You want to sell more cars. You’re confident you’ve covered all the bases – radio, TV, print, digital, and a well-stocked lot that dazzles like a bicentennial celebration. But you’re not selling more cars. Where are you going wrong? Who holds the elusive last piece to your selling puzzle? The short answer? Google.
Google automatically records a huge variety of data on every click that makes it to your website. But which data is helpful in targeting potential buyers, and where can you find it?
CITIES – Let’s say you want to send out some promotional mailers. Knowing how to find the data that will tell you exactly where your engaged and high-converting traffic is coming from will give you the ability to microtarget your advertising efforts like never before.
The most representative source of traffic to your website is Google Organic. Navigate to your main reporting page in your Analytics. (Acquisition > All Traffic > Source Medium) Ideally you should use a View that is already set up with some Goals that matter to you. Lead form submission Goals are an especially valuable metric. If you’re not sure how to set up Goals, reach out to your high performing vendors. Many offer free Goal setup. Single out Google’s traffic by clicking on their name. Just above the first column is a drop-down menu called, “Secondary Dimension.”
Secondary Dimension is your new best friend!
Suppose you want your mailer to cover towns A, B, C, and D which encircle your dealership. Before you spend that money, take a peek into your Analytics. You may find that cities B and C are your highest converters, whereas A and D are not even a blip on your radar screen. Using this data, you can save 50% on the cost of those mailers by only sending them to the cities that have shoppers who are more likely to engage your site and fill out a lead form. Another option would be to spend the whole amount and double up on coverage in the high-converting cities.
To find this data, click on Secondary Dimension and in the search box type “City.” When you see “City” as an option, click on it. Your Google Organic traffic is now displayed using the areas from where the clicks originated, in descending order by volume. You can rate the quality of the traffic using whatever metrics or KPIs are most important to you – time on site, pages per session, bounce rate, conversion rate, etc.
Utilizing this data will keep you from spending your precious marketing dollars in areas that aren’t interested in what you have to offer. You may even discover a high-converting city that you had never considered marketing to before. Bonus!
MOBILE – Let’s say you want to run a contest and are not sure what to offer as a prize. Continuing with your Google Organic traffic, use your new best friend Secondary Dimension, and choose “Mobile device branding.” This gives you insight into the brands of mobile devices visitors are using. If you know that most of your visitors come to your website using Apple products, you wouldn’t run a contest to win a new Samsung tablet.
You can also check on how much of your traffic is utilizing a mobile device to visit your site. Use the Secondary Dimension “Mobile (including tablet).” Your sessions are now split out between visitor who came in on mobile, and visitors who came in on desktop. Most dealerships have approximately 50% – 75% (sometimes more) of their traffic coming from mobile devices.
This information is especially helpful for website design, i.e. making sure that your website is mobile responsive. You wouldn’t want to miss out on bringing your message to all those mobile shoppers!
DATES – Let’s say you need to decide when to run some online ads. Secondary Dimension can show you how your traffic behaves during various times of the month, week, or day, so that you can get maximum visibility on your ad.
Tell your new best friend Secondary Dimension that you want to know what time of day most visitors come to your site by choosing “Hour of day.” Data is presented in the following format: year month day hour (24 -hour military clock), so an entry of “2018060513” means June 5, 2018 at 1:00pm.
A Secondary Dimension of “Day of the month” will show you which days are the most heavily traveled. This data set is very straightforward, with numbers exactly representing the days of a month.
Lastly, a Secondary Dimension of “Day of week” can be useful as well. A “0” indicates Sunday, “1” is Monday, and so on.
With this data, you might discover that you get most of your traffic on weekends in mid-month between 8:00am and 12:00pm. You can now get the most out of your advertising dollars by concentrating your ads when you know they are most likely to be seen, and pulling back during times when traffic is not as heavy.
As Einstein once said, “Know where to find the information and know how to use it – that’s the secret of success.” With your trusty new best friend Secondary Dimension at your side, you are now armed with a multitude of ways to ensure that you are spending your limited financial resources effectively. Use these tools to go after the customers who are most likely to seal the deal and drive off in one of your shiny new bonuses, I mean, beauties.
