The Dealer Playbook

Ep. 667 - The New Rules of SEO for Car Dealers in 2025, with Colin Carrasquillo

• Michael Cirillo

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In this episode, my guest is Colin Carrasquillo, Digital Marketing Manager at Nielsen Auto Group.

We’re diving into some of the real challenges and solutions that most dealers are thinking about but rarely talk about out loud.

We talk about what it actually looks like to get your vendor partners working together instead of pulling in different directions. Colin shares how he’s doing this at scale across 14 rooftops and why it’s changing the game for their group.

We also get into why most dealers are still chasing the wrong SEO strategy in 2025 and what really matters now if you want to show up where your customers are actually searching.

You’ll learn:

  • A practical way to hold your vendors accountable (without blowing up the relationship)
  • Why internal communication might be the thing holding your dealership back
  • How thinking beyond low-funnel keywords will give you a serious edge in your market
  • Why building better human connections inside your store leads to better marketing outside of it

This conversation is packed with useful ideas you can take back to your store, and it’ll definitely make you rethink how you approach your partnerships and marketing.

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This Episode's Sponsor

FlexDealer Need Better Quality Leads? FLX helps car dealers generate better quality leads through localized organic search and highly-targeted digital ads that convert. Not only that, they work tirelessly to ensure car dealers integrate marketing and operations for a robust and functional growth strategy.

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MC:

This episode is brought to you by FlexDealer hey auto industry. Welcome to this episode of the Dealer Playbook Podcast. Sitting down with my new pal, colin Carasquillo I hope I said it right, man. Everybody that listens knows, knows. My biggest pet peeve is when I get somebody's name wrong. How did I do?

Colin:

You did great and I will say listen, growing up I was subjected to colon. I was subjected to Pasquale, which is nowhere close to Carasquillo, but I've learned to deal with it over the years and now, at 32 years of age, you could have called me John Smith and I would have said, hey, how's it going?

MC:

That's funny man. It's kind of the same way with me. My last name is Cirillo and people will be like how do you say it? Turd burglar?

MC:

And I'm like yeah, that's close, I've been told how do you say it, Turd burglar, and I'm like, yeah, that's close. You know not everything. I'm excited to get into this. We're going to be talking all about. You know your role as digital marketing manager at Nielsen Auto Group out there in New Jersey. We're going to talk about how you got a show on CBT We've got to hear about that and also some of the clever stuff you guys are doing with AI and with SEO and Gooba Goo. I know who's a partner of yours. We're going to talk all about it and I want those listening or watching to understand we're going to get to some really tangible stuff. So make sure that you're watching through to the end. But, dude, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

Colin:

Thank you, it's my pleasure I've. You know, listen, I've been a fan from afar. I've been watching everything that you guys have been doing, you know, with your outfit and everything going on, and you know it's funny. We were just catching up before the show. He said he'd been doing this for 11 years and my reaction was wow, it's so surprising that it's been that long, because I feel like you guys have really just come on, you know, to the space. But that's because you're young, you're hip, there's so much energy around it and it always seems fresh and new. So when you said 11 years, I said there's no way like that's not possible, but long overdue. So thank you so much for having me on, because we can say I guess it's been 11 years in the making, but really honored to be here speaking with you.

MC:

He's coming on buttering me up. We're hip, we're young. Let's ask my 16 year old son if he thinks any of those things. He'd be like dad you're old, there's gray hair in your beard.

Colin:

He'd probably be a little jaded. So you know, don't ask him that, but definitely ask the other folks in the vertical. You know the industry that I think they'd all say the same.

MC:

So it's great, it is what it is. It it is what it is. It's like we're young in our own minds, you know. I mean I still feel 17 in a lot of ways.

Colin:

I had. You know, not recently, but I guess once, once I entered my 30s, people asked me at one point, like how old I was, and I forgot. And now so this is going back to the 20s. Excuse me, but I think I was 24 or 25. And they said how old are you? And without a like a thought, I said, oh, I'm 21. And 25. And they said, how old are you? And without a thought, I said, oh, I'm 21. And I thought to myself, why would I even pick that age? So I agree with you. I think you're honestly, and even my mother, who's in her seventies, same thing. She still says she feels like she's a young lady in her thirties. I think it's just about doing stuff like this that keeps you young. It's exciting, it's fun, fun, it's always new.

