Pickup Trucks: OEMs! Where are you?
Written by Leif Cefalo (contact - e-mail) -- May 9th, 2008 | Recommend ThisYesterday, a colleague of mine was searching keyword results on Compete.com and came across an interesting, albeit surprising finding. When searching for the keywords “pickup trucks” not one OEM appeared in the top 25 destination sites. That means that Ford, Chevy, GMC or any of the other more recent additions to this market, were not top destination sites for people searching for pickup trucks.
So what’s the deal? Based on the list it would appear that people are researching, and a lot. Among the top 25 destination sites were traditional 3rd party sites like KBB and Edmunds as well sites that offer reviews like consumersearch.com, rankingsandreviews.com and pickuptruck.com.
But are OEMs sitting back and waiting for the 3rd parties to drive people to their sites? Are they relying on their vehicles to drive traffic into the showroom and ignoring online efforts? Do they even know they aren’t making the top 25? They do now…
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May 9th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I’d think that if you were looking for a truck, you’d go to the manufacturer’s site directly and not search for it. What I WOULD expect to see are the aftermarket and consumer review sites. I own a truck and there’s not really any reason to ever go back to the OEM site. I do spend countless hours around third party sites that sell things the manufacturers never will (or they do, but the selection is so small, it’s silly.)
May 12th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Leif -
Here is why OEM sites do not make your top 25 for “pickup trucks”:
1. People searching with a generic term such as “pickup trucks” are comparison shopping. OEM sites do not have solid comparisons to other Makes.
2. People looking for OEM websites will type those phrases in “chevy”, “ford”, “gmc”, etc or they already know the URL.
Chad Polk
AutoRevo.com