The 2019 Dealers United Wrap-Up
2019 was a year of amazing professional and personal growth for #TeamDU. We reached some awesome milestones this year, like becoming a Facebook Marketing Partner, celebrated many of our team members’ special life events and accomplishments, and—as always—continued our mission to helping automotive dealers solve real business problems.
Read on to see our biggest highlights of 2019:
January
- We helped thousands of dealers list their pre-owned inventory into Facebook Marketplace for a ridiculously small fee.
- Our esteemed CEO, Pete Petersen, was selected as a Localprenuer of the year by SRQ Magazine.
- We released 22 Videos That Every Dealer Needs in 2019, educating on the importance of video and encouraging dealers to “BYOV” (Bring Your Own Video) to enrich their campaigns.
- Our Channel Team released a new API to allow enterprise resellers to fully integrate with BuyerBridge across onboarding, status management, leads access, and vehicle stats.
- Greeley Subaru shared an awesome testimonial about what DU helped them achieve with Facebook Advertising…
🖐️ Customer High-Five: J-Rus, Inc. drove 67 dynamic leads at only $3.80 each!
February
- Our Client Services Team dropped our Customer Feedback Survey to make sure we are providing our partners with the highest level of service.
- Our Marketing Team revealed “The #1 Thing All Dealers Hate” — and what we do to help our customers avoid it.
- Dealers United launched its official “Full Suite Facebook Advertising Partner Program,” where we deliver all 3 of our best Facebook packages at one low, bundled price.
- We happily welcomed Danny Watts to the team as our first-ever VP of Product!
- Our Performance Team began sending our dealer-partners quick “flyover” videos of their ad campaigns and performance, which our customers LOVE!
- At Digital Dealer 26 in Orlando, Pete presented, “Turbocharge Service & Parts Revenue Using This Fail-Proof Fixed Ops Playbook.”
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Hub City Ford’s Facebook Matchback Report showed 4 F-150s attributed to ads at only $210.42 Cost Per Unit Sold!
March
- JD Power predicted an industry trend for sales to be down 2.5% compared to Q1 of 2018, and we helped dealers skyrocket above the downturn with pre-owned Facebook Inventory Ads.
- Dev Team launched a game-changing new intel to automatically monitor signals across various user behaviors that suggest intent to purchase.
- We asked our dealer-partners to help us vote to settle an internal debate about which ad they liked best…Want to chime in? VOTE HERE!
- Katelyn, Creative Team Lead, got engaged! 💍
- Instead of our “Friday Team Lunch” tradition, we had an in-office game day! (And as usual, things got weird…)
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Matt Blatt Kia Egg Harbor, who had 56 sales attributed to Facebook Campaigns.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Auto Direct Pre-Owned, who said they had their BEST month ever, had 10 of their 43 sales attributed to Facebook Ads!
April
- We launched our Ford Instagram Exclusivity Program, a fully Co-Opable solution with an increased focus on Instagram Ads with PMA exclusivity.
- Many of our dealer-partners made the switch from typical 3rd party sites to Facebook to take advantage of its massive database and dynamic advertising strategies.
- Katelyn studies a new design program, Sketch, to scale the process of making beautiful, custom ad graphics each month.
- Channel Team launched the all-new Reseller Dashboard to give partners the control to manage onboarding new dealers at scale.
- The team enjoyed a day at America’s #1 Beach, Siesta Key, to celebrate Miranda on our Channel Team purchasing her first home and working remote from Ohio.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Audi Lafayette attributed 20 luxury auto sales to Facebook Ad Campaigns!
May
- We dropped our full-funnel New Car Program, to help dealers drive in-market New Car shoppers throughout the entire buyer journey.
- Dev Team integrated Advanced Call Tracking into our solutions, allowing for detailed tracking of call activities across Facebook Marketplace listings and dealership Facebook Ads.
- Several of our dealer-partners were selected for a Facebook Beta Test to try out new Automotive-specific calls-to-action, and were even giving free ad spend to run the campaigns!
- We released Power Ford’s Case Study on their incredible journey to become the #1 selling Ford dealer in New Mexico.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Audi Lafayette attributed 20 luxury auto sales to Facebook Ad Campaigns!
June
- Our free SolutionFinder quiz went live to easily help dealers identify which Facebook Ad campaigns will work best for their dealership.