MC:

So, yeah, yeah, I was thinking about this. You know it probably is something here, maybe there's a thread here. But we're kind of the first generation that had technology prominence, you know what I mean. Like if I look at my parents who are in their seventies as well, right, boomers, they, you know the computer came in and everyone had a household computer, but it kind of stopped there. You know cell phones, of course, my, my dad, you know I'll remember he, he came home with a cell phone. That was like, yeah, right.

Colin:

Hold on son.

MC:

Let me talk to you Check out my new phone case and it was like a briefcase that had the locks on them Right. But then you look at us, it's like, okay, I remember having a pager or friends that had pagers. But then right after high school it was like I had a cell phone and it was a nice little cell phone and I remember having that. And it's been a constant uphill from there to the point where, you know, I show my parents chat gpt and I'm talking to it, right, and my dad speaks italian, my mom speak portuguese, I'm speaking to gpt in english and they're blown away at how quickly it's responding. And I said, mom, ask it to say all of that in portuguese now. And she and in Portuguese and she went into port and all of a sudden it's responding and, bro, I'm watching the ghost leave their bodies and they couldn't believe it.

MC:

But for guys like you and I, I'm like, how can I lean in? How can I use this thing more? Because we get to be that first generation where it's like it's the norm, so maybe that keeps us young. I don't know. But it does lead into what I want to talk to you about. I mean, obviously, from your vantage point as a digital marketing director for an auto group, you are privy, I think, to a landscape and a thought process that not a lot of people are, because you're not only seeing all of the moving pieces of an operation, but you're the one, you're the pivot point of how that all connects together, how marketing isn't just doing SEO and hoping things are okay. It's not just having a website, it's not just about having chat tools or digital retail tools. You get to say, well, I got to bring all these things together. So, in a 2025 world, what is the kind of the highest priority thing you're looking at from a marketing and operations perspective to bring this group forward?

Colin:

Yeah, that's a really great question and there's so many answers, but, you know, I think I might give you one that will surprise you, and maybe one that won't. But, holistically, right, Because that's what it is. It's looking at it from all of these different angles or vantage points or lenses, whatever you want to call them, and ultimately, for me, it's actually looking at profitability, right. So hold on here, though, because profitability of the automotive group right, made up, in this case, the Nielsen Automotive Group, 14 rooftops, you know, 12 represented brands. Each dealership has its own financial statement. Each dealership needs to be profitable and in cases that they're not, we need to mitigate the opportunity for losses or mitigate loss, and so, marketing.

Colin:

My philosophy right now, really and it was the tail end of 2024, into 2025, was getting more involved in the operation side of things, to better understand every single facet of how to successfully operate and run a dealership and see how the marketing plays into that, Because, in reality, the marketing, although exceptionally important, is just one minute piece of this massive puzzle, and the thing is it's also even though let's call it minute and I take a lot of pride in my marketing it's one of the things that, if it's not dialed correctly right, or you're missing that piece of this massive puzzle I'm talking about. You'll never complete the puzzle, right, so I'm looking at it. Oh, thank you, I'm looking at it from profitability. So I want my dealership to be more profitable than we were last year, to be more profitable than we were last year, than we were in the previous year, and now you have some blip years in there. I mean, my God, there were years where I think you know our owners were making more money than God, and God bless them, you know.

Colin:

But the fact the matter is, how do we continue to position ourselves, maneuver ourselves to be in that spot, right? Because if we're profitable, it usually means things are going well. And it usually means things are going well from a sales perspective, the fixed ops perspective, from the marketing perspective, the opportunities that are being generated. So that's it. To come full circle. It's really I've started looking at things from that top down holistic. It's about profitability. What does that look like? Right? And then how that factors in to everything that we do from a marketing perspective, from a follow-up perspective, you know, investments that we make, so on and so forth. So I hope that answers your question. You know it's a unique perspective, I would think. But I'm not alone. I know that there are tons of genius people out there that do way more than I do, that think in crazy ways.

MC:

So no, and this is brilliant. There's some things I want to unpack here as I'm writing notes. I think it. How smart is that? Yes To the individual rooftop, but as a whole, you have a stewardship to the whole group, right, which I think is so important. But, you know, tying into the operation, there's things that I think are so critical that we don't think of right.

MC:

So if we look at the landscape of, let's say, vendors or partners, today you have a marketing agency that goes we're going to lasso the sun, moon and stars for you, and you're like that sounds fantastic.

MC:

And then you have another provider that says we're going to lasso the sun, moon and stars for you, and you're like dang, that sounds fantastic.

