- Oct 29, 2009
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Guys and Girls,
I've been thinking about different ways to measure the 3rd party online vendors and classified sites I'm associated with outside of direct referrals, leads from their websites and call tracking phone numbers on their sites. I would like to measure the Online Marketing Assist that these vendors provide me. For those of you who don't understand what I'm talking about, here's an example.
Customer comes into the market for a vehicle (Great). Customer does some research and goes to AT, Cars, ect.. and see's one of my vehicles in the SRP's or VDP's on one or both of these sites. 2,3 or 5 days later or could be the same day, the customer turns to google (or any other search engine or directly types in the url in their address bar) and types in my dealership name or website address. See's my PPC campaign and clicks it or clicks in the organic result. Either way the customer gets to my website. The 3rd party vendor is the online marketing assist here but currently we don't measure the marketing assist the 3rd vendor provided us. We can see reports for SRP's, VDP's, phone and email leads but not the online marketing assist that was provided way up stream. There was a conversion that happened on the 3rd party site. The customer did make their way to the dealership site. It wasn't a direct referral or a phone / email lead. But, there was a conversion. That's what I want to see and measure. If you check any of your analytics / reporting. Chances are your number one search term is a branded term (Dealership Name or Dealership name and make). Part of the reason it is branded terms is because the customer saw your listing on a 3rd party site and searched your branded term to get to your website.
We all think / know these vendors do provide some sort of online marketing assist but we are not currently measuring it (at least I don't know of anyone who is). We are measuring SRP's / VDP's, Direct Referrals, etc... If you talk to any of the big classified vendors, they're going to say alot of the traffic they provide your dealership is walk-in traffic. I would be willing to bet (BTW I'm not a betting man) alot the visitors on those sites do visit the dealers websites that have the vehicles they're interested in prior to visiting that specific dealership.
I want to figure out a way to measure this marketing assist that was provided by the 3rd party. I have some ideas on how to do this.
1) Build a script to check for the 3rd party sites cookies that was placed on the visitors PC.
If the 3rd party site cooperates with this experiment, maybe place vehicle info in the cookie. Look for that data and try to match it to vehicles that were viewed on my website. That data then gets pumped into my GA account.
2)If the customer submits a lead on my website, Place a conversion tracking tag on the /thank-you.htm page that will fire if the cookie is found on the visitors PC from that specific 3rd party site and pump that into GA as well. That way I can measure if the Marketing Assist provided me a lead.
3)Add a piece of JS to change out the call tracking phone numbers if the cookie is found on the visitors PC to a call tracking number we can use to include in the reporting for the marketing assist report in GA and know if the Marketing Assist provided a phone call for me.
I was thinking about including a time frame as well. If the cookie is less than 2 weeks old then do the above process else skip it.
These are just a few ideas that I was thinking about implementing. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.
Are any of you guys currently tracking your online marketing assist from your online vendors outside of direct referrals?
I've been thinking about different ways to measure the 3rd party online vendors and classified sites I'm associated with outside of direct referrals, leads from their websites and call tracking phone numbers on their sites. I would like to measure the Online Marketing Assist that these vendors provide me. For those of you who don't understand what I'm talking about, here's an example.
Customer comes into the market for a vehicle (Great). Customer does some research and goes to AT, Cars, ect.. and see's one of my vehicles in the SRP's or VDP's on one or both of these sites. 2,3 or 5 days later or could be the same day, the customer turns to google (or any other search engine or directly types in the url in their address bar) and types in my dealership name or website address. See's my PPC campaign and clicks it or clicks in the organic result. Either way the customer gets to my website. The 3rd party vendor is the online marketing assist here but currently we don't measure the marketing assist the 3rd vendor provided us. We can see reports for SRP's, VDP's, phone and email leads but not the online marketing assist that was provided way up stream. There was a conversion that happened on the 3rd party site. The customer did make their way to the dealership site. It wasn't a direct referral or a phone / email lead. But, there was a conversion. That's what I want to see and measure. If you check any of your analytics / reporting. Chances are your number one search term is a branded term (Dealership Name or Dealership name and make). Part of the reason it is branded terms is because the customer saw your listing on a 3rd party site and searched your branded term to get to your website.
We all think / know these vendors do provide some sort of online marketing assist but we are not currently measuring it (at least I don't know of anyone who is). We are measuring SRP's / VDP's, Direct Referrals, etc... If you talk to any of the big classified vendors, they're going to say alot of the traffic they provide your dealership is walk-in traffic. I would be willing to bet (BTW I'm not a betting man) alot the visitors on those sites do visit the dealers websites that have the vehicles they're interested in prior to visiting that specific dealership.
I want to figure out a way to measure this marketing assist that was provided by the 3rd party. I have some ideas on how to do this.
1) Build a script to check for the 3rd party sites cookies that was placed on the visitors PC.
If the 3rd party site cooperates with this experiment, maybe place vehicle info in the cookie. Look for that data and try to match it to vehicles that were viewed on my website. That data then gets pumped into my GA account.
2)If the customer submits a lead on my website, Place a conversion tracking tag on the /thank-you.htm page that will fire if the cookie is found on the visitors PC from that specific 3rd party site and pump that into GA as well. That way I can measure if the Marketing Assist provided me a lead.
3)Add a piece of JS to change out the call tracking phone numbers if the cookie is found on the visitors PC to a call tracking number we can use to include in the reporting for the marketing assist report in GA and know if the Marketing Assist provided a phone call for me.
I was thinking about including a time frame as well. If the cookie is less than 2 weeks old then do the above process else skip it.
These are just a few ideas that I was thinking about implementing. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.
Are any of you guys currently tracking your online marketing assist from your online vendors outside of direct referrals?
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