- Pete presented how to “Unlock 3 Free Digital Tools to Help Move Inventory Faster” at the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association (NIADA) Convention.
- Adam on Channel Team purchased a new home! 🏡🔑
- Facebook dropped the “Facebook Automotive Playbook for Dealers” and Pete released a video series breaking it all down into bite-sized training.
- Katelyn on our Creative Team made the Ford Market Exclusivity Program even more robust with 80+ new Ford Commercial Line ads.
- Dylan Griczin joined the Performance Management Team!
- Our in-house Facebook Specialist and Support Manager, Luke Yanelli, became Facebook Blueprint Certified. (Way to go, Luke!) 🏆
- Facebook Business published our New Rochelle Facebook Success Story, marking the 4th time we have been published (more than any other automotive agency!)
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Dimmitt Chevrolet generated 17,228 clicks, 38 form leads, and video “Thruplays” of $0.03 each in less than a month of running Facebook Campaigns!
July
- Facebook’s Marketplace Development team worked closely with us to Alpha test posting New Vehicle inventory into Facebook Marketplace.
- Pete hosted the first Customer Meet-Up to keep all of our dealer-partners informed about Facebook’s best practices.
- Luke began training the rest of #TeamDU on the Blueprint exam after passing himself, taking our Core Value of “Learn & Lead” to the next level!
- Marketing added a highly sought-after page on our website: On-Demand Demo Videos of our top Facebook solutions!
- Derek on our Support and Dev Team got engaged! 💍
- Facebook recognized us with their official “Facebook Marketing Partner” badge, giving us access to a variety of resources to further assist our dealers to meet their business goals.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Pearson Ford ran a custom ad for a special edition Ford Raptor and sold it within a few weeks! “We sold the Raptor you guys were advertising for us over the weekend so those ads can be pulled off, awesome job helping, guy who bought it was out of Miami and saw it on Facebook!”
August
- Pete presented “The Fixed-Ops Advertising Playbook” at Digital Dealer 27 in Las Vegas and we released it as a downloadable resource for dealers.
- Ava Pandeloglou took over as the Head of Client Services, and is always representing our Core Value of “Jump In” to help out the team.
- Dylan became a first-time home owner! 🏡🔑
- Facebook announced sweeping updates to Housing, Employment and Credit (HEC) ads and the policies surrounding them, affecting every auto dealership’s campaigns on Facebook.
(Fun note: Facebook’s team acknowledged that Dealers United was one of the first agencies to implement their new API and have ads never lose efficiency, whereas the rest of the industry scrambled to catch up!) - Riddick became our newest member of the “Office Vacuum Team”…
- We hired Jay Soneff as our newest Reseller Channel Manager, joining Adam and Mark to help agencies and vendors activate Facebook Ads at scale, and making our Remote Team an even larger force to be reckoned with!
- Some of the team visited Facebook’s HQ in Chicago to discover and test new products and features.
- As of mid August, 50% of DU dealers were officially optimizing ads and videos for Instagram (in addition to Facebook) and getting awesome exposure as a result!
- Ava and Drew began filming a video series of Automotive Facebook & Instagram Ad Tips, Tricks, & Trends.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Homer Skelton CDJR or Millington had 94 website leads driven from Facebook while in the first month of Facebook’s new Housing, Employment, and Credit format.
September
- We dropped a blog, “Not All Clicks On Your Automotive Facebook Ads Are Created Equal,” explaining some of the differences between Facebook metrics and what they mean for dealers.
- The Channel Reseller team expands to the United Kingdom, while Dealers United expands to Samoa!
- Corey on our Performance Team also got engaged! 💍
- Pete hosted another Customer Meet-Up and told us some pretty mind-blowing statistics, including that the average user scrolls the length of the Statue of Liberty on Facebook and Instagram every day.
- We released the guide, “Understanding Your Dealers United Facebook Ad Reports” to help our customers get the most of their data.
- Dev Team drops a dashboard to give us and our dealer-partners “never before seen” Facebook Marketplace statistics, including Marketplace engagement across views, calls, and messaging on a daily basis.
- Ben on the Dev Team created a fully automated system for dealers incoming on our Facebook Ultimate Inventory Ads to further simplify the onboarding process.
- Some of our dealers took advantage of the Takata Airbag Recall by running targeted ads to draw in service visits.
