The 2020 Dealers United Wrap-Up
2020 was a year unlike any other. In spite of the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 was a year of growth for #TeamDU. We transitioned to a remote workspace and hired 18 new team members. We introduced new solutions and perfected existing ones. Although this year challenged us, it made us stronger as a team and as an organization, and we are truly appreciative to belong in such a resilient industry and to work with such incredible employees and dealer-partners.
Check out some of the major accomplishments we’ve had over the last 12 month in our 2020 Wrap-Up.
January
- We highlighted the newest resource for automotive dealers from Facebook, “Zero Friction Future: How To Eliminate Friction & Stop Car Shoppers From Abandoning Ship.” Check out the article here.
- To kick off the new year, we added more educational incentives to support our core value of “Learn & Lead,” including credits for relevant training programs like Facebook’s F8 Conference and Facebook Blueprint Certification.
- We welcomed a new Performance Manager, Eric Lichon (aptly nicknamed “Crusher” because his dealers’ immediately started crushing their results).
- Facebook Ad Specialist, Jordon Stone, joined the Client Services team – Fun fact: he lives in a landlocked lighthouse in Downtown Sarasota.
February
- One of our direct sales team members, Mike Cornish, tied the knot.
- “Drop the text!” Our A/B tests revealed that Facebook ad graphics without text were performing 2x better for dealers.
- Power Ford and Dealers United were recognized by Facebook for their work with creating a “Zero Friction Future” using a seamless Facebook Ad strategy.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ Granger Chevrolet partnered with DU and increased their sales by 127 units in 9 months! Check it out here.
🖐️ Rob Sight Ford used Facebook to supercharge their store’s video strategy, resulting in almost 12k landing page views and 135 first party leads in only 31 days! See the story here.
March
- Due to the pandemic, Dealers United Leadership Team made the call for the team to go 100% remote to ensure the safety of our team.
- We dropped the COVID-19 Sales Playbook, a full collection of ready-to-run ads designed to help dealers get through the hardships brought on by coronavirus.
- Performance Manager team lead, Andrew Rogers, bought his first home!
- Best friend duo, Corey and Derek, got married to their respective loved ones just a few days apart from each other.
- We hosted a State of Automotive 2020 webinar, presented by 5 automotive dealers, Facebook Automotive, and IHS Markit to discuss the current state of the industry and what dealers were doing to combat the economic effects of COVID-19. You can get a recording of the webinar here.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ Tynan’s Nissan returned as a partner after testing another agency and attributed 67 unit sales to Facebook ads! Check it out here.
April
- We spread the word about Facebook’s Small Business Grant Program so dealers could apply and get some extra cash to help them through the pandemic.
- We dropped the Unlock the Demand Playbook, designed to get auto shoppers into your dealership and capitalizing on never before seen OEM incentives and stimulus checks.
- Dealers United and dealer-partners Power Ford and Rob Sight Ford were featured in DEALER Magazine for successes with the Facebook platform. Read the blog here.
May
- We released the COVID-19 Service Playbook to help dealers get their safe and sanitary service messaging out and more appointments in their dealerships.
- We hired Co-Op pro Murry Holyfield, who is actually related to the great Evander Holyfield.
- Dev teammate Ben got Facebook Blueprint Certified, further helping our tech to integrate seamlessly with Facebook.
- In a remote work environment, we made sure we got together for team culture and shared some pretty embarrassing baby pictures.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ D’ELLA Honda in New York was able to get out some safety messaging on Facebook and attribute 31 unit sales in only 47 days! Read more here.
June
- The #1 biggest issue we were hearing from our dealers is that inventory was SCARCE, so we released the Buyback Playbook, designed to help dealers reach owners of desirable model lines and get them to trade-in, trade-up, or outright sell their vehicles.
- We hosted another State of Automotive webinar to inform dealers what some of their peers were seeing coming out of the initial wave of COVID chaos. You can catch the recording here.
- The 2020 Digital Dealer conference was forced to go virtual with “Digital Dealer NOW” and Pete presented a session, “The 2020 Essential Guide For Dealership Facebook Ads.”
- The Creative Team got supercharged with the addition of awesome graphic designer, Joshua.
- Our Direct sales guru Matt proposed (she said yes).
- Luke, our Technical Support Specialist, got re-certified for Facebook Blueprint.
- Our dealer-partner Power Ford was featured in Automotive News for the incredible success they achieved with Facebook advertising. Read the story here!
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ Middletown Honda was able to gather leads AND SELL CARS while their dealership doors were closed to customers with some help from Facebook ads. Check out their story here.
July
- We released a new powerful resource for dealers, the Market Intelligence Report, where dealers can uncover a ton of insights into their local market like total Facebook users, # of in-market shoppers, demographics and more!
- Rob Sight had a video interview with CBT and talked about some of the success he is seeing with Facebook and their strategy behind it. You can watch here.
- Eric “Crusher” bought a house!
