I guess to me (keep in mind, I'm only speaking for myself here) It feels like a misdirect, kinda. Right now, the majority of vendors in the automotive segment are researching ways to provide a attribution model of some sorts if they don't have one or maybe tweak the one they are currently providing the dealer simply because the keyword "Attribution" is floating around the entire automotive segment right now. Attribution is important. It's very important. But, there's so many other things that are more important than attribution right now that are very, very tangible.
When I look at the focus thats been turned to digital over the past 7 - 8 years, it's been freaking MASSIVE!!! Then I look at and try to compare these items on a improvement gauge. On one gauge you have website applications, dashboards, social, chat, etc!! In short terms "Products" for the dealer to purchase and what the "Industry Experts" say is important. On the other gauge you have internal items like, lead handling, phone skills, appt setting skills, employee turnover, training, etc. I don't know what to label that guage. Lets just short label it STM ($hit that Matters)
Over the same timeframe, If you had the two improvement gauges side by side and compare where they were previously to now, the Products gauge would basically be almost maxed out compared to the STM gauge that would have barely moved over the same timeframe. Dealers are still struggling with internal lead handing. Dealers are still sucking to the high heavens when it comes to phone skills and setting appt's. Employee turnover is still through the F'ing roof!! (FYI - I know employee turnover isn't a vendors fault.) At the end of the day, dealers are being told to focus on this or, focus on that. When the things that actually pay the bills are being completely ignored!! Ignored is a little strong! Skimmed over is a better phrase.
The Misdirect to me goes like this.
"Here's your dashboard Mr. Dealer! This customer here was on website A, B, and E then clicked your paid search ad. Called and Came in and purchase a car! Congratulations."
Mean while, the rep that sold that car, sucks on the phone and has a horrible way they handle their Inet leads and lost 8 or 9 other deals because he sucks at those things because of the lack of training and accountability (skimmed over).
If vendors partnered with the website companies and the CRM companies, the rep for that vendor could provide a attribution report and show the dealer but, that rep could also show the dealer that his sales rep really needs to be trained in a serious way. The vendor could also show a sold report on the leads they provided the dealer and a lost sold report (Leads that was delivered to that dealer but another dealer sold the customer) if the connection between the various vendors was built. Right now, it's not. It's very sporadic if any at all.
I guess to kinda sum up this weird train of though:
Having a new dashboard is awesome and being able to track a cusotmer back to the time they were born on the internet (thats a joke) is great. The MASSIVE hemorrhage of leads that was there 6 -7 years ago is still there today and from what I can tell, isn't going away soon!! I'm not only talking about sales!! I talking about all the profit areas of the dealership!! There's still a massive hemorrhage!
The things you focus on tend to improve and grow for the most part in the right direction. It seems like for the last longest we have been focused on the apps, widgets and dashboards. The things that really matter where the rubber hits the road has kinda fell to the way side. Developing sales people, Developing managers and leaders. And vendors actually having strong metric tracking tools to help the dealers to strengthen those key points like phone skills, lead handing and actually having data that was tangible. And by tangible, I don't mean VDP views!!!
To me and I think most dealers would agree, people are any dealerships most important asset. It seems like with every new and shinny digital object that has come out every year, the focus on that primary asset is less and less.
I apologize if I've gotten off of the subject that the thread was originally about. I'm simply trying to convey that while attribution is very important and it's awesome that the technology is there now, there's items thats just as important that's being neglected. I know there's alot of vendors in here that read the post. A question I pose to you is, when was the last time you visited your dealers?? Did you meet with only the Manager or did you actually meet with the boots on the ground and explain your product to them? Did you actually sit down and make some phone calls to the leads with them?? Maybe explain the experience a visitor has when they visit your website?? What a customer actually see's when they visit your website?? You kinda know where I'm going with this! I'm talking about becoming more of a partner with the dealer, instead of simply another vendor with a new dashboard.