Jun 4, 2021
Brian Free is the Senior Director of Digital E-Commerce at AutoNation, the largest and most reputable automotive retailer in the U.S. Brian started his career at AutoNation in the IT department in 1997. Since then, he’s been part of the original team that launched autonation.com and handled building out the entire SEM and CRM strategies for the company.
Brian has held many positions within the company and now oversees all of its digital presence, which includes over 400 separate websites as well as all of AutoNation's SEO, social media, and lead generation.
In this episode…
A good marketing strategy for a dealership often involves the right combination of SEO and CRM tactics. This has only been further proven by the pandemic, which made dealerships heavily reliant on e-commerce sales to drive business.
Brian Free and his team at AutoNation have been leveraging a ton of different marketing strategies to drive traffic to their 400+ websites. For instance, they use social media and Google to ensure their reputation is intact so they can keep attracting and closing online sales. Since they monitor their brand so closely, they noticed an increased conversion rate during the COVID-19 pandemic period as more customers choose to buy cars online.
Brian Free, the Senior Director of Digital E-Commerce at AutoNation, is Ilana Shabtay's guest in this episode of the InsideAuto Podcast, where they talk about AutoNation's SEO and digital marketing strategies. Brian explains how he got started at AutoNation, how he optimizes the dealership's websites, and talks about some of the challenges faced by the automotive industry.