MC:

Then, all of a sudden, you have between I don't know what the latest number is 15, between 15 and 25 different providers doing different things, none of whom speak to each other, all of who are speaking to you, but you're one person who you know. No offense to any individual out there, but can you really I mean, most of us have a hard enough time choosing what we're going to eat for dinner tonight to then be the pivot point to try and bring all these parties, who also have dozens and dozens of employees together on the same page and then convey that straight through to the frontline employee, who doesn't even know that their behavior and their actions like you said, follow up or the greeting some of these small things are actually marketing and revenue generating behaviors and it's all disconnected and none of it works and that's why we keep finding ourselves in this perpetual downward spiral. Beautifully said, that's my controversial opinion of the day. I'm allowed at least one every day and I don't think it's.

Colin:

I don't think it's controversial at all and let me follow up with this. So, you know, you identified something that I do believe is a really relevant prevalent challenge for dealers, right, and that's the number of vendor partners that they have. So here's something fun that we've done at Nielsen, and a lot of the stuff that I try is not proprietary. I have, you know, my platform and I love to speak on these platforms. One to interact with folks like yourselves who I, you know my platform and I love to speak on these platforms. One to interact with folks like yourselves who I, you know, I'm just I'm smiling from ear to ear when I was listening to you kind of break it down, because it's that's the truth. I mean, there's no controversy there, that is the truth. But here's something that we've done at Nielsen because we're talking about making this actionable, this whole episode, right. We've actually challenged our vendor partners, where I've set up repeating calls or recurring calls, where I have vendor partners who are in charge of specific things all have to sit on the call and essentially we all have a conversation about what our goal is at Nielsen and how they're going to work with this other vendor partner and get that done and we've even taken it further, where we have vendor partners working out of like the same Google tag. You know container and Google tag management. So if it's a vendor partner helping us with our SEO efforts, you know they can directly communicate with a vendor partner who's helping us with our SEM efforts and they can communicate with someone who may be handling remarketing or retargeting. So it becomes this whole ecosystem where you have to play nice in the sandbox.

Colin:

We've given vendors ultimatums and we no longer work with them.

Colin:

We said honestly if you're not going to be willing to do it this way meaning everyone works together to get the best result, not just for Nielsen, but think about that. If you're working with people who can strengthen what you're doing, it's only going to make your numbers look better, Right as far as the metrics. So we've had conversations with vendor partners where we've said you know this is what we're going to do. Unfortunately, if you're not willing to do that with us, it's not that we have any disdain or bad feelings, it's just our partnership has changed right, and we have grown. We are traveling towards a different direction as far as Nielsen and the trajectory there that I've set out for 2025 and beyond and unfortunately you're not riding that rocket ship with us, and that's okay. Maybe we'll pick you back up when we pass Mars, but eventually that's how we've approached this. So I think that should be a helpful thing for dealers to realize that they're not necessarily like I have to use so-and-so I'm bound to them. I think that can constantly change over time, for sure.

MC:

There's a couple of things I want to bolt onto this because I love this. You're in Jersey, I'm in Texas, grew up in Canada, but here we are speaking the same language, which is accountability. If accountability freaks you out, you need to go somewhere else.

MC:

Yeah, right, and I'm obviously, like a lot of people know, I own an agency, right, and one of the first things that I find here's me divulging all the secrets is that everything we do is month to month. There is no long-term contract. Why would I want, why would I say out of one side of my mouth that I want to be your partner for a long time and then, out of the other side of my mouth, try and handcuff you as my first to demonstrate my sincerest desire to be thy partner. Put these handcuffs on. That's the first thing. Second thing I love how you're grouping everybody together. It in a way, you are Well, not in a way, you are the catalyst now for why other companies should be working together.

MC:

And the last thing I want to bolt onto this the reason it is so brilliant is because the only thing then that gets in the way because there's going to be now vendors, there's partners now leaning into this episode the only thing getting in your way is your ego. Yep, like, if you don't, if you can't make it, it's because you've got somebody on your team who's an egomaniac, who feels threatened by the other people that are a part of your cohort. Now that you've created Right and it. And that's the secret, and that's why this will always work. This will always work because the people that don't have ego, who are willing to work at, like you said, play nice in the sandbox together, will continue to play nice in the sandbox. That is the only secret. It's not because they had some backdoor, this and that at NADA and they're drinking buddies. No, it's because they don't have ego and they're coming to the table for Nielsen saying we want you to grow because we know if you grow, we grow with you.

