TORRANCE, Calif. — Certified pre-owned sales came roaring back in July, which was the strongest CPO month the industry has seen in more than two years.

In fact, a slew of brands reported all-time records for CPO sales, according to Autodata Corp.

Overall, Autodata Corp. indicated that there were 153,259 certified units sold in July. The last time CPO sales reached this level was May 2008, the company noted.

July's figures marked a 19.1-percent gain over the prior-year period. The CPO market notched an 11.2-percent gain from June.

Through the first seven months of 2010, year-to-date CPO sales have totaled 953,345 units. This represents the first improvement in year-to-date sales during 2010, although July's numbers marked just a 0.9-percent gain.

In addition to discussing their results from July, several automakers also shared with Auto Remarketing how they are utilizing the Web as an effective avenue for selling CPO vehicles.

For instance, Toyota — which hit a best-ever July with sales of 29,344 certified units sold — has benefited greatly from using the Web to move certified units, including some traction gained on the hybrid side of the CPO market.

"Interactive for us is a huge part of our marketing," shared Scott Heyer, corporate manager for fleet, TRAC and TCUV at Toyota Motor Sales, USA. "We just recognize that more and more consumers are turning to the Internet for information, shopping and consideration."

Toyota launched a website specifically for hybrid CPO vehicles in early 2008, and this has helped to push sales for these vehicles up significantly. For instance, there were 7,262 hybrid CPO vehicles sold by Toyota in 2007. That number jumped to 17,348 in 2009. 

The automaker also rolled out a TCUV mobile site, where consumers can query vehicles through their mobile devices at ToyotaCertified.com.

"We're continuing to get growing activity out of that," Heyer shared.

Specifically, there were 2,000 views during July. This has bolstered the number of leads for dealers, Heyer noted.  

Looking at Toyota's results from July in more detail, their CPO sales marked a 27-percent gain over the year-ago period. Not only that, this marked the fifth straight time where Toyota has had a daily CPO sales rate higher than 1,000 units.

In seven months this year, Toyota's certified sales have reached 182,735 vehicles, a gain of 16.3-percent from the prior-year period.

Over at Lexus, the Internet has been extremely important, as well, said Chuck Yaeger, Lexus' national certified pre-owned manager.

For example, on the new-vehicle side, a given model is going to be relatively the same from dealership to dealership. However, every used version of that given model is going to be different from dealer to dealer. So, say a shopper is looking for a used model with very specific attributes, mileage and equipment. The consumer will have to shop around different dealerships to find that exact used car, and that process begins online.

"You have to be there. You have to be able to provide that opportunity for customers to find that vehicle," Yaeger noted.

And he further emphasized that it's not necessarily a matter of increasing one's presence online, but "it's to provide the mix of vehicles that consumers are really searching for."

"Understand your market, be a student of the game within your market," Yaeger added. He noted that there are "very good tools" dealers can implement within their own management system to figure out the hot-selling units in their respective areas and what is being sold online.

As for Lexus' July sales, they moved 5,756 CPO units, which was the strongest July on record for Lexus CPO. This is up 7.4 percent from July 2009, which held the previous record.

Year-to-date through July, Lexus has moved 39,146 certified vehicles, a gain of 11.8 percent.

Continuing on, Honda and Acura have made "consistent" efforts to push CPO sales via the Web, said Dan Crowe, national remarketing manager for Honda.

And the automaker has used a variety of Web channels to do so.

"We have remained very consistent with our online advertising with search-engine marketing on Google and Yahoo, banner ads on a variety of automotive sites, as well as promoting our certified inventory on AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, and Carfax.com," Crowe shared.

During July, the Honda brand moved 20,062 CPO units, a 30.7-percent upswing from the year-ago period and the second-best certified month the brand has seen.

Meanwhile, the Acura brand experienced its top-selling CPO month ever, as it moved 4,790 CPO vehicles, a 31.8-percent year-over-year gain.

Through the first seven months of the year, Honda's certified sales have reached 116,847 units (up 19.7 percent), while Acura has sold 25,548 CPO vehicles (up 3.2 percent).

