Auto dealers often have a pretty grim view of internet customers when it comes to new cars as they are usually price shopping and want to pay $50 over invoice for a $30,000 car. It's the classic 'low gross, high grief' scenario.
With used cars it's a different story and Autotrader is the big player in this ball game, but every store will have an internet manager that handles updating the used inventory on Autotrader and maybe putting it on Craigslist as well as handling the new car leads which come mainly from the manufacturers website and pay per lead deals like Autobytel.
Probably the best way to approach a car dealer will be with some sort of reputation management solution, but prepare yourself for a lot of work as these guys get a ton of bad reviews.
The good news is that sales managers are usually pretty easy to reach by phone, they love to spend money and they usually have a budget. Also, with review management you are less likely to be palmed off with the internet manager who is usually just a salesperson that gets the internet leads in exchange for doing all of the updating work and dealing with the 'email me your best 'out the door' price brigade.
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A good reflection of how the auto business views the internet is Autobytel. They are the biggest lead generator out there and have been around since 1995 (Superbowl commercials etc).
Their third quarter profit was $500K, which is about what a decent single franchise stand alone dealer would expect to make. So obviously dealers are not willing to pay big money for these leads yet they will happily pay $40K each month on print ads.
It's like Groupon. Everybody was excited at first, then they realized that they weren't making any money.
