analytics Tag

Auto dealers utilize dozens (OK, probably hundreds) of vendors in order to operate.  From their DMS, CRM, web provider and digital vendor, to their advertiser, lead provider and vehicle image database – the list goes on and on. One of the more difficult tasks to accomplish is measuring the success of any given vendor. When I was on the retail side, my web provider would tout, “Look at all the sales calls that came from the website.” They would measure this by how many times people dialed the ‘sales’ phone number, but 80% of those calls were NOT fresh phone-ups or even...

08 August, 2016

Recently there has been so much chatter around the automotive industry about the effectiveness of email marketing.  There are dozens of email vendors and even more agencies reselling those same products as a white label offering.  I’ve seen companies guaranteeing X number of sales per month, huge increases in traffic, and while all this sounds amazing, the fact is – most of the results they claim are either not incremental or smoke and mirrors; looking at your data and finding tenuous matches at best, which they try to take credit for.  Quick Story: Most email vendors request dealer’s sales data each month to...

22 June, 2016

Your DMS is one place to look, but not the ONLY place! New vehicle sales national growth is predicted to level off in the near future (we are seeing it as EARLY is May 2016!).  This means that the natural growth that dealerships have enjoyed over the last 5 or 6 years will also fade.  This begs the question – how can I continue my store’s sales growth amid a cooling market? The answer is conquest!  Buyers who’ve NEVER purchased at your dealership before, and maybe haven’t even looked at your BRAND in the past. As ALL manufacturers step up their games –...

27 May, 2016

I had an interesting conversation with a client today regarding attribution of sales in regards to marketing efforts. We all know dealerships want to attribute sales to a marketing effort in order to determine a return on their marketing investment. I do feel based on KPI's and sales reports dealers can get an idea of whether or not a marketing campaign is providing a "healthy," return, or if it simply is not working for them. My definition of ROI is simple, as I learned studying Finance in college, divide your net profit by your net assets, and you have your return....

18 February, 2016

Having the right expectations is critical when launching a new digital marketing campaign at your dealership. As most General Managers, e-commerce directors, and BDC directors know, they need to use Google Analytics in order to analyze the traffic to their website. But does Google Analytics tell the full story? It is critical when analyzing digital marketing that you look at more than just the cost per click, the time spent on your site from the clicks, and the bounce rate. How many total eyeballs were there on one of the ads delivered? How many people opened your email? How many people...

25 January, 2016