"We had an outstanding sales month for both Acura and Honda certified sales," Crowe noted. "Both Acura and Honda dealers started the month out strong and continued to build momentum each week."

Moving over to domestics, though combined sales for all of General Motors' certified brands were down slightly from a year ago (0.8 percent), GM Certified Used Vehicles enjoyed a year-over-year hike for the first time in 2010.

And Paul Pejza, manager of GM Certified Used Vehicles, pointed to the Internet as a major catalyst for that strength.

"GM Certified Used Vehicles had good sales momentum during the month of July and we're feeling real optimism for the future. July has given us our first year-over-year gain in 2010, in addition to a consistent three-month sales increase," he pointed out.

"We feel that our success is a result of our continued aggressive online marketing efforts, including our recently launched website and ‘Built-In Value' campaign, which quantifies the value of GM Certification," Pejza continued. "Together, they are driving strong performance online and are continuing our intense focus in the digital space, using innovation to educate consumers, as well as gain leads and sales for the brand."

Overall, GM's certified brands combined to sell 28,604 units, compared with 28,843 vehicles a year ago. Through July, GM has moved 177,954 vehicles, down 22.8 percent from last year's pace.

For comparison purposes, Saab results are not included in the monthly or yearly data for either period.

Saab's July CPO sales were at 263 units, and so far this year it has moved 1,684 vehicles.

GM Certified Used Vehicles sold 26,428 units in July, which includes sales for Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Pontiac and Saturn. This was up 3.9 percent from the year-ago period, which includes sales for Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.

At Ford, its dealers moved 11,819 CPO vehicles, a gain of 17.6 percent from the prior-year period. Through seven months this year, Ford has moved 80,581 units. In the same time frame of 2009, it had sold 84,268 units

By brand, the Ford division moved 10,026 units for an 18.8-percent upswing, and Lincoln Mercury sold 1,793 CPO units for an 11.4-percent increase.

Ford CPO manager Glenn Burke attributed the gains to marketing efforts of the automaker's "strong" dealer network. He also touched on the importance of the Web in the automaker's CPO program.

"The strong performance was a result of a strong dealer network marketing the value of the certified pre-owned program with consumers," he shared.

"Ford and LM CPO have a strong digital presence. We expose in-market consumers to the value story of CPO on sites where they begin their research and deeper in the funnel during the inventory search process," Burke added. "We look forward to continued strong sales performance for the remainder of 2010. "

Chrysler's CPO sales, meanwhile, totaled 9,624 units for July, up 43 percent year-over-year. Through July, the automaker has moved 62,301 certified units. This is a 6.8-percent improvement over last year's pace.

By brand, there were 3,633 certified Dodge units sold in July, a 34.8-percent increase. There were 3,348 CPO Jeep units sold, a 57.5-percent upswing. Also, the automaker moved 2,643 certified Chrysler brand vehicles, an improvement of 38.6 percent from last year.

Next up was Nissan North America, which had its best-selling CPO month on record. The automaker counted the Web as a major influence on its certified sales success.

Specifically, there were 8,759 CPO units sold, a 30.8-percent uptick from July 2009. In seven months this year, CPO sales have totaled 53,448 units, compared with 46,275 vehicles in the prior-year period. 

Continuing on, the Nissan division moved 7,757 certified vehicles in July, which marked a 33.7-percent improvement from a year ago and was a best-ever total for the brand. Infiniti sold 1,002 CPO vehicles, up 11.6 percent year-over-year.

"Both Nissan and Infiniti brands have supported CPO APR offers good through the end of September, and marketed through our online partnerships with Cars.com and AutoTrader.com," pointed out Neal Zirkle, senior manager of CPO and pre-owned vehicles for Nissan North America.

"Because of this online marketing support, we saw an increase in Web activity on the Nissan CPO site, which drove Altima sales to a record high and an increase from the previous month by 34 percent," he added. "Internal lead tracking reports show our CPO leads are closing at nearly the same rate as new-vehicle leads. NNA is planning new CPO benefits and initiatives in the third quarter to further our support of certified pre-owned sales."

