Alex Melen is the co-founder and CEO of SmartSites, a 400+ person digital marketing agency, and the author of Automotive Search Marketing: A Car Dealer's Guide to Google & AI Search. He has given more than 100 talks across 12 countries on where search, advertising, and AI are heading.
Next: Technology for Marketing 2026, Sep 23, 2026 · ExCeL London, UK
How ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews decide which brands to recommend, and what to change on your site, your content, and your ads so you show up when buyers ask AI what to buy.
A practical tour of how a 400-person agency actually uses AI day to day: where it saves real hours, where it fails, and how to roll it out without wrecking quality or brand voice.
Drawn from the book. Where dealership marketing budgets leak, how to win the searches that actually produce buyers, and how vehicle listing ads and AI search are rewriting the playbook for franchise and independent dealers.
The unglamorous decisions behind growing SmartSites from two brothers to 400+ people: hiring, pricing, retention, reputation, and what still works when everyone else is chasing the next channel.
Second Edition · 2026
A Car Dealer's Guide to Google & AI Search
The only book written for dealers about how buyers actually find cars online, updated for a world where the first place many shoppers ask is ChatGPT.
The second edition adds an entirely new Part 3 on AI search: how generative engines pick which dealers to recommend, how to run ads inside ChatGPT and other AI platforms, and how to measure AI-driven traffic and leads that your current reporting probably isn't catching.
Dealer groups and conferences: ask about bulk orders and signed copies for attendees.We were lucky to catch up with Alex Melen recently and have shared our conversation below.
ReadWe caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Melen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alex Melen shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Keynotes, breakouts, and workshops on AI search, digital marketing, and scaling a business. Tell him about your audience and he will come back with a talk built for the room.