30 days of data. If you have a lot of views and good engagement numbers your channel should do very well for video pay per view. If not I would not recommend doing it.

If your engagement numbers are low your current method isn't working.

Engagement Numbers:

1) Likes

Obviously you want people to like your videos, and it’s not easy to accomplish this. If nobody likes your videos than you are wasting money.

2) Dislikes

Don’t take dislikes personal. No matter how good your video is you will always get dislikes by internet trolls.

3) Comments

Having comments means you have engaged your viewers, even if they are bad. These should be monitored often because there could be some bad language from the trolls. The more comments means more love from YouTube.

4) Shares

This number represents how many people shared your video on social networking sites like Facebook. Think of this as the ultimate pat on the back.

5) Favorites Added

If a YouTube user favorites a video, there is a good chance all of their subscribers will see it.

6) Subscribers Net Change

This number reflects the change in subscribers during the time period.

Each metric can be clicked for more data. There is even more data you can look at like demographics and traffic sources. My favorite is the Audience retention.

My Favorite Metric – Audience Retention

You can look at any of your YouTube videos and find out how long people watched it for, and you can even see if people re-winded it.

Now you can find out if your YouTube viewers are engaged

I normally don’t like commercials on YouTube, but this dealer uses his actual employees so his commercials are very successful on TV and YouTube. This is one of the videos we’ve been experimenting with, and they’ve had great success with it. 70% of viewers watched the entire video, and between 6 and 9 seconds 10% of the viewers actually rewinded.

If you are a dealer and you have YouTube Videos that match these statistics take advantage of this unique pilkot opportunity with Showroom Logic & Google. This is an untapped market. Contact us for more information

In this portion of Matt Funk’s recent webinar, he discusses the emergence of Google+ as an important social and search tool for car dealer marketing. It’s already showing signs of improved growth in spite of Facebook‘s domination, but perhaps more importantly the way it affects search makes it a must-have portion of an automotive marketing strategy.

Related articles

• 20 Reasons to Switch (or get your friends to switch) to Google+ (autointheknow.com)
• New Study Marks Trouble For Google+ (connectedworldmedia.com)
• The important of network effects to Facebook’s strategy (wired.co.uk)
• Google’s Knowledge Graph Bringing Semantics to the Masses (web2.sys-con.com)
• How to Publish WordPress Posts to Google+ and Vice Versa (3 Plugins) (i-netpreneur.com)

Car dealers are in a good position. The industry is one that, because of the localization of the searches, does not require a tremendous amount of SEO that other nationwide distribution industries need. It’s not that the SEO is easier; in many ways automotive is the most challenging form of SEO out there because of the competition level on a local scale. It’s just that nobody needed to be so aggressive that they were heavily penalized by the Google Penguin update.

That’s not to say that some weren’t hurt. Many were. I know because I saw many of our rankings go up as a result of the update, which means that some dealers were dropping. This graphic looks at the basic keys of dealing in the next generation of Google optimization. Don’t fear the penguin. Embrace it.

Click to enlarge.

Related articles

• SEO Crisis Management for Websites Affected by Google Penguin (soshable.com)
• The Three Keys to Automotive SEO Under Penguin (topdealerseo.com)

Check the results for:

f150: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=f150&srchType=A&minAsk=&maxAsk=

and

f-150: http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/cta?query=f-150&srchType=A&minAsk=&maxAsk=

Google’s update a few weeks ago (although not in CL!) will change how your PPC campaigns work. Pay attention if the per day money expenditure trends change in the next 30 days.

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New matching behavior for phrase and exact match keywords

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

These results are based on an average of 190 postings per day.

Its no secret that having postings each day of the week will provide you with the best results, but making sure your ads are live before the weekend comes will provide you with the most return for your money.

As a customer, most people plan ahead for their weekend. They’ll often start by searching for the cars they’re interested in on Thursdays and Fridays to plan ahead for the dealers they’ll visit over the weekend. These days have always been the best days of the week to sell cars, so its no surprise to see a 500% increase in Ad views on those particular days.

There are many opinions on what time is considered the best to post. Posting first thing in the morning allows your posting to be up for the whole day, and the customers that are searching for something specific will be able to find your listing if you get it posted early enough. Posting later in the afternoon allows your postings to be closer to the top of the list (most recent), which is ideal for the customers that are getting off work and simply checking out what’s posted on the first few pages of Craigslist. These results will vary from dealer to dealer depending on what prices you advertise and what messages you display on your ads.

Ultimately the best results come from posting each day of the week and post your ads in the morning and afternoon, spacing them out, this will help target more customers throughout the day.

If you’d like us to review your Craigslist strategy and help increase traffic to your dealership, please contact us any day of the week, Craigslist never sleeps.

Jim M. Gillen III
System Analyst / Web Marketing Specialist
Paramo Group, Inc. / pgiauto.com

P: 425.379.0483 Ext:105

F: 425.357.0796

While you can always improve the on-page SEO and content of your website, in this case we are taking a more aggressive approach and talking about creating high value assets that will rank prominently in high target searches. Notice that in this search ‘oil change puyallup’ our digital asset (microsite) shows as the first organic link after paid search and Google places–not bad considering is still above the fold. Before that microsite was active, Jiffy Lube was the first website to show up in the search. Take notice that we do a microsite like this for about $30/month or what amounts to one oil change.

The article below illustrates how consumer search has moved to online for automotive services and most i important to mobile online searches. For that reason couple months ago and anticipating the market’s behavior we device to offer all our microsites on a mobile version.

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Consumers Use Local Searches to Find Restaurant, Automotive Information

APRIL 26, 2012

Q4 2011 local searches affected by holiday shopping, year-end activities

AT&T Interactive’s Q4 2011 “Local Insights Report,” which analyzed data culled from its YP Local Ad Network, found that most US local searches were for restaurants, with auto repair and service searches second.

Automotive repair and service searches also saw a 25% quarter-over-quarter increase in Q4 2011, likely caused by consumers seeking end-of-year discounts from dealerships. Queries for financial services, real estate, and physicians and surgeons rounded out the top search categories at third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Auto parts and supplies ranked ninth.

The report found that half of the top 10 quarterly search growth categories were retail-related, owing to the shopping spike that accompanies the holiday season. However, searches for pharmacies saw the most growth, with a 58% quarter-over-quarter increase. The boost was likely due to a rush by consumers to clean out pre-tax health savings accounts before they reset at the end of the calendar year. Searches for travel agencies also climbed 36%, likely due to the increase in travel during Thanksgiving and the December holidays.

When AT&T Interactive broke down the searches according to platform, it found that restaurants and automotive remained the first- and second-most frequently searched categories on both mobile devices and PCs. Mobile users were more likely to look for movie theaters, beauty services and hotels than their PC-using counterparts, reflecting smartphone users’ desire for information on nearby services. The report found that users were more likely to use PCs to search information-intensive categories, such as finance, real estate and legal services.

In an October 2011 interview with eMarketer, Chung Meng Cheong, the vice president of advertising publisher products for AT&T Interactive, said national brands were increasingly turning to local search marketing to reach customers ready to make a purchase. “[National brands] use local mobile and desktop search as a transactional element, designed to increase foot traffic to both their websites and, ultimately, their local stores,” Cheong said.

Find original article @ http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009001&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4