IRVINE, Calif. -

This week, Autobytel announced the launch of DealershipJobs.com, a new website connecting dealership job-posters and job-seekers.

DealershipJobs.com offers a service aimed at attracting high-quality employees for dealers.

“Autobytel has launched DealershipJobs.com powered by Autobytel in response to requests from our member dealers asking us to help them find high quality talent,” stated Jeffrey Coats, Autobytel’s president and chief executive officer.

“DealershipJobs.com powered by Autobytel offers a unique search and geographic selection functionality to fine-tune a job selection process,” he added. “People who already have an interest in the space will be more likely to understand the unique environment and know that they are willing to put their talents to work for our industry. Our member dealers are excited at the prospect of connecting with potential employees who already share their passion.”

At the launch, more than 5,000 automotive jobs were posted for those ready and willing to upload their resume and connect with dealership executives.

DealershipJobs.com features listings in all categories of the automotive industry, including sales, finance, management and maintenance positions. In the future, DealershipJobs.com will also include tips for the job seeker, including interviewing tips and attire recommendations.

“We at Norm Reeves Honda are excited about Autobytel’s job site,” said Brad Mugg, general manager at Norm Reeves Honda. “With one central location to post open positions, DealershipJobs.com powered by Autobytel will enable us attract and find the best talent in the industry to join our dealerships. Then we can focus on what we do best: sell cars.”

Membership to the site is free for both dealers posting positions and job seekers. The site also contains a job-alert functionality to notify registered individuals when jobs are posted that meet predetermined search criteria.

“We started off as a service portal connecting customers with dealers in order to give them a great car-buying experience,” Coats stated. “And now we’ve come full circle as a service portal, connecting those same dealers back to potential customers — only this time they’re in the market for a job, not a car.”

Autobytel Notes Success of WebLeads+ Program

Moving along, Autobytel also shared some of the success its WebLeads+ program has seen. The company said that that more than 350 dealers are taking advantage of the program, which officially launched in September.

Since its launch, WebLeads+ has increased dealership purchase request volumes by approximately 50 to 100 percent, and has resulted in some dealerships enjoying over a 300-percent increase in ROI, according to officials.

WebLeads+ is designed to increase incremental sales from the dealership website by presenting potential in-market buyers with a special offer, incentive or coupon form at the time they are searching, thereby generating increased reasons for the customer to submit a request to the dealer.

“The philosophy behind Autobytel’s WebLeads+ is to more accurately mirror the in-showroom buying experience,” Coats shared. “If a customer is browsing the used-vehicle lot, a dealer would not let them walk away without engaging them in a conversation about his or her needs. Autobytel’s WebLeads+ assumes an online customer’s needs by looking at their page views and then presenting them with an appropriate message, immediately engaging the customer in the purchase process. Dealers are seeing a substantial uptick in purchase requests from the website, an increased quality of purchase requests, and an improvement in closing sales when using Autobytel’s WebLeads+.

Autobytel also offered some dealer feedback.

“Using Autobytel’s WebLeads+ resulted in a 383-percent ROI from Autobytel purchase requests in 2010,” said Ian Deveroux, Internet marketing director at Don White’s Timonium Chrysler Jeep Dodge.

“Our ability to manage the purchase request funnel increased our purchase request quality and resulted in a higher percentage of conversions to set appointments, dealer visits and subsequent vehicle deliveries,” he added. “Autobytel’s WebLeads+ helped Autobytel produce the most profitable ROI of leading third party purchase request providers, outperforming both AutoUSA and Dealix over the same period.”

Autobytel Shares Consumer Purchase Request Trends, More

In other news from the company, Autobytel said that it is generating more than 70 percent of its own consumer purchase requests. The September 2010 acquisition of Autotropolis and Cyberventures represents another pivotal step for Autobytel in its effort to deliver more in-market customers from its own network of sites.

In less than six months since the acquisition, Autobytel has already increased its internally generated purchase request volume by over 180 percent, while adding over 5 million additional page views per month. The result has been increasing demand for its purchase requests from OEM partners.

“We knew the transaction would increase our higher margin, higher close rate and internally generated purchase requests, but we are very pleased with the rapid rate at which that has occurred,” Coats shared.

“The acquisition continues to solidify our position as a leading automotive site that both generates the majority of its traffic from its own consumer sites and maintains a strong retail dealer and OEM partners program,” he added. “By controlling both the generation of our own traffic and purchase requests and distribution, we continue to aggressively move away from a purchase request aggregation model to a higher margin, vertically integrated automotive consumer media channel.”

Coats noted: “We are very excited about the integration of the two companies into Autobytel and the exceptional talent, dealer products, content and resources we are realizing as we brought the companies together. We expect continued improvements to purchase request performance and overall close rates in addition to refinement of our leading SEM/SEO techniques that continue to expand our gross margin. As we stated in our third quarter earnings call, we expect to deliver over 3.8 million purchase requests in 2011. These first months have been a tremendous success and we believe we are just beginning to see the kind of impact that motivated the acquisition.”

Progress of iControl by Autobytel

Next up, Autobytel discussed its iControl by Autobytel product. The company said that more than a third of its current member-dealers are taking advantage of the product, which lets dealers custom-configure their mix of online consumer leads to reflect real-time inventory and other local market activity, among other things.

It was launched in the fall. Designed with dealer input, iControl by Autobytel aims to deliver an innovative tool that provides dealers with unique insight and intelligence into their purchase requests priority.

“We feel the reason iControl by Autobytel has been so quickly and well adopted by our dealers is that it directly addresses their top concerns when it comes to online purchase request generation,” Coats pointed out. “iControl is the best application available to let dealers match their marketing spend to the actual inventory on the lot and maximize their ROI.”

Autobytel’s Recognition Wall at NADA

Finally, Autobytel talked about its Dealer Recognition Wall, which it revealed during the National Automobile Dealers Association conference. The wall celebrates and honors dealers who have been members of the Autobytel family for five years, 10 years, or as long at 15 years.

“We are committed to our dealers and continually strive to provide them with innovative products,” Coats commented. “The Dealer Recognition Wall stands as a thank-you to them and as a testament to the industry that we provide a great service to the dealer community, as evidenced by our long-standing partnerships.

“The fact that we have over 125 dealers who have been with us for more than 10 years is a humbling and undeniable confirmation of our reliable products and services. We are proud to have earned their respect and business over the past 15 years,” he shared.