Nineteen years before Al Gore allegedly created the Internet, Ray Tomlinson sent the world’s first email message (to himself) in 1971. Email predates Windows, Apple, and the entire web itself. Today, marketing email is an essential tool for auto dealers throughout the world. 

Back in early 2018, when Facebook announced its plans to end Partner Categories targeting, no one in the digital marketing world knew what would happen next. But our 9 Clouds team was sure of two things: There certainly would be a good — if not better — solution to make up for the Partner Categories’ absence. We would find it. And we did — for now (since we know the digital world is always on its feet). Thanks to the many recent changes in Facebook Ads Manager, we’ve found an effective and arguably better tool to start taking advantage of in…

It’s on every automotive marketer’s mind: How can I prove — and improve — my ROI? Calculating your return on investment (ROI) helps you determine whether or not your marketing efforts were worth the investment. We all know you have to spend money to make money . . . but how can you spend as little as possible to make as much as possible? In the 2018 State of Automotive Marketing report, we surveyed dealers across the country to learn how they’re using (and measuring) their automotive marketing budgets in 2018. In this post, we cover the current trends in ROI…

A millennial-friendly office culture requires being flexible — and, let’s face it, desktop computers aren’t flexible. So 9 Clouds opts to supply each cloud with their own laptop. Over time, we’ve really made them our own. 

In our office, we don’t play music. We each have a set of headphones that work just fine for jamming out to our favorite tunes . . . which means when I joined the team, I had no idea what kind of music everyone was into. Over time, it’s been fun to discover that Jenny isn’t afraid to join the crowd at a Diplo show, Jaden digs bands like Sylvan Esso, and Allen is a Laura Marling fan (like me). I have to admit, though, a lingering musical love of mine is electronic or dubstep. It helps me focus, and I love a good bass drop. This month, several companies had their…

Face-to-face is the best way to meet, right? Most of us can agree with that, but sometimes a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible or doesn’t make sense because of the location or timing.  Staying productive with a remote workforce is critical to your business. Having the right online video and chat solutions for your business is more important than ever.  For a long time, Google provided Hangouts as a way for employees to easily start chats, make video calls, and share screens for easier collaboration. But now Google has made some big changes to its Hangouts tool by introducing Hangouts Meet and…

Approximately two million blog posts go live on the Internet every day. Sound like a lot?  Some people on Quora say that number might be conservative! That’s pretty crazy! How does everyone on the web come up with so much content day in and day out?  Especially in niche markets, it can feel sometimes like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for web content ideas. But that doesn’t have to be the case. There are so many content opportunities to take advantage of, especially if you happen to work in the auto industry. You just have to be strategic. …

Let’s hop into the DeLorean. I want to take us back to October 1, 1932. We’re at Wrigley Field, watching game three of the World Series. It’s top of the fifth, and Babe Ruth is up to bat. Sports fans in 2018 know what happens next.

Back in March, Facebook announced an end to Partner Categories targeting. While Facebook would still let you import your store’s own data, and while it still offered a wealth of data on its platform for you to use, Facebook no longer wanted to let third-party data providers push Polk data, credit card data, and other consumer information into the social network for advertisers. Of course, this announcement caused some stir in the online marketing world. At 9 Clouds, it has raised questions about where this leaves dealers who have relied on Facebook to get in front of likely car shoppers….

Facebook advertising is incredibly valuable . . . and also incredibly confusing. The platform changes so quickly that it can be hard for auto dealers to keep up. That’s why we’re explaining the most recent changes to Facebook advertising in our next webinar on Thursday, August 16, at 1 p.m. CDT. Join us to catch up on what’s happening with Facebook, specifically Custom Audiences, Partner Categories, and Offline Events.

How about this summer, amirite? If I’m being honest, it’s been hard to enjoy this summer. Between the rain and the extreme heat, it hasn’t exactly been easy to go out and enjoy the weather. Not to go on complaining, but I had the unfortunate experience of flooding in the basement of my new house earlier this summer. And to be frank, it’s been a bitch to deal with. Day in and day out, I manage people’s schedules and to-do lists in addition to my own — but with these unexpected twists and turns in life, it’s been hard to…

You need to change your business’s Facebook name? It happens. It used to be pretty difficult to do that, but with Facebook’s more recent changes, it really takes only about four steps to change your Facebook name and URL.