Colin:

What a good show of faith. I mean just regardless, unless you have something to hide. You know, maybe your product's not as great as you talk it up to be or make it out to be. Or, you know, maybe there are some proprietary things that you're not willing to show or divulge. But we're not asking right, meaning the dealer or Nielsen. I'm not asking everyone to go and show their hand, put their cards out there. All I'm saying is hey, join me at the poker table and let's all play a productive game. In some hands this dealer excuse me, this vendor partner wins. In some they don't. In some hands we fold. But the fact of the matter is we're all at the table and we're all having a productive meeting and conversation which, when all is said and done, we leave the game. It's mutual, it's amicable, there's no hard feelings.

Colin:

Perhaps someone learned something, right let's run with this analogy like poker, right, perhaps you learned a skill set just sitting across the table from me. You know that you can say all right, I'm going to take this into my next poker game. Or, wow, they identified a blind spot of ours, let's fix it. So now we can go and be better when we end up having another poker game, which is just the equivalent of sitting at another round table where I call everyone together and we discuss our initiatives and work that's been completed and how that's going to complement what they're doing, and so on and so forth. So that's the first time I'm using the poker analogy. I'll have to, you know, I'll have to massage it a little bit, polish it up, but you get it.

MC:

You get it, yeah, well, and I'm looking forward to I know we're going to hear it on your show, right, you've got a show on CBT and so I'm going to look forward to when you drop the polished version. But I like where it's going and I think it's solid. Let me ask you this yeah, going deeper into this, right, as we lean in, this is now a criteria, it sounds like, for you, if you want to be a vendor partner of ours, the criteria is you must play nice in the sandbox. Bring me into the conversation. How do you have that conversation with a vendor? Is it because I'm noticing and this is a compliment I'm noticing a, a positive, people focused disposition about you?

Colin:

Oh, thank you.

MC:

Yeah, which is, I think, is great. It's rare. Most people are going to push pause on this episode and they're going to go to all their vendors and say, guess what? You're doing this thing, or you can't be my partner, which, in my opinion, is just starting things off on the wrong foot.

Colin:

Yeah, that's probably not how you do it?

MC:

How does Colin approach this conversation with a partner?

Colin:

It's another really fair question. The way that I've always approached business right is I'm going to give you an opportunity to do your best. You know, perform as well as you can, and if you don't the first time around, I'm not going to be one of those people, like, I think, many dealers are. You know, maybe that's the downfall of the dealer where you said you know you own an agency, you operate month to month, right, you don't want to necessarily tie someone down to that commitment. But the other side of the coin there would be if you were building an incredible relationship with your client, right, and you were providing incredible service and the client was happy, it wouldn't matter if you went month to month or had long-term contracts, because they're not thinking about getting rid of you. They're happy with the service that you're providing to them, the results that they're getting, so on and so forth. Them, the results that they're getting, so on and so forth. So if you know I guess it's what is it? Fool me once you know, shame on you, I mean twice, shame on me.

Colin:

Essentially, if someone is not performing to the standards that we would hold them at Nielsen, which I think are quite high standards, I would then say how are we going to rectify? You know the opportunity and I hate saying problem or issue. It's really and this goes back to I don't even know, maybe it was like college where someone first said it's opportunities for improvement and don't talk about the problem unless you have a solution. So I approach really everything that way now. So I will approach vendors in the same fashion and I will say you are truly a partner with Nielsen. When we sign an agreement to do business together, you become a partner with Nielsen. Your involvement with our organization is as much as my involvement is with the organization.

Colin:

So if something doesn't work out to the way we think, let's go back to the drawing board and let's optimize what you're providing to us. Right, the solution, the service, how is it going to work better in our ecosystem? Perhaps we identified some things that can be strengthened in your ecosystem and we go from there. Ok, if it still does not perform to the level that we are looking for. Then we eventually say okay, it's not for us and we'll part ways. And we part ways, like I said, in a very mutual fashion. I often say to these people keep in touch If something new comes out. You have my number, reach out, let's schedule a face-to-face meeting, let's have a sit down, let's go over new products, let's go over new optimization, so on and so forth, even if we're not currently working with those people, and I think that's something that you know. Reflecting on it now, I pride myself on because it's really like don't burn the bridge.

Colin:

Because at some point you may need to walk back over that bridge to get to the destination that you're looking to go to in that moment in time. So really, it's just understanding that these people are representatives of a business, just like I am, or a dealer may be a representative of a business that he owns yes, it's his dealership, but that's a direct representation. So in these cases, how can you attack someone who's just doing their job on behalf of a much larger entity or company and not give them a fair shot or fair shake? So that's how I would approach it and I would have those dialogues. I think communication is key.

