When was the last time one of your digital vendors offered to go through their traffic’s performance in your Google Analytics?  Never, you say?  

There’s a reason that almost every digital vendor has created their own backend reporting tool.  They want to be able to control which data you see.  Don’t fall for it.  You already have all the data you need to make smart, effective decisions about how and where to spend your digital marketing dollars.

 

Your first order of business should be setting up a View in your Analytics that contains website Goals that are important to you.  Best practices dictate one View that covers only lead conversion actions, such as Contact forms, Click to Call, or Finance forms, and another that covers behavioral interactions, like looking at Hours & Directions, VDP views, and SRP views.  This will enable you to judge the performances of all your vendors using a consistent set of metrics.

 

Once you have all your Goals set up and you have at least one month’s worth of data, you’re ready to start evaluating performance.  Navigate to your main reporting page by clicking Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium.  In the upper right hand corner, choose the date range you’d like to see and click “apply.” Your traffic sources (organic plus vendors) will be listed along the left hand side of the table in descending order based on how many clicks they sent for that time period.  

 

There are multiple metrics that are automatically included on your reporting page, such as Bounce Rate, Time on Site, Pages per Session, and Conversion Rate.  These metrics will help you determine the quality of the traffic that your vendor is sending to your site.

 

The Bounce Rate measures traffic that came to your website but then immediately left without engaging your site at all, so for this metric, the lower, the better.  If you’ve got a vendor whose traffic is bouncing above 50%, it’s time to have a talk with them about better targeting.  If you’ve got a vendor whose traffic is bouncing at 25% or below, youmight have a keeper, depending on how the rest of their metrics stack up.

 

Time on Site and Page per Session are pretty self-explanatory.  Website engagement sells cars, so the longer you can keep a visitor on your site, the higher the chances they’ll convert to a lead.  

 

Possibly the most important quality metric of all is Conversion Rate.  This measures how often traffic on your website completed at least one of the Goals in the View you’re in.  If you’re in a View containing lead form Goals, you’ll have to ability to calculate a rough ROI.

 

First generation leads historically have a closing ratio of between 20% – 40%, so their quality far outshines that of third generation leads, which typically result in a sale at a rate between 5% – 7%.  So how can you use this data to get a program’s ROI?

 

For example, if a program costs $1000/month and your Analytics show that 10 lead forms can be attributed to this source for the month, based on average closing ratios for first generation leads, you can make a conservative estimate that at least 2 cars (20% of 10 leads) were sold as a result of that vendor’s traffic.  Assuming a front end gross of about $2000 per sold vehicle, you are looking at $4000 profit.  Subtracting the $1000 you had to spend on the program, you’re left with a total of $3000 profit, or a 3X ROI.

 

Being the captain of your own Analytics ship might take a little getting used to, but the bounty that awaits you in saved expenditures on junk programs, and increased profitsfrom great programs, will really put the wind in your “sales.”

Some of you are wondering why I left out Facebook. So am I. Realistically though, up until its recent debacle, Facebook has easily been the best social media in which to sell products, and still is at certain price ranges. The issue with Facebook is CPA when it comes to higher priced items with smaller profit margins. If your COGs are under $5 with a selling price of $79 and laden with upsells, you just may sell a bunch of units. Not so with cars. Nevertheless, FB owns Instagram so let’s just overview the two lesser platforms and how they fit into the mix.

 

Twitter

Until 2015, Twitter had been adding approximately 12-15 million accounts per year at a 6% growth in ad revenue (over a half billion each year). It’s growth has reached stasis and has slowed considerably to 3 million per year. 54% of its users are between 18-49 years old, which matches the age demographic of those most-likely to buy a used vehicle. Currently, there are 300 million Twitter users BUT, 79% of Twitter users are outside of the US. There are 67 million Twitter users in the USA.

 

My rub on Twitter is that although it started out mostly as a way to express a quick opinion, thought, or influencer endorsement, it wasn’t visual enough to be engaging. With the addition of a picture or video to a tweet, engagement increases 150%. The biggest holdback to Twitter was the 140 character limit which is now at 280. It allows you to hashtag more effectively and get more exposure syndication faster (to grow your following) which has long been Instagrams magic bullet. The 280 character limit still limits the platform and because of that, I consider it a supplementary social media platform. It’s # 3 on my social media list as it is likely yours.

 

Twitter, the Modern Day Teleptype

Do you have a flash sale? Did the new Camaros come in? Did you just have a dealership anniversary, or have an exciting new promotion to announce? If so, Tweet it out! Those event oriented announcements work well on Twitter. Brands, individuals, and media do well on Twitter when they have breaking news to report. Twitter is more like a modern day teletype that everyone has discriminatory access to. You don’t have to listen to the vapidness of a Kardashian tweet if you don’t want to, but if you’re a car “guy”, you can enjoy exclusive tweets from Drivingsales.com because you have chosen to follow them! Good Twitter engagement rates vary from .09 to .33%. In plain english, that’s 3-10 engagements per 1,000 followers on Twitter. When I get 5+ likes and a few retweets, I feel pretty good about Twitter and its low bar of engagement.