Moving along, the leadership at BMW also shared how its dealers are utilizing the Web push CPO sales, while also offering some commentary on July's results, which showed a more than 7-percent improvement in certified sales.

"BMW pre-owned dealers are working on several facets of using the Web to move CPO units," stated Joan Horst, pre-owned manager of marketing for BMW of North America.

"First has to do with better merchandising of the vehicles both with optimum number of quality images and interesting relevant descriptions that are offered up on their own websites and on third-party websites," Horst added. "Another facet is to better manage the proliferation of when and how an individual vehicle served up by using tools like SEM/SEO."

For July, BMW dealers moved 9,871 certified vehicles, a 7.8-percent upswing from the year-ago period. In the first seven months of 2010, BMW sold 66,553 CPO units, down 0.9 percent from last year's pace.

"We are thrilled with how well both CPO sales and non-CPO BMW sales did in July. Business spiked up at the end of the month and we are in a marketplace there are some great BMW Financial Services financing options available for good-credit customers," stated Russ Lucas, manager of BMW pre-owned sales.

"For now we have a great supply of vehicles available for the centers, and many centers are taking trade-in and off-lease vehicles in anticipation of less available supplies pre-owned vehicles," he added.   

Turning to Volkswagen, this automaker recorded a best-ever month, with sales of 5,642 units. This represented a 46.3-percent uptick from the prior year. Through the first seven months of 2010, VW moved 30,393 certified vehicles, an 8-percent improvement.

"We are very encouraged by the continued growth of the CPO business for the Volkswagen brand and look forward to it continuing," said Rob Martin, regional pre-owned manager for VW Sales Operations' Southern Region.

Moving on, Mercedes-Benz reported CPO sales of 6,909 during July, a 12.4-percent gain from the prior-year period. Year-to-date through July, the automaker sold 48,232 certified units, up 7 percent from the year-ago pace.

"We are very pleased with the July results," stated Scott Penza, manager of pre-owned operations for Mercedes-Benz USA.

Mazda, just two month after rolling out its revamped CPO program, experienced its highest-selling CPO month in its history by moving 967 units in July, compared with 404 vehicles a year ago. The automaker's year-to-date CPO sales through July stood at 3,698 units, versus 2,910 vehicles through seven months of 2009.

Subaru was another automaker that enjoyed an all-time best-selling month, as it sold 1,855 CPO units in July, a 48.4-percent improvement from a year ago. Through July, it has sold 10,997 certified vehicles, an increase of 34.8 percent from last year's pace.

Hyundai joined in the crowd of those posting best-ever months. It moved 2,170 certified vehicles, a gain of 52.3-percent year-over-year. Year-to-date sales through July have reached 11,438 units, which is ahead of last year's pace by 38.6 percent.

Kia's CPO sales reached 698 units to mark its best-ever month. This was up 75.4 percent from last year. Through July, Kia has moved 4,167 CPO units, a 70.4-percent uptick.

Continuing on, Audi sold 2,766 certified vehicles in July, compared with 2,521 units in July 2009. In the first seven months of the year, it posted CPO sales of 16,271 units, down from 18,532 vehicles in the same period of last year.

Volvo's July certified sales totaled 1,729 units, which compares to 1,882 CPO vehicles sold a year ago. Through July, it has moved 10,885 certified vehicles, down from 13,986 CPO units in the same period of 2009.

Among other automakers, Porsche moved 622 certified vehicles, up 21.5 percent year-over-year. Mini's CPO sales totaled 194 units, compared with 159 certified vehicles in July 2009.

Land Rover sold 271 certified units, down from 355 a year ago, while Jaguar's CPO total for the month hit 450 sales, compared with 423 in July 2009.

Bentley was estimated to have sold 30 CPO vehicles, versus 33 last July. Mitsubishi moved 38 CPO vehicles, compared with 52 certified units a year ago.

Finally, Maserati sold 26 CPO units, up from nine a year ago.