Colin:

I think every vendor partnership relationship whether you're just vetting the vendor or have a newly consummated relationship with them there needs to be what I would just call a table setting or place setting meeting, where they come together with you and whoever stakeholders, or however many stakeholders you need, and say this is what we're looking for, meaning our organization, how do you guys help us get there? Is that even something that's achievable? And you know what, nine times out of 10, if you ask that type of question, you will get the right answer, meaning they're going to be truthful with you because you've already shown them the respect of inviting them into your house or your office or home or whatever. Let's call it like that. You've invited them into your home and you're having the dialogue with them, which I think is super, super important. If you communicate, you set expectations and then you go from there.

MC:

Hey, does your marketing agency suck? Listen before we hop back into this episode. I know you know me as the host of the Dealer Playbook, but did you also know that I'm the CEO of FlexDealer, an agency that's helping dealers capture better quality leads from local SEO and hyper-targeted ads that convert? So if you want to sell more cars and finally have a partner that's in it with you, that doesn't suck. Visit flexdealercom. Let's hop back into this episode. Visit flexdealercom, let's hop back into this episode.

MC:

You're blowing my mind right now. There's so many things. Well, it's because it is so well, it's common sense. It feels like to me right, but we know how that goes Common sense, not so common. I wrote down a couple of things here, though. I love that you say you know it's important that we have that. Dialogue and communication is key. We never talk about this enough in our industry. We're consumed by, you know, whatever tariffs and AI and Tesla and the government and whatever else. We want to talk about state legislation. I think the most important, probably most critical skill those listening or watching should be leaning into and acquire and get good at that will fail. Proof them today and in the future is the skill of communication.

Colin:

Absolutely.

MC:

And think of how oxymoronic this is, because marketing in and of itself falls into the communications category, right, and yet we stink at it. So when you're saying, like we need to have meaningful dialogue and communication is key, I'm like man, isn't that like? We need to put that as a. We need to emphasize it, colin, because if we can't communicate internally with people that are, we're wanting to have drive and initiative and we don't know how to communicate effectively, which includes, you know, active listening and, like you said, setting clear expectations and talking through things and grace, when things don't go the right way or whatever, I mean we're already busting, falling apart at the seams, and so I feel like that's what's on my mind as you're talking through this.

MC:

I'm like dang, communication training, human interaction training Is that even a thing? I don't know if that's even a thing, but it needs to be a thing, because don't you find often two parties come together and they already start out hot because they're already in a defensive posture. Right, you as the marketing director and I'm not saying you, I'm speaking rhetorically come to the table who want to demonstrate to the agency that they might have been voluntold to work with, like I'm smart too, right and then vice versa. They're coming in being like we're the ones that are going to save. Come to the table, like you said, as partners. I think boy, oh boy. Might we experience a different marketing ecosystem in our industry?

Colin:

Absolutely, and you had touched upon just that being internal right Now, I think, one of the fascinating things that you were just starting to allude to and correct me if I'm wrong but it's then taking that right. It's then taking that right so that internal communication with your vendor partners, even your staff could be a salesperson, it could be a service advisor, it could be you know whoever a parts advisor. But then let's also think about it through the lens of the consumer. You said, hey, we're not even good at internal communication. How do you expect us to be rock stars then at external communication or marketing? We can't even communicate internally. And so I think that's something that I also wanted to just address there, because really it all starts with the in-house culture and whether that's an individual.

Colin:

In my example, where I'm at with Nielsen, it is me. I'm at with Nielsen, you know it is me. I'm one person. I rely very heavily on phenomenal vendor partners that we've, you know, grown relationships over the years. You know tenure that I've had with Nielsen. But it's just me, and so you know, for me I often then have to not only rely on those vendor partners, which means I have to communicate quite regularly and effectively with them, and efficiently.

Colin:

But then also staff downstairs. You know the sales staff, our service advisors. Here's the messaging that's going out when we do these campaigns. Here's what's out in the digital ether at this moment in time so that they're prepared to handle, you know, any of the inbounds, response or intent that we're capturing through our advertising initiatives and that, even then, you know, just kind of extrapolating it even further the messaging that's going out to the consumer.

