The BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL show is now fully in place, with 56 speakers set to define the cutting edge in national brands and local marketing. The show takes place March 25-27 at The Dallas Westin. Just added to the program: Internet visionary Mitch Golub, who leaves Cars.com today after successfully developing it into a $1.8 Billion enterprise that has, along with AutoTrader.com, helped define all the best practices of working with the world’s most aggressive national and local marketers (the car manufacturers and car dealers.)

Also added: key brands defining the best in vertical marketing. Dental One Partners, VCA (Animal Hospitals) and Service Experts Heating and Air Conditioning have now been added to a lineup that also includes leaders from Brooks Brothers, UniGroup (United Van Lines), Rooms to Go, All My Sons Moving & Storage, El Pollo Loco, U-Haul International, Nestle TollHouse Cafe, and The Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Announced earlier: keynotes from Google’s Brendon Kraham; Facebook’s Jon Czaja; Bizhive?s Dave Walker, Kenshoo’s Aaron Goldman, Geary LSF’s Karen Traversi Kovaleski and The Weather Co’s Ryan Davis. There are also key sessions with thought leaders such as YP’s Melissa Burghardt, The Washington Post Co’s Ethan Selzer; The Dallas Morning News’ Grant Moise; Meredith Corp’s Pam Taylor; and TvB’s Steve Lanzano.

The program also marks the debut of key new BIA/Kelsey data on franchise marketing from our Local Commerce Monitor survey. And last but not least, we’ll be doing Dallas right, with two Best of Dallas receptions; a “Before the Bell” Dallas Innovator Breakfast at the Addison Treehouse sponsored by Speakeasy; Two social breakouts, including National DEMOs and Drinks and Women Leading in Local; and an After Hours Country Casino sponsored by Local Site Submit and Moon Valley Software.

Check out the full, 2 1/2 day agenda. You may register here.

Cars.com visionary Mitch Golub is set for BIA/Kelsey National

The post 56 Speakers Set for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, March 25-27: Cars.com's Mitch Golub Added appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL show is now fully in place, with 56 speakers set to define the cutting edge in national brands and local marketing. The show takes place March 25-27 at The Dallas Westin. Just added to the program: Internet visionary Mitch Golub, who leaves Cars.com today after successfully developing it into a $1.8 Billion enterprise that has, along with AutoTrader.com, helped define all the best practices of working with the world’s most aggressive national and local marketers (the car manufacturers and car dealers.)

Also added: key brands defining the best in vertical marketing. Dental One Partners, VCA (Animal Hospitals) and Service Experts Heating and Air Conditioning have now been added to a lineup that also includes leaders from Brooks Brothers, UniGroup (United Van Lines), Rooms to Go, All My Sons Moving & Storage, El Pollo Loco, U-Haul International, Nestle TollHouse Cafe, and The Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Announced earlier: keynotes from Google’s Brendon Kraham; Facebook’s Jon Czaja; Bizhive’s Dave Walker, Kenshoo’s Aaron Goldman, Geary LSF’s Karen Traversi Kovaleski and The Weather Co’s Ryan Davis. There are also key sessions with thought leaders such as YP’s Melissa Burghardt, The Washington Post Co’s Ethan Selzer; The Dallas Morning News’ Grant Moise; Meredith Corp’s Pam Taylor; and TvB’s Steve Lanzano.

The program also marks the debut of key new BIA/Kelsey data on franchise marketing from our Local Commerce Monitor survey. And last but not least, we’ll be doing Dallas right, with two Best of Dallas receptions; a “Before the Bell” Dallas Innovator Breakfast at the Addison Treehouse sponsored by Speakeasy; Two social breakouts, including National DEMOs and Drinks and Women Leading in Local; and an After Hours Country Casino sponsored by Local Site Submit and Moon Valley Software.

Check out the full, 2 1/2 day agenda. You may register here.

Cars.com visionary Mitch Golub is set for BIA/Kelsey National

The post 56 Speakers Set for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, March 25-27: Cars.com’s Mitch Golub Added appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

BIA/Kelsey senior analysts Peter Krasilovsky and Abid Chaudhry batted around these two hot topics today on the latest in our ongoing Analyst Roundtable series.

“Newspapers need money,” Krasilovsky said, answering the basic questions of why Classified Ventures (a consortium of five newspaper groups) would sell the No. 2 auto site.

Krasilovsky then posed the bigger question, “Who would buy this property?” The property could potentially be sold from anywhere from $2.8 billion to $3.6 billion — a level accessible only to the biggest media and technology players. Peter suggested Gannett and Google could be potential buyers, with Autotrader, the No. 1 player, being a potential dark horse.

Next, Chaudhry shared his insights on the recent Yahoo-Yelp partnership.

