BuzzTrader.com was a long awaited leap into the automotive market. The site was built almost in desperation trying to find an affordable advertising medium for our car dealers website hosting programs.
For what it would cost to advertise for just a few months we could build out own website and market it. This would give us a full time marketing platform for years to come.
And it worked.
After several months of development we launched buzztrader.com on June 1st 2004. With an advertising budget of about $35,000.00 over the first 3 months we were looking to get the site moving in a forward direction.
Using google ads and other online advertising we were able to bring in over 1000 people a day. Additional mailings of brocheures, postcards and Free T-Shirts went out in the thousands.
An additional network of independant sites was built to support the placement of ads and generate more traffic for advertisers. Some of those sites include http://kadzoom.com, http://marksusedcars.com, http://christiancarsales.com, http://oldcarclassified.com, http://hotcarclassified.com, http://antiquegas.com, http://bobsbarnfinds.com, http://toogoodtojunk.com, http://automotivewarehouses.com, http://sharkyscars.com.
The idea to add more sites and combine the searches into one central database was brilliant. This enabled a small website guy to sell ads at his own website for say $20. In most cases that webmaster would never get $20 on a site with 20 ads. But with thousands of ads, the sales could be made.
The entire network is comprised of smaller lass active sites all contributing to the overall growth of the network.
BuzzTrader.com enjoys a modest 25,000 visitors daily with almost half a million page views each day.
With new dealers signing up daily for website hosting and advertising the site is very profitable and produces a large percentage of our website hosting business.
This site has a huge potential in the free advertising market. With free ads, the only thing holding it back is getting enough cars to sell. With heavy traffic, the ads do sell, so the private ads are removed quickly. The primary base is made of of dealer content and rotating inventory.
The trend has been from classic cars to now a mix of late model and classic cars. More and more dealers are embracing buzztrader as a great opportunity to advertise without spending any money.
A total overhaul in 2007 brings the technology up to date with a database format capable of managing several million ads under heavy traffic. New syndicated web feed that allows any webmaster to add the full classified to their own website.
Additionally, the technology allows any used car dealer to display their own inventory on their own website regardless of where how how it is hosted. This makes buzztrader the only free vehicle management system for car dealer websites.
The new programs launched at buzztrader are giving it a whole new life in an expanding web 2.0 market.