Colin:

You know, if I don't know how to have an effective conversation with you now, well, we would have stopped recording already and you would have said I'm never talking to that guy again. We didn't get anything done. Now, what I love about this, though, is one you said right off the bat we're going to make things actionable, right. So dealers, marketers, are going to learn from this, but I think that, once again, it's 101 in the sense of if you don't even understand the internal dialogues and communications, forget about trying to market to a consumer to get them to understand what you want them to digest from your store, your brand, the offers, the buyback events, whatever it's going to be. It really starts here. It's like self introspection or reflection and then looking outward.

MC:

Right, but it's all tied together, every single bit. It's all connected from top to bottom, back to top, and part of this is the listening piece. The active listening piece, I think is so critical. You and I are not here trying to overpower one another. You're making solid points that are making me reflect and I'm writing notes. And even to your point, I didn't even realize I was doing it, but, yes, setting an expectation of here's what we're going to do on this call. Imagine that, not just internally in your organization, right down to the front line, but if you knew your partners, your agency partners, your third party partners were also doing that inside of their organizations and training them to even come back to this call and say, hey, here's our idea, here's our plan, here's how we arrived on it and here's why we're going to execute it in this way. There's so much syntax that goes missing in our communication that had we just known would have solved, you know, maybe cancellations or wars or ego flares or whatever, and I just think it's so important.

MC:

Now. You said something earlier. I want to transition a little bit. You had talked about this integration of your you know your vendor partners and bringing them all to a call, you brought up SEO. I mean, I got to ask you from a marketing perspective, seeing you know how many rooftops do? You say 14. So you've got 14 rooftops. You got 14, you know tier three websites you've got 14, you know micro markets in and around your area, different social economic factors, consumer sentiments, brand affiliations, all these things that you're looking after. And then you marry that to what we see so often on LinkedIn, like SEO is dead, and then you have the other side of it. That's like there's 3 trillion searches a day happening. It's far from dead compared to GPT and this, and that help us reconcile your thoughts around SEO today, what it is in a 2025 world. I know we're not. You know mind readers and looking. You know what's the crystal ball, the few, my mind. What do we call them? The futurists?

Colin:

I know this is a crystal ball again. I guess could be a futurist. I was going to say mentalist, but that's not it either I don't think it, either I don't think so.

MC:

Fortuneteller Film reader. I don't know what we are Looking into the future, though I know we don't know what's going to happen in a month or two. Things are evolving quite rapidly with tech, but how are you thinking about SEO and maybe pull back the curtain a little bit, managing across 14 rooftops the things that you care about? Maybe a nugget or two about what's important to you and how you're seeing that landscape.

Colin:

So I'll go full Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain there, right? So SEO, traditional SEO, I wouldn't go as far as to say it's dead. I think that would be silly for me to say that someone in my position here. It's not dead, it's evolving, and the way that it's evolving is going to be a challenge to dealers because it's going to mean for dealers that the emphasis in my opinion, my humble opinion so this could be controversy is that it's not going to be on those low funnel, really high intent searches anymore. Now that could start worse.

Colin:

With various vendor partners, I just had a conversation with one of them yesterday about our strategy for SEO and it was met with a little bit of pushback. You know, x, y, z, insert a brand. There was no geographic parameters to it. There was nothing that I believe, aside from going after a very competitive term, which would be a term that I may spend money on, meaning search engine marketing side of things on, they demonstrated that this one dealer in our market was populating in. You know wherever this person was Vermont or Minnesota or someplace across the country and you say, okay, well, that's good, but is it really good Because you're populating in position one above all of these other very competitive entities, mass entities where people go for news or vehicle shopping, things like that, and the dealer's not selling car I mean, I personally know this dealer group. They're not selling cars out to that market where you're saying, oh, this is great SEO. To that market where you're saying, oh, this is great SEO.

Colin:

So, in as few words, I would say it's not going to be about that lowest funnel, high intent conversion anymore. Okay, what it's going to be about is becoming more mid funnel right, it can even be high to mid funnel and what dealers need to understand is where searches, as far as these high to mid funnel searches, will populate on Google, on Bing, in ChatGPT, which now we've understood people are actually going to for search, to for search Google introduced and whether it's known to the dealer community or not and I think a lot do know, because it's kind of a real big talking point, whether it's amongst the dealers or just vendor partners telling dealers but their AI search right, ai search overviews, which is powered by their Gemini, artificial, intelligent being, being entity, whatever we want to call it, but that's populating in what's called position zero. So this is above any of your paid, your standard organic results and even your Google business listing, which was a really strong SEO, you know, had really strong SEO value, still does. But this position zero result, which are these ai overviews is basically giving gemini, the ai right, the ability to go scour the internet and find trustworthy sources of information that then it can digest quicker than any human could and spit those results back out at the top of Google right and now, within that there are live links, it will have all the information there. But these aren't searches like what's the best lease deal near me? No, these are searches, and I alluded to it at the beginning of the call, but these are searches like what's the best SUV for my family of five, right, what's the best SUV for off-roading? What is the best pickup truck for work in a field?

