I revisited the Dataium study that was commissioned by Cars.com:

"Despite an average of 55 percent of dealerships’ online advertising budgets being devoted to paid search engine marketing, just 6 percent of dealership website traffic on average is referred by paid search keywords. Furthermore, less than 1 percent of this traffic resulted in email form leads submitted on dealership websites."

Add all of a dealerships internet related expenses: the website, ILM, Cars.com, AutoTrader, call tracking and monitoring, picture services, inventory management system, pricing tool, third party leads, just to name a few. That is the amount, the study says, the average dealer is spending on paid search.

According to the same study, over 5 times as much traffic comes from organic search. The "average" dealership barely shows up in organic search but that is precisely where they need to be.

If you have the number one position in organic search, people are more likely to click on that rather than the second, provided it doesn't look like an ad. The second would be better than the third and so on. What if you had 30, 40 or even 60% of the organic search on the page? I can show searches where the dealership had the whole page. You are limiting the choices that consumer have, in your favor. Now, duplicate that for each of your models, using a multitude of search phases and do it in 10 adjacent markets. It has a phenomenal impact on website traffic.

If it sounds like fantasy land, think again. It is already being done. Yes, without "black hat" tactics and only using content that puts the dealership in a favorable light.

As a trial, a dealer group gave us the least performing dealership out of 14. In a month, that dealership had more visitors and more unique visitors, to their website, than any other in the group. It also had more time on site and VDPs. Best of all, it had a record sales month. Unlike most in the group, that store isn't in a major market.

We offer exclusivity by brand and market.  We are so confident, that a dealership will be pleased, we offer this guarantee: If you are not satisfied, after a reasonable trial, for any reason, we will give you 100% of your money back.

We have plenty of references and client testimonials.