IRVINE, Calif. -

Along with a $2.5 million investment in cash to help build, launch and grow a new site’s pay-per-click advertising platform, Autobytel announced its Dealer of the Month for August.

The newest Autobytel Dealer of the Month is Rese Ballou, business bevelopment manager of Hendrick Toyota Scion in North Charleston, S.C.

The company’s Dealer Awards Program honors exceptional Autobytel dealers who employ the highest standards in customer service and Internet automotive retail sales and lead management processes.

“Rese and her team are dynamos, setting month over month records at Hendrick Toyota Scion,” said Jeffrey Coats, president and chief executive officer of Autobytel. “They understand the importance of the personal touch and the fundamentals of relationship building when it comes to managing Internet customers. Their low-pressure sales environment focuses on the appointment and not the car, and that approach has been very successful.

“There’s a reason Hendrick Toyota Scion is the No. 1 Toyota dealership in the state and an Autobytel Dealer of the Month,” Coats added.

Each month, Autobytel’s sales and dealer operations teams evaluate prospective candidates from a competitive field of thousands of automotive retailers in the Autobytel network with a monthly winner selected based on key online automotive best practices.

Criteria evaluated for the Autobytel Dealer Awards Program include conversion rates, lead management processes, customer service principles, customer and brand retention analytics and Internet department practices, among others.

“It’s thrilling to be named an Autobytel Dealer of the Month,” Ballou said. “I’m very, very proud of my team and our dealership. There are six women in my department and we’ve created a great support system here.

“The best advice I can give to other dealers is to steer away from the high pressure sales environment. Treat each customer like a person, not a number, and focus on building the relationship,” Ballou went on to say.

Hendrick Toyota Scion is located in North Charleston, S.C., servicing customers in the greater Charleston area, including the surrounding communities of Summerville, Moncks Corner, and Goose Creek. The dealership also services Charleston Naval Weapons Station military personnel and nearby Boeing employees. It’s one of the largest Toyota dealerships in the state.

The Autobytel Dealer of the Year Award is slated to be announced at the NADA Convention & Expo in New Orleans in January 2014, with the crowning dealer chosen from this year’s pool of monthly winners.

Ballou joins Patti Scipione of M’Lady Nissan, Paul LeRose of Pauly Toyota, Tim Morgan of Radley Acura, Steve Roberts of Crown Motors Redding and Kenny Jakel of Lee Johnson Kia —who were named the Autobytel Dealers of the Month for March, April, May, June and July 2013 — in that pool of winners.

Autobytel Makes Strategic Investment in Newly Formed AutoWeb

Autobytel invested $2.5 million in cash to help build, launch and grow AutoWeb’s pay-per-click, auction-driven automotive advertising marketplace, which is scheduled to go live early next year.

Autobytel has an option to invest an additional $2.5 million as AutoWeb grows. 

As part of the agreement, AutoWeb has acquired the AutoWeb trademarks and domain name (www.AutoWeb.com) from Autobytel for $1.5 million in AutoWeb stock. 

As a result of the initial investment, Autobytel now owns approximately 16 percent of AutoWeb and Coats is on AutoWeb’s board of directors.

Executives pointed out Autobytel will become the first automotive publisher to benefit from AutoWeb’s PPC platform, receiving a share of the revenue generated by click-throughs at Autobytel’s websites. 

Autobytel said it believes the arrangement could represent a significant revenue opportunity over the next several years.

The company insisted AutoWeb’s proprietary technology and unique PPC business model, which analyzes Web traffic and adjusts advertiser costs accordingly based on traffic quality, sets it apart from standard pay-per-click models. 

The business model behind this innovative marketplace helped its original creators, Matias de Tezanos, Julio Gonzalez-Arrivillaga and Jose Vargas, build and grow BrokersWeb, an insurance-based PPC advertising marketplace, from $1.0 million to $55.0 million in revenue over a three-year period until it was acquired in 2011. 

The group has worked closely together for nearly 15 years and has created, grown and sold several successful technology companies in the hospitality, online ad network and email marketing industries.  Combined revenue of the companies founded by the group totaled more than $300 million.

Here’s how the new AutoWeb is designed to work:

—AutoWeb attracts high-intent, high-volume, content-oriented automotive publishers to its network.

—AutoWeb’s platform helps publishers monetize traffic that has previously been under-monetized.

—In-market vehicle shoppers researching specific vehicle brands at publisher sites are presented with highly relevant display ads and benefit from an online experience that delivers the perfect vehicle to meet their needs. 

—Manufacturers benefit from gaining access to serious, in-market vehicle buyers at the right price. AutoWeb’s platform enables manufacturers to fully optimize their ad campaigns in real time by model, ZIP code and demographics.

—AutoWeb generates revenue for every click on the ads it delivers and shares a portion of that revenue with its publisher partners.

—AutoWeb uses proprietary technology to evaluate traffic quality derived from the source and click-to-conversion data and adjusts advertiser costs accordingly to provide more clicks at the right price and quality.

“We believe our investment in AutoWeb will not only create substantial opportunities to deliver serious car buyers to our customers and a personalized online experience to consumers, but will also increase monetization of our website traffic,” Coats said. 

“The AutoWeb team has proven experience developing successful pay-per-click marketplaces.  As the auto industry continues to exceed growth expectations — August SAAR surpassed 16 million units — and automotive advertisers continue to transition to digital media, the timing is perfect for introducing a first-class product that will benefit all marketplace participants,” he continued.

In a recent automotive advertising outlook study, research firm Borrell Associates noted that new-vehicle sales should grow more than 54 percent this year, up from 10.4 million in 2009. At the same time, advertising spending is shifting from newspapers, television and radio, to online and mobile. 

According to the study, by 2018 total online spend by automakers and dealers is anticipated to grow to more than $20.0 billion, up from $14.0 billion in 2013.

“Our goal is to create a new client-driven advertising platform never before available in the automotive industry, focused on significantly enhancing client ROI by reaching consumers with the highest purchase intent,” said de Tezanos, co-founder and chief executive officer of AutoWeb. 

“The automotive industry requires advertising innovation and efficiency to capture the opportunities presented by the transition to online advertising, which now accounts for more than 20 percent of the total $33.0 billion spent on automotive advertising in 2013, according to Borrell,” de Tezanos continued.

“We are honored to partner with Autobytel, the leader in helping manufacturers and dealers sell more cars,” de Tezanos went on to say. “We are confident that AutoWeb will quickly be established as the premier advertising solution for the growing automotive industry.”

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