No FAQPage schema on any VDP
378 inventory pages with FAQ content, zero of them marked up with FAQPage JSON-LD. ChatGPT and Perplexity couldn't extract any of it.
Estimated cost: 180+ AI citations/mo lost.
PILOT 01 · FORD · DALLAS, TX
Zee Motors
From buried in Google to cited by ChatGPT — in 12 days.
Audit score
67 → 94
+27 points in 90 days
AI citations / mo
11 → 392
across 4 engines
Cost-per-sold
−22%
same total ad spend
Migration time
12 days
kickoff → public launch
Who is Zee Motors at a glance?
Dealership
Zee Motors
OEM
Ford
Location
Dallas, TX
Years operating
22
Monthly sales
~150
Active VINs
~80
BDC size
4 people
DMS
CDK Global
THE CHALLENGE
What was broken at Zee Motors?
Before kickoff, we ran the 47-point AEO audit on zee-motors.com. Score: 67/100 · C+. Below: the five highest-impact failures the audit surfaced — and what each was costing the dealership.
Phone CTA below fold on 89% of VDPs
Click-to-call lived in a footer accordion. Mobile shoppers fell off before ever seeing the number. 3.2x more mobile users would call than form-fill if the option were visible.
Industry data: Above-fold phone lifts lead-to-sold 24%.
Vehicle schema missing bodyType on 34 pages
Older inventory (2017 and back) had Schema/Vehicle but no bodyType field. Google's rich-result eligibility is binary — missing required = excluded entirely.
Direct cost: rich-result exclusion across affected SKUs.
Core Web Vitals failing on mobile inventory
4.8 MB hero images served unoptimized. LCP at 3.4s — well past Google's "Poor" threshold. Mobile shoppers were leaving before the page even rendered.
Bounce rate impact: +14 points on mobile inventory.
Lead response averaging 4.2 hours
4-person BDC, but with overnight and weekend gaps. First-touch response was the single biggest leak in the funnel — 72% of leads arrived outside coverage hours.
Industry data: Sub-5min response triples conversion.
ROLLOUT
How long did the rollout take?
We don't do six-month migrations. Below is the actual timeline from the day Zee Motors signed to the day their new operating system went public.
Migration timeline
Day 0
Kickoff
Kickoff call · audit walkthrough
90-min Zoom with Zee's GM, marketing lead, and BDC manager. We walked through every finding from the 67/100 audit. Priority order chosen: lead response first, schema second, conversion path third.
3 stakeholders aligned
Days 1–3
URL mapping
Full URL inventory + 301 redirect map
412 existing pages catalogued. Slug-by-slug mapping to new Website Engine page types. Zero ranking risk — every existing URL either kept its path or got a 301 to the equivalent new page.
412 URLs · 0 lost rankings
Days 4–7
Content migration
Inventory import + FAQ generation
Full CDK feed imported to AutoLink. 80 active VINs mapped. FAQ blocks auto-generated from spec data + dealer voice samples. Every VDP got 6 question-form Q/A pairs with matching FAQPage schema.
80 VINs · 480 new FAQs
Days 8–9
Schema + GSC
Schema validation + Google Search Console resubmission
Every page validated against Google Rich Results Test. AutoDealer + Vehicle + Offer + FAQPage all clean. Sitemap rebuilt and resubmitted. Yandex + Bing same day.
99.97% schema pass rate
Days 10–11
QA + soft launch
Internal QA on staging · soft launch to staff
BDC team trained on Vehicle Marketing Multiplier's assisted mode. Test leads ran through entire flow. Phone CTAs verified above-fold on 100% of VDPs. Performance verified on real mobile devices.
LCP dropped 3.4s → 1.9s
Day 12
Public launch
DNS flip · Vehicle Marketing Multiplier goes live
DNS cutover at 6 AM Central. Vehicle Marketing Multiplier enabled with assisted mode (BDC reviews every draft before sending). First ChatGPT citation verified the same day — F-150 XLT query.
Live in 12 days flat
WHAT WE BUILT
What got built for Zee Motors?
Zee Motors runs the full DealersGear stack — AutoLink as the central workspace, Website Engine rendering the public site from it, and Vehicle Marketing Multiplier acting on the data automatically. Below: what each system specifically does for them.
AutoLink
The central workspace
CDK feed + Cars.com + AutoTrader + Facebook Marketplace inventory syndication. Leads from web, Google Lead Ads, Meta Lead Ads, and call tracking all aggregated. 1.8s median latency from event to dashboard.
- Inventory: 80 VINs, syndicated to 6 channels
- Leads: 312/week aggregated across all sources
- Attribution: full ad-click → sold chain
Website Engine
The rendering layer
All 412 pages generated from AutoLink data. DRIVE layout (light, blue accents) selected to match Zee's existing brand. Phone CTA elevated to hero on every VDP. FAQPage schema attached to every inventory and model page.
- Layout: DRIVE (clean, modern, mass-market)
- Page types: VDP, SRP, MDL, CMP, LOC, FAQ, ABT
- Avg. rebuild time: 2.1s per page
Vehicle Marketing Multiplier
The activation layer
Lead response in assisted mode (days 1–42), then autonomous for first-touch (day 42 onward). Spend optimization across Google Ads + Meta. Weekly LLM probes across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude.
- Decisions / day: 87 avg
- Reversal rate: 1.8% of decisions
- Avg. confidence on decisions: 94%
THE RESULTS
What results did Zee Motors see after 90 days?
Every metric below is sourced from a verifiable system — SEMrush, CDK, Google Ads API, Meta API, weekly LLM probes. Zee Motors gets a copy of the same source data.
AI citations / month
Day 0
Day 12
Day 21
Day 30
Day 45
Day 60
Day 75
Day 82
Day 90
Audit score
67 → 94+27
Re-audited at day 90 against the same 47-point criteria.
Top-3 Google placement
+38%
SEMrush-tracked inventory queries, Dallas metro.
ChatGPT citations / mo
187from 4
Largest share of AI citations. Probe-verified weekly.
Median lead response
1m 47swas 4.2h
First touch on every channel, 24/7.
Cost-per-sold
−22%
Same total ad spend, more sold vehicles.
Mobile LCP
1.9swas 3.4s
Below Google's "Good" threshold of 2.5s.
FROM THE TEAM
What does Marcus Reyes say about the work?
"I'd seen dealer site migrations before — six months of pain, every URL changed, every ranking reset. Twelve days, no ranking loss, and we started getting ChatGPT citations the same week. That's not normal."
Marcus Reyes · General Manager
Zee Motors · 18 years in retail auto
"The lead response engine is the thing. We had a four-person BDC trying to cover 18 hours a day. Now we cover 24, and the first touch is faster than my best person on her best day. The team is doing actual selling instead of triage."
BDC Manager
Zee Motors · 7 years at the store
"I used to get monthly reports that were charts I couldn't read. The Vehicle Marketing Multiplier weekly hits my inbox Monday at 8 and I'm done reading it by 8:02. It tells me what to do next in plain English."
Marketing Lead
Zee Motors · in-house since 2022
WHAT'S NEXT FOR ZEE
Day 91 and onward.
The 90-day window closed. Zee Motors is still on the platform, still iterating. Below is what's queued for the next 90.
WANT THE SAME PATH?
Audit first. Decide second.
Drop in your domain and run the same 47-point audit Zee Motors ran on day 0. You'll know your score, your top failures, and your roadmap in under 60 seconds. No card, no call required.