emarketer.com recently published an article about auto dealers moving their advertising dollars to the Internet.
They based their thesis on an interview with the head of an advertising agency that specializes in automotive dealership advertising. Here is an interesting quote from the owner of the agency,
He goes on to point out the need for auto dealers to buy local search first because,
This is very important as most brand managers think consumers make up their mind to purchase a product at the brand site but here we see that 80% or so of auto buyers visit the local dealer’s site before making a purchase. Reading articles like this convince us more than ever that brand managers need to add html outputs to their traditional dealer ad builder systems. It’s not enough to have an ad builder that will only create newspaper ads, outdoor boards and TV spots anymore. You’ve got to enable dealers to build Google landing pages, e-promo pages, Facebook tabs and more or you’ll be way behind the way consumers shop and dealers promote.