As the social media site prepares to sell shares in an initial public offering this Friday, one OEM made an interesting move and shared its plans to pull its paid ads from Facebook, noting the exposure has “little impact on consumers’ car purchases." The automaker? General Motors, which told the Wall Street Journal this week […] [Read More]

Car shoppers are increasingly turning to mobile technology to find local dealers’ vehicles, so it seems, as AutoTrader.com announced it just hit a major milestone for downloads of its mobile apps for iPhone and Android devices. Available for less than one year, combined original downloads of these apps, not including downloads of app updates, reached […] [Read More]

CAR-Research XRM rolled out a new enhancement to its single-source CRM solution this week aimed at helping dealers unearth a potential “gold mine” of prospective vehicle buyers and capture more sales. The company explained that “Prospecting the Household” contains scripts built right into the CRM that are designed to farm the database for repeats, referrals […] [Read More]

Revealed late last week, Audi of America will be forming a new educational partnership with the National Automobile Dealers Association. NADA, the OEM and its U.S. network of 278 dealers will be “working together to improve dealership operations and, ultimately, customer service,” officials noted. What does this new collaboration entail? Audi is “the first automaker […] [Read More]

Rooftop technology company MyDealerLot (MDL) revealed last week it has been picked to participate in the Mercedes-Benz USA Preferred Vendor Status Program to provide automated customer recognition, targeted messaging and asset tracking systems utilizing radio-frequency identification (RFID)  technologies. What does this mean for MBUSA dealers? [Read More]

For dealers still unsure how to incorporate Facebook into their marketing strategy, Dataium’s newest report sheds some light on how effective the social media site can be in generating new activity for a store’s website. Dataium found that while only 0.45 percent of vehicle shoppers have been referred directly from Facebook to a dealership website, […] [Read More]

AutoTrader.com revealed Thursday some additions and enhancements to its display advertising solutions for dealers, launched in an effort to help rooftops better market their inventory to consumers. The company contends these enhancements to the programs — Skyscrapers, Spotlights and Alpha — provide more real estate and interactive features to multiple duration options for select solutions […] [Read More]

CarProof announced this week that it has rolled out a new tool for dealers designed to give them a “fast snapshot to help make on-the-spot decisions.” QuickProof, essentially, is a screening tool dealers can use to quickly check for damage on older units. "When our dealers are considering cars that are older than 10 years, […] [Read More]

Mojo Motors — a website that aims to connect dealerships with qualified local buyers who are ready to make a purchase — recently landed $3 million in funding to fuel expansion beyond its test markets in the Northeast. The site also plans to use the funds to scale marketing efforts and further develop the platform. […] [Read More]

CAR-Research XRM has announced a new system to help dealers maximize its customer relationship management system. The new program holds CAR-Research XRM’s Client Relationship Specialists accountable to new benchmark reports designed to ensure that their dealer clients are using the CRM to capture more sales and increase profitability, the company said. [Read More]