- We added Lauren “Wrecking Ball” Blackwell to the marketing team and Phoenix-raised Lorenz Delaney to the channel sales team.
- Facebook published our dealer-partner Generation Kia for a “Resilient Business” success story, making this the 5th dealer of ours to be featured by Facebook Business for their success with the platform! You can see the story here.
- Our resident electric guitarist and friendly face Eugene was brought on to help with the Performance Team.
Customer High-Fives:
🖐️ Cavalier Ford boosted their sales 26% while the rest of their market was in a downturn. Get their story here.
🖐️ Generation Kia adapted their messaging around COVID-19 and attributed 42 sales to Facebook ads in 61 days AND got the attention of Facebook Business to get their story featured. Click here to get their story.
August
- The Dealers United dashboard went LIVE for all DU customers, helping dealers see their Facebook Ad performance, upload sales matchbacks, and monitor inventory health in real-time!
- We launched the newest ad tech for automotive dealers, “On-Facebook Destination for Automotive Inventory Ads.” These future-proof ads are reducing friction in the auto buyer’s journey and driving more cost effective leads and conversions.
- We released a blog talking about shifts in buyer motivations from before and after the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Read it here.
- The Creative Team overhauled their entire creative library into a new platform to help them generate OEM monthly specials faster than ever.
- Snake-wranglin’ Texan, Travis Garner, joined the Channel Team.
- The man in black, Jack Rogers, bought his first home!
September
- Pete dropped in on “TheShop Podcast” to give a little insight into Facebook ads for the aftermarket vendor. You can get the podcast here.
- We released a new case study showing the success our dealer-partners were achieving with On-Facebook Destination for AIA campaigns.
- Pete presented “How Top Auto Marketers Are Measuring Digital ROI (Without Google Analytics)” at the Digital Dealer Virtual Experience.
- We launched the new Ad Previews tool in our dealer dashboard, where dealers can go to see all of the ads in their account without having to go through the monotony of clicking through a ton of preview links.
- Corey, our most tenured Performance Manager, got Facebook Blueprint Certified.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ DeNooyer Chevrolet drove 116 at a ridiculous $1.59 per lead! Read their story here.
October
- The team got together for the first time since March for a socially-distant breakfast meetup!
- We hosted a webinar with the Facebook product team and some of our dealer-partners to go over their new On-Facebook Destination for AIA solution – you can watch the recording here!
- Samoa Motors CRUSHED their island’s sales record after starting Facebook advertising with DU, and Facebook Business published their story! This marked the 6th Success Story of a Dealers United partner to be featured by the tech giant.
- Sales teammates Dylan and Shea were both married (not to each other).
- 4 new team members joined DU! Chicago Cubs superfan, Mike Miller (not the pro basketball player), roller derby bruiser Sarah Bikos, Star Wars buff Rachel Randall, and one mean cocktail craftin’ Cody Link.
- One of the absolute highlights of our whole year here at DU was when our Performance Manager, Rachel, BEAT CANCER!!! Her strength and positivity during this time inspired our entire team and we are beyond proud of her.
November
- We released our OEM-specific Holiday Playbooks, packed with killer strategy and made to help dealers gain more traction on Facebook during the harder-to-advertise-in holiday season.
- 2 new team members joined DU! The sales team welcomed Sean Pukajlo, who makes a great Buddy the Elf (see below), and Kyle Logue usurped Eugene as the tallest team member (at 6 feet 9 inches!) when he joined the Dev Team!
- We teamed up with Driving Sales to present an in-depth Master Certification course at Driving Sales Executive Summit to help dealer marketers become Facebook ads specialists.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ Tom’s Ford switched to DU from another agency and attributed 91 unit sales to Facebook campaigns in 2 months! Click here to read more!
December
- We ran a Q&A session with Aimee Rogers, Marketing Manager for Brad Deery Motors in Iowa, giving us some real insight into the impact that we’ve had on their dealership. You can read it here!
- We gained 4 more team members! New York Knicks lover Sanjay and photography enthusiast Alix to help the Performance team, Samantha to help our Creative Team, and Tiffany to give our Facebook Team a boost.
- DU held a virtual Secret Santa and passed out gifts, highlighted by our CEO looking like Captain Ahab and our newest sales member busting out the Buddy The Elf suit.
Customer High-Five:
🖐️ Weld County Garage Buick GMC drove almost 3,000 leads in the first 3 months after upgrading to our Full Suite Solution! Click here to see the story.
That’s A Wrap!
This year has been tough, but we’re thankful to have our team, dealer-partners, channel partners, family and health.
It’s been our pleasure to navigate these unknown waters together and we look forward to conquering what’s next!
(Not yet part of the DU community yet? Find your solution today, help us grow by reviewing us or referring a friend, or check out our available careers!)
Written By Drew Detweiler
Drew manages inbound and outbound marketing for Dealers United. When he’s not at work, he’s probably enjoying the outdoors, fishing, or eating.