Colin:

The fact of the matter is we're so hell bent at any given moment in time and I think this is our downfall, will be our downfall Dealers are so hell bent at any given point in time to capture the smallest amount of people, meaning those that are actually in market, right, and it's the smallest amount of people, I think and once again, I don't know the exact numbers. I know years ago, right and I'll reference the years ago, but was 700 billion people on the planet, I believe. I think I can fact check and I'll probably ask AI 700 billion people whatever it is okay At any given point in time I think it was two to 3% of the entire population is in the market for a vehicle. Okay, that's still a big number. That's the entire population. Though what happens when I get to this hyper-local level and I am one dealer group in New Jersey it becomes probably less than a 10th of a percent of people that we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, a year trying to get in front of that same consumer, and these are all dealers competing for the same person. So my mentality changed my mentality and I got a little lucky with this.

Colin:

I will say, when AI first started launching, I understood what it was trying to do and this actually goes back to something that Sundar Pichai had said numerous years ago, but it was Google's basically supposed to take all of the world's information and present it to a consumer in the most digestible format. It was basically to provide answers to questions. So, okay, let's think about it. You go from presenting all these different results that people can click on to now actually providing an answer to the question. And here it is. It's very easy for you to digest, you can take that and run with it.

Colin:

So in reality it becomes understanding the consumer mentality, which is people are not inherently brand loyal anymore. People will flop between many different types of vehicles. Perhaps once they settle on a model type, meaning like an SUV or truck or, you know, sedan or convertible they'll stay within that kind of you know, let's call it bowling lane there, within the barriers there, but they're not necessarily set on a brand. So, if you can, through valid information I'm not talking about creating a narrative either, because that's you're going to be penalized if you try to do that. If you try to just create a fictitious narrative saying, okay, I have this vehicle and this vehicle is the best for a family, it won't benefit you.

Colin:

You're going to get penalized because there's no truth or facts to that, so it's actually about gathering information that's out there, public domain, and putting it together in personalized ways, that I guess a large language model would be one way to look at it, but in a personalized way that you're answering the query of the individual in the market that you are specifically selling in it's hyper-localized Correct.

Colin:

That's where a lot of people are missing it because they're going after it in this still very high funnel. Well, for those that are doing it I really actually don't know anyone who's doing it to this level at Nielsen as far as just the connectivity between the dealerships and journeys as well. So, for example, just to kind of extrapolate on it more, when we talk about, let's say, that example or query of best SUV for families in New Jersey, what we do from our group site, our marketplace site, is we have an entity called Nielsen Editorial. Essentially, it's an entity that we've created that acts as a referral site, right, and it becomes the source of information in the New Jersey market. It's now become so powerful that when people ask those questions, nielsen is what populates all of the AI overviews and its links to each one of our dealerships. And this is also in the quest of me becoming what I call a digital land baron, which is, if I can populate position zero, I have paid ads, and then I also have all the organic rankings. The next time my competitors show up, it's probably on page two of Google, and if you're on page two of Google, it's probably not even worth doing anything, you know. So it's about connectivity as well, because it starts at the group site and then it trickles down to the child sites. So on each child site then we might have a snippet of information as to why.

Colin:

And let's just use one of our brands that we have. Hyundai Tucson is a, you know, great SUV for families in New Jersey. But what we'll do on that is that I also may link it to my Nissan site, which talks about the fact that a Rogue is a good family vehicle. And then what we do is we take it even further. Then we do comparisons the Tucson versus the Rogue and this is all content that lives in the Nielsen ecosystem. And so you know, for us it's more so, instead of putting a dam downstream, going for that very low funnel, high intent shopper, you know, move the dam a little further upstream and from there, if you dam the you know, let's just call it this river of search, I don't know what we want to call it. It's basically, if you look at it from a funnel perspective, right, which is the sales funnel, but that a little higher up the funnel I can start diverting the waterways to our Nielsen sites.

MC:

When all is said and done.

Colin:

I got you, then that's it. You won't think about another dealership. What you'll start making synonymous in your mind is Nielsen Automotive Group and I need to go buy a car. Is Nielsen Automotive Group and I need to go buy a car. That's what that becomes. So I said a lot of words, no. Hopefully they're impactful.

