Blog

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.

I recently attended the Automotive Magazine marketing event in Rotterdam. I go to events often, but this gathering particularly caught my interest. I was curious to see what new marketing developments were happening in automotive. Perhaps because of the rise of AI, I was a bit too enthusiastic… Sure, the advancements in tools like AutoChat […]

Why You Shouldn’t Send Bulk Leads… What kind of leads did you say? Bulk leads, meaning a large quantity of leads that the dealer has to follow up on, but they all come in at the same time. These are bulk leads. What’s going on? Last month, I visited an importer of a European brand […]

Digital Dealer Conference & Expo in Las Vegas

Over the next few days, I will be attending the Digital Dealer Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. I know, it’s no hardship to be there, and this time I’m even speaking for the second time, and on the main stage no less! It’s a huge honor to be at the heart of the online automotive industry and to contribute to it.

My presentation is about selling our microcars and city cars via TikTok and why we have chosen an ‘online first, offline second’ experience. This approach wasn’t chosen out of convenience but because it’s the only way to launch a new dealership like Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center without an existing customer base, history, or anything like that. Online, you can ‘easily’ find and attract potential customers.