Earlier this month, automotive marketers discussed best practices.

Consumers today use the internet to research products from Audis to Zanax. In the case of automobiles, nine million people will access the net when making a vehicle decision. And although the purchase cycle for a car versus a prescription versus, say, an item of clothing, may be quite different, general marketing principles apply.

Two sessions at J.D. Powers' Automotive Internet Roundtable held November 1 through 3 in Las Vegas focused on site design -- one geared toward dealers and one toward OEMs. The observations shared by marketers and agencies may guide others.

For example, the dealer panel identified the most important features sites need as up-to-date inventory with price and picture, clear and easy navigation for the consumer, and user friendliness -- definitely universal traits.

If the marketer is a dealer or franchise with parameters dictated from a corporate entity, panelists said it's important to have a balance; upholding the corporate brand but also displaying your own brand to differentiate yourself from other dealers or retailers.

The panel also discussed common mistakes dealers make with the design of their sites. Among them: relying too much on Flash, not treating the site as an integral part of the business, wanting too much on the site and not being able to keep it updated, and not keeping up with the concept of easy navigation.

Similarly, the panel focused on OEM site design examined what's missing from OEM sites.

Stephen Shelton, technical lead for Animated Design (Kia) said the customer is missing. "There's very little attention paid to what the consumers are looking for," he said. "Even the most gifted design team can miss the boat with a large number of consumers."

Indeed, moderator Sam Thanawalla, senior analyst/consultant with JD Powers and Associates, started off the session by pointing out that consumers' expectations are changing, and raising the bar as a result.

Shelton expanded on that sentiment by saying that with the proliferation of such things as blogs, consumers will come to expect being able to manage content on all sites.

Mike Murphy, chief executive officer of InQuira, Inc. added that it's the dialogue with the customer that's specifically missing. The challenge, he said, is to try to get the full intent of their questions, beyond keywords. "If you can better understand their objectives, you can make the right information available at the right time based on intent," he said.

In a podcast after the session, Murphy shared additional insight, communicating the value of providing a tool on your site to solicit questions from consumers. "This lends an understanding of what's most important to the consumer during the buying process based on particular demographics," he said. For example, after another OEM introduced a campaign about the integration of the iPod, more than 2,000 questions came into his client's inquiry tool over the weekend about iPod integration. "That gave the client insight they might not have garnered until six months down the road otherwise," he said. "This real-time feedback from consumers is becoming critical for product managers as they think about content and design strategy."

The panelists agreed you have to strike a balance between look and information, although they also said you can't have too much information. The key is to deliver it in appropriate ways and times by segmenting information into small chunks, and offering it up when the person indicates interest in that topic. For example, on an auto site, rather than listing all of a car's features on the home page, they are displayed as a consumer clicks on different sections of the vehicle.

Another tip is to help the consumer filter the information. On many auto manufacturer sites, consumers have the ability to build their own cars, choosing among a myriad of options. The problem is -- too many options. Andy Price, technical lead for Trilogy, suggests smart guides as a solution, providing consumers with a list of the most popular configurations, for example. This can be compared to a clothing site offering up blouses, skirts and shoes frequently purchased together as an outfit, or a furniture site displaying furniture in an actual room setting.

Price added that marketers should extend the reach of some of their tools, like finance calculators or auto configuration tools for example, by including them in banner ads on third-party sites.

In the after-session podcast, Price lamented how sites are grossly underutilizing data. "The biggest opportunity for marketers with their sites is not branding, not using it as a sales tool, but what they can do with data," he said. Millions of potential buyers visit these sites, leaving behind a wealth of information. Just by using data to determine how many of the 10,000 SUVs being ordered should come with DVD players can result in an upsell of $100 per unit. "That's real money," he said, commenting that we've only begun to scratch the surface in what can be cultivated and how.

Another topic discussed on the OEM panel was multicultural marketing. One panelist brought up that the information sought from the site doesn't differ much between ethnic groups, but how you market to them in the first place to get them there does. Panelists debated using search tools in different languages, pointing out that in Canada, marketers are required to provide the same information in English and French.

A final note from the panel was that as emerging platforms mature, offline devices are going to need to have the same capabilities as the web, so marketers will need to serve up the right type of information to a variety of delivery options.

Dawn Anfuso is senior editor, iMedia Connection.