MC:

But here's what ties it all together for me, why it makes perfect sense and I think this is a great you know like nail to end on. Here is one of the reasons I think for that is when I'm left to my own devices referencing my earlier little you know, poking fun at ourselves that we can't even choose what to eat for dinner, so we typically choose the lowest common denominator, right. This is why Kraft dinner still exists all these years later.

MC:

Here's my point. That is what happens when I am left to my own lazy reasoning outputs. I end up on Google and I go tell me what I want.

MC:

Right, yeah, best least deal, because that's all I can come up with With AI in the mix Gemini, search, generative results, gpt, perplexity, blah, blah, blah all the different AIs. They are now handling the reasoning portion of all of that. The models are doing a better job at understanding the intent and I no longer have to reason, which means then I can refocus this is what I believe brings it up funnel. I can refocus my brain power on circumstantial prompting. I'm in the market for this. I'm a family of five, we are active. That's what I mean by circumstantial.

MC:

I have more faith now that the AI model. Let's use SGE Search Network Experience as an example. We'll use Gemini. I can now have more faith that I can share more with it and that it will do a better job reasoning all of it and give me, like you said, well, what's the difference between the Hyundai Santa Fe and the Palisade? What's the difference between the Palisade and the Explorer? What's the difference between? You know what I mean. The reasoning now gives me that, but it moved me up funnel, which I think is so brilliant.

MC:

And then the way you've talked about how the group site connects through to the child sites and the child sites connect to each other and back up to the group site. What an interesting spider web. Those that are listening or watching need to be paying attention to this stuff, because I would fully endorse and fully agree, from my vantage point, with what you just said, that things are higher funnel. They're much more circumstantial. The AI models are doing a better job at reasoning and therefore we're able to give them more context than just best-least deal, which I think is going to be really lazy if anybody keeps doing that stuff. Moving forward, dude, this has been so much fun. We could totally do a part two of this. I'd love to catch up with you again and see how things are evolving, but for now, how can those listening or watching get in touch with you and connect?

Colin:

Yeah, listen, I am an open book and I love putting my information out there In all honesty. Others might not, but you can send me an email which is I'll spell it all out. So you have it. But it's C-C-A-R-R-A-S-Q-U-I-L-L-O at Nielsen Autos. That's N-I-E-L-S-E-N Autos A-U-T-O-S dot com. I'm going to give my cell phone. That's fine, you guys can shoot me a text or call me.

Colin:

Just don't try to sell me something right away. Come on, 908-358-9284. Once again, that's 908-358-9284. Real honor to be on here with you and I just want to leave you with one little thought, because you talked about you know you took my SEO thing to a different level and that's kind of how I've always approached. It is more so get in front of people in moments that matter most to them. So in that case, if someone's searching for you know the best vehicle for off-roading, well, now you know you just hit a really great spot or point in their lives, right? So they're off-road enthusiasts, okay. Or maybe they're talking about things best SUV for my pet, or whatever it is. How special would it be? And just think about this how special would it be now if you guys meaning marketers, us we're connecting all those dots so we see the query, right, that got that person to our dealership. They then convert and now, when we're able to reach out to them meaning our people that we can reference the stuff that really matters to them. So you end up submitting information, we track it back, we have a dialogue and what we can do just communication 101. Michael, thanks for your interest on this vehicle.

Colin:

Is there any particular reason why you chose this car? Are you an off-road enthusiast or do you like the outdoors? Do you have pets? Guess what? What you don't know is, I have all of that information at my fingertips and instead of saying I saw you converted on this because you looked at, you, wanted to see if it could fit your dog, you say let me tell you a little bit about myself. I want to learn a little bit about you. You know, I actually I love off-roading. I have a massive, you know, labrador who can fit in X, y and Z. And then you go. I love off-roading too, and I don't have a Labrador, but I have a Chihuahua and you're like great, what's the dog's name? Next thing, you know, you're just creating a friend. You're creating a conversation that goes on and on. So this could go on and on. I'd love to do a part two with you. You're an absolute pleasure to speak with, so thank you very much.

MC:

Thanks, buddy. Colin, thanks so much for joining me on the Dealer Playbook Podcast. Hey, thanks for listening to the Dealer Playbook Podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please subscribe, share and hit that like button. You can also join us and the DPB community on social media. Check back next week for a new Dealer Playbook episode. Thanks so much for joining.

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Michael Cirillo

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