I have been the Internet Director for a small automotive group here in Moline, Illinois now for a couple months. Before this, I held the same job at another group in West Central Illinois for about two and a half years. It’s been a wonderful and exciting few years, filled with success and fulfillment for me.

Though I have figured a lot of things out, some stuff remains a mystery. For instance…S.E.O. Marketers.  Let me explain: Every week I get 3-5 internet leads from various websites-including our own-that are not leads, but sales blurbs from S.E.O. marketers.

These “leads” are pretty annoying for several reasons. 1) They take up space and time in my CRM. Regardless of content, each lead needs to be opened, read, evaluated, classified, and then dealt with. I’m for sure not overstaffed, so the last thing I need in the morning is a bunch of bogus leads in our CRM requiring attention. 2) These non-leads start the clock! Measuring the performance of an Internet Department is difficult at best, and one of the ways it’s done is by keeping track of and averaging lead response time. These leads frequently come in at 3:AM, starting the clock then. Keep in mind that auto responses do not turn off the clock. Every lead counts, and ones that don’t get answered until someone comes in and answers it at 9:AM really drag the averages up. Big money is contingent on good response times-and I’m not talking about a few hundred, in the case of some G.M. bonus programs, a few seconds over some appointed response time can mean literally thousands of dollars…G.M. Dealers, tell me it aint’ so! 3) These “leads” invariably have a bogus phone #.  I without fail call every one of them to give them a piece of my mind, and without exception, the numbers provided are bogus. 4) I write emails to them asking for SEO help, but I never get a response.

What is up with this? I can’t believe that my department is the only one this happens to. The most frustrating part is that with no phone number to respond to, there is no way for me to tell these screwballs how I really feel.

Is it just me, or is this a trend in our Internet Culture?