“This is a pretty big development,” Chaudhry said. “It provides more fuel to the fire to all the speculation that Marissa Mayer and her intentions to rebuild Yahoo’s search engine business.”

The big question is how will Yahoo compete with Google? Chaudhry doesn’t see Yahoo taking Google on directly. Instead, he expects Yahoo to carve out a niche for itself in the mobile search market. He highlighted Yahoo’s efforts to incorporate more native and streaming advertising from Yahoo’s Gemini platform.

Click on this video to enjoy today’s Analyst Roundtable in its entirety.

The post Analyst Roundtable: A Week in Review appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

What does a newspaper company do when it loses its affiliation with a major vertical brand? That was the question for The San Jose Mercury News and some of the other Digital First Media papers on New Years Day, when the company’s partnership with Cars.com ended.

The Digital First newspapers knew that most car dealers wouldn’t want to abandon an existing relationship with a partner like Cars.com, a major source of leads and online presence. The answer? Change the value proposition that local car dealers had with the newspaper. For instance, it could complement the Cars.com relationship by developing a service agency-like model. Specifically,it could track where the dealers’ leads came from, and provide actionable information about these active car shoppers.

To this end, Digital First signed up with Cupertino-based TapClassifieds, and its growing, 15 person TapClassifieds Auto division. As part of its program, TapClassifieds evaluates websites, landing pages, text emails and credit applications as they come in. It also clean ups a dealer’s inventory to make landing pages more aesthetic, and to track results.

Tracking dealer results from Craig’s List — a major channel for dealer visibility and source of leads — has proved especially important. The site switched to a premium classifieds model Dec. 3, killing a dealer’s ability to “spam” the site — along with a dealer’s rivals. Consequently, dealers needed to review their efforts on Craig’s List, and pursue alternatives.

Another major task for TapClassifieds: make sure that listings on sites like Craig’s List and eBay Motors are compliant with their regulations. They must remain compliant with the site’s terms of use or see their accounts shuttered without warning or recourse.

“It’s a far cry from the old days, when people would just want to see inventory,” said TapClassifieds COO Jeff Herr, a longtime digital newspaper vet who left MediaNews Group two years ago to join the startup. “There are many, many tasks that you need to do to support the dealer. We are a service bureau.” Pricing for the service runs $15 per month per car, adds Herr.

Digital First has been testing the model with Bay Area auto dealers, and it has now announced a strategic partnership to take the program across all of its markets. DFM properties in Philadelphia, Connecticut, Texas and New Mexico are already up and running.

For TapClassifieds, Herr says that autos are the tip of the iceberg. RV Dealers, real estate and vacation rentals will each launch soon. “Real estate is unplowed Earth,” he notes.

The post Digital First ‘Complements’ Cars.com With Tracking, Other Services appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

With the majority of U.S. auto buyers now using online and mobile in their research, the auto sites are clarifying their individual roles in the auto ecosystem – and making adjustments where necessary.

This week, a panel of car site leaders at the JD Power Auto Roundtable in Las Vegas – including Cars.com, Edmunds.com, Kelley Blue Book and TrueCar.com — suggested there were two extremes among them. On one side, you have the national verticals that are the successors to the classifieds industry and provide rich information about cars and the buying journey, lead by AutoTrader.com and Cars.com. On the other side, you have sites focused more on providing price estimates for autos, such as Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book and TrueCar.com.

Finding a balance between pricing and dealer engagement has been the industry’s challenge.

“Price, while important, is not the sole principal,” said Cars.com SVP Alex Vetter. Most people want to know who to buy from and the quality of the service department. Taking care of customers post sale means a lot to them and they will pay more than the lowest price.

Indeed, a focus on price is seen as a “race to the bottom.” “As marketers, we are touting unique value propositions, product quality and things we want to promote.” Vetter notes that Cars.com’s deep editorial content, and growing mobile channel, provides context and relevance for the site’s network of 20,000 dealers.

Edmunds.com President and COO Seth Berkowitz , however, suggested that the presentation of price really is important – so long as it is provided in a rich context. By providing price points that have been paid by other customers, along with price quotes by the dealers, better trust is fostered with consumers. When dealers make promises and keep them, we’ve seen a 10% bump in satisfaction ratings, said Berkowitz – an important boost, as dealer profits are often made less from sales as loyalty efforts such as car trade ins and service.

Berkowitz said that the site now works with 6,000 dealers and is becoming more dealer-centric, rather than relying so much on advertising from the manufacturers. The site’s revenue split is currently 60 percent advertising, 40 percent dealers. By next year, it should be 50/50.

The post JD Power Auto Roundtable: Digital Auto Ecosystem Shifts appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.