 

Instagram Leads All Social Media in Engagement

Instagram is by far the best platform for engagement. Its frequented mostly by 18-29 year olds who make up the largest demographic, followed by Generation X that consists of 34-54 year olds. It’s noteworthy that most first-time car buyers are actually Gen Xers, not Millennials. 800 million worldwide users attest to it’s addictive gravity. An engagement rate between 3.48% and 6.67% is considered to be high, where an influencer would expect 34.8 – 66.7 reactions for every 1000 followers on Instagram. Additionally, an engagement rate between 6.67% and 100% is considered to be very high, with expected reactions to be between 66.7 – 100 for every 1000 Instagram followers.

 

With the addition of Instagram stories in 2016, another 100 million folks added an account. Instagram saw 28% growth in 2017 which basically mirrored the loss of 2.8 million under 25 yr. old Facebook users who dumped the platform because their parents “ruined it”. Instagram is a highly visual medium which makes it perfect for car dealers. Most dealers use it to post pictures of happy car buyers and inventory. In fact, 91% of all Instagram posts have a photo attached. The speed in which an Instagram post gets a reaction (engagement) is quicker than with Twitter or Facebook, and as mentioned, has a higher engagement rate than either. Here’s why.

 

You Like My Post, I’ll LIke Your Post

Everyone is so darn insecure. The unspoken rule of Instagram is that if I follow you, you should feel inclined to follow me and like my posts. It becomes a popularity contest with each post as users frequently check back to see how many likes or comments each of their posts generates. If a dealership has garnered a bunch of followers, they’re hoping that they’ll get more than 10 likes per “car buyer pic post”. A decent engagement gives the dealer the perception that they’re doing something right and reduces a buyers potential cognitive dissonance. Of course, if the purpose of the post is to congratulate the salesman for being a “sales machine”, it can have the opposite effect.

 

What I Do?

I use Twitter and Instagram to grow my brand visibility. I have 122,000 legit backlinks in just 7 months of incarnation so I know a thing or two about this subject (and others), although I have far more to learn. In fact, if you’re reading this article, feel free to contact me and let’s see how we can collaborate! But I digress, Twitter is the more limited platform to be sure, but I suggest every serious dealer have a regular presence on it for the aforementioned reasons. Instagram is more fun, more visual, more engaging and easier to grow. It has few limits other than length of videos.

 

Are either social platforms going to sell cars? Incrementally speaking, “eh”. Neither Twitter nor Instagram are going to blow inventory out by themselves. Creating a post a day for either platform is just fine as long as they aren’t all ads. Make the posts compelling or humorous or both. If advertising an event, double down on creativity and cover all the angles. When all is said and done, it’s the preponderance of visibility and good reviews that’s going to increase any dealerships sales. Should you have a Twitter or Instagram? I hope this article helped as you sit there scratching your head.

 

“Automotive News Car Dealerships Can Really Use”

 

What sets DealerLeads apart from all other vendors in automotive marketing is a massive 350 site-strong syndication network of behaviorally targeted classified sites that drive large volumes of traffic and leads directly to a client’s websites OR rings their phones. There is no sharing of leads, all leads are 1st generation and in the form of organic traffic routed to the dealer’s very own VDPs. It’s truly a revolutionary approach based on Google Best Practices, search engine queries and then applying that data to build the perfect network of classified listing sites such as www.bestpriceusedcars.com www.localusedcardealers.com www.cardealersforbadcredit.com and hundreds more. The reason this model can’t be reproduced easily is because the company actually owns over 3,000 such search-term based domains. No one else does. The traffic is organic, contains great 1st generation leads and is driven to each individual dealer whose inventory is perused and hopefully, clicked.

 

Is it Affordable?

It’s an affordable solution that works far better and more cost-effectively than any lead gen system we know of. Who wouldn’t want their inventory on as many highly trafficked sites as possible with the sole purpose of selling cars at a much faster clip? Listing sites can tend to get pricey and the transparency can be not so clear. We’ve found that a majority of used car dealers aren’t exactly sure what their ROI is with the bigger more expensive listing sites that will go unmentioned in this blog.

 

Keeping up With Buyers Shopping Habits

Generally speaking, DealerLeads is a great way for dealers to increase online traffic, generate more leads, improve conversion ratios, and increase sales through proper and effective dealership SEO and SEM. Search engine optimization is the key to sustaining a successful business in today’s online world. The bulk of dealership shopping today is done online, as this is where the majority of prospective buyers begin searching for their next vehicle. With the majority of consumers relying on the Internet for pertinent car buying information no dealer can afford to be without a well-developed and well-executed SEO and supporting PPC plan. The better your dealership’s website layout, social media presence, keyword lists, content, and online reputation the more online traffic you will receive, the greater your conversion opportunities will be, and the more sales you will ultimately make.

 

Kelly Kleinman