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The first blog of the year – 51 more to go before we can evaluate 2025. Then we’ll see which New Year’s resolutions were achieved and which ones were quickly forgotten… 2025 is starting in a strange way for me! At the Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center, I’ll be working alone this month. The […]

It’s the second day of Christmas, and like every Thursday, it’s time for a new article. I’ve been posting these articles on Thursdays for years, but publishing on a Friday once in a while is fine too. Finding a topic remains a challenge at times. After more than 200 articles on lead follow-up, each with […]

Okay, this year has been quite turbulent, and next year will be even more exciting when it comes to automotive leads, especially in new car sales. In the past few weeks, I’ve visited three major dealers and OEMs, and they’ve all raised the storm flag. Despite this, the right questions still aren’t being asked, and priorities are being mishandled. You don’t need a new lead management system to process extra online leads if the process for handling those leads doesn’t exist or isn’t being followed!

December is a time for recalculating and reflecting: what went well, and what could be improved? At Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center, it’s no different. With access to the beta version of Google Vehicle Listing Ads (VLA), we must rethink our marketing strategy. Although the beta version is not yet optimal and generates few […]

As 2025 approaches, I can’t help but look back nostalgically to 2018! That was the year I first met Forest Ward and Koby Jackson from Calldrip. It was in Amsterdam, at Marktplaats. As Marktplaats’s automotive spokesperson at the time, I scheduled all my #DCDW meetings there. It made the Marktplaats office feel like my own, […]

At Ligier Store Doesburg, we don’t stand still. Starting January 1, we are switching to a completely new approach for following up on online leads. What makes this change so special? With one less salesperson (50% less capacity), we will follow up on more leads and make more sales. This may sound like a challenge, but we see it as an opportunity.

How will we achieve this at the Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center? In a series of articles, I will explain our approach and strategy step by step. Topics will include smart automation, the use of the right tools, and optimizing the customer journey. Today, I’ll give an overview of the main points; in the upcoming articles, I’ll dive into the details.

During last week’s #DCDW event, I delved deeper into how we calculate ROI for car portals at Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center. I used Marktplaats as an example, but this method can also be applied to the other three portals.

The core idea behind assessing ROI is that, as a marketer, I need to determine whether my investments yield the expected return. Suppose I receive 50 leads from platform Y, but my sales team fails to follow up by calling, emailing, or messaging. As a result, they sell very little. Does that mean it’s a poor marketing investment? Or is it a problem in the sales process?

The marketing team provides opportunities, while the sales team is responsible for converting at least 13%. Both departments have their own responsibilities. A “bad” existing lead has a better chance of converting with a solid process than a “good” lead with a poor one.

I’m not a fan of road pricing and don’t understand why we, as the automotive sector, seem to actively ask the government for it. Road pricing first appeared on the radar during the last Rutte cabinet. The plan was to implement it by 2030 as a replacement for vehicle ownership tax. However, the proposal has […]

A vast majority of American voters chose President Donald Trump this week. This might seem like a strange choice to us Europeans, but clearly not for many Americans. Look, I lean clearly to the right in the political spectrum, but I could never bring myself to vote for Donald Trump personally. However, for most of my friends and partners in America, it’s different. They see him as someone who recognizes, addresses, and offers solutions to the ‘kitchen table problems’ of the average citizen, whether those solutions work in practice or not.

In a few weeks, we will once again host our #DCDW Events, this time in Antwerp and Almere. Over ten years ago, we organized our first #DCDW event, naturally at Van der Valk in Almere. Since then, our mission has remained the same: to improve online automotive together! And this mission was born for a clear reason. At Nieuweautokopen.nl, we used to deliver qualified leads to dealers. We were only paid when a dealer sold a car based on our lead. So, there was a strong incentive to help dealers with lead follow-up.