- Auto Remarketing picked up on New Rochelle Hyundai’s success with automated Inventory Ads!
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Bayou Ford attributed 41 sales to Facebook Ads in their FIRST MONTH with us!
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Samoa Motors reached a lifetime record number of sales on the island of American Samoa by running Facebook Ads. (View Case Study Here)
October
- We hired a rockstar sales team in Boston with VP of Direct Sales, Justin Friend, and 4 Direct Sales team members: Shea Anderson, Matt Connor, Mike Cornish, and Eric Millar.
- Andrew, our Performance Manager Team Lead, got HITCHED! Congratulations, Andrew + Jessica! 🎉
- Dev Team began building our own Facebook Chat Bot solution to help dealers manage conversations on Marketplace.
- Dealers United dealer-partners tested new Facebook Poll Ads and we saw some pretty awesome results: In 1 month, Cavalier Ford drove 153 Landing Page Views at only $0.60 each with Poll Ads alone!
- Matt Sneed from Power Ford joined us to host a webinar “The 3 Biggest Facebook Mistakes Even Advanced Dealer Marketers Are Making,” to share their experiences (and mistakes) on building their Facebook brand.
- #TeamDU got into the spirit of Halloween and the results were pretty hilarious. (See if you can spot the guy on the couch…)
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Borgman Ford and Mazda matched 253 sales to Facebook and Instagram Ads! (Yes, you read that right!)
November
- Samoa Ford’s Case Study hit the press, detailing how the shattered their entire islands sales record after a short time using Facebook Ads.
- Kristen Hogentogler joined the Partnership Account Manager team!
- Our Marketing Team shared the latest Instagram statistics, and warned dealers about ad agencies that are just “checking the box” for Instagram and wasting dealers’ $$$$$$.
- We launched our Referral Program, where customers can take advantage of big savings by simply sharing the love!
- We detailed the importance of using a Facebook Pixel to capture holiday traffic so that you can retarget those shoppers in 2020, and offered a Free Facebook Ad Hack to check if dealers ads were set up right!
- DU co-sponsored the annual USF Sarasota-Manatee Brunch on the Bay, where local businesses give back to the local community through scholarships (and plenty of great local food).
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Alfa Romeo of Lakeside attributed 41% of their vehicle sales to Facebook Ads.
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Granger Chevrolet attributed 50 sales to their November campaigns.
December
- Ava and Andrew joined Luke in being Facebook Blueprint Certified. Congratulations to all of you!
- Our dealers honored us with tons of 5-star Google Reviews. We are so lucky to have such amazing customers.
- Brooke released a 2-part blog series, “Ad Hacking 101: Steal Your Competition’s Automotive Facebook Ideas With This Free Tool,” and “6 Companies To “Ad Hack” For The Absolute Best Automotive Facebook Ads.”
- Our in-office museum of odd, unrelated things became official: introducing the “Schmittsonian.”
- We warned dealers that text is dead on Facebook Ads: In an A/B test, an ad without any text had twice the results of the same ad with text.
- In our December Customer Meet-Up, Pete took us on a deep dive through Facebook’s “Zero Friction Future” resource, showing how to stop car shoppers form abandoning ship.
- Dylan shot this Step-By-Step Video Guide, showing dealers how they can take their Black Friday leads (or any list) and turn it into an ad audience on Facebook and Instagram.
- We launched a new Success Story Page to better showcase our dealers’ awesome successes with Facebook and Instagram!
- #TeamDU enjoyed a Holiday Party with no shortage of laughs and cocktails!
🖐️ Customer High-Five: Eden’s Auto Sales reached 22,098 in-market shoppers so far this month, with 3,673 VDP views at $0.11 each, and 107 leads on Facebook for $4.75 CPL!
That’s A Wrap!
Thank you to all of our team members, dealer-customers, channel partners, friends, and family, for making 2019 another amazing year at Dealers United.
We are so honored to continue to guide and inspire the people we work with. Bring it on, 2020!
(Not yet part of the DU community and want to feel the love? Find your solution today, help make us bigger by referring a friend, or check out our available careers!)
“Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers will happen on its own.”
— Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness
Written By Brooke Jensen
Brooke handles all of Dealers United’s digital marketing. In addition to her love for design and copy, Brooke also adores her two dog-like kittens, playing the electric violin, and walking barefoot around the office.
