AMEN, and agree 100%. Don't let your focus be internet leads.... that is the way of the dark side.
Internet leads are not our focus. Getting people in the door is our focus. That's how we sell cars.
Can too many Vehicle Photos be a bad thing?
- Thread starter Jeff Kershner
- Start date
AMEN, and agree 100%. Don't let your focus be internet leads.... that is the way of the dark side.
Internet leads are not our focus. Getting people in the door is our focus. That's how we sell cars.
They would never do that - it would kill the basis of their business model - as VAST doesn't sell cars - they sell leads.
I see them with the following statement: It is not our fault if you dealers can't close leads, look at your sales process, look at how you handle the leads, you call them, don't call them, don't call them - send an email, you need a BDC.......
- May 1, 2005
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I started this thread because 4 years ago, I had a brain storm of an idea - to reduce the number of photos attached to my used car inventory being sent to our subscribed marketplace websites to increase targeted website traffic. I wished that I had been around to further execute and tweak the idea. I had just shy of 3 months to track performance before I accepted a position elsewhere.
Here was the plan:
Less Photos of used car inventory being sent to 3rd party listing sites (autotrader, cars.com etc) with more focus on interior and features
1-2 primary exterior photos with 2-3 exterior feature photos (premium wheels, tow package, etc)
1-2 primary interior photos with 3-4 interior feature photos (media display w/ features, heated seats, leather, etc)
Total 9-12 vehicle photos all together.
Out image overlay branded the dealer but more importantly, I made use of the image overlay for 2 main purposes - 2 call to actions.
1. For more photos, find this vehicle on our website, www....
2. While you're there, get your $25.00 gift card (for test drive)
I wasn't worried about, nor even thinking about increasing form leads. Most form leads from marketplace sites are less than desirable anyways. At the time I was going after getting the shopper OFF the listing site and over to my dealership website - where I had more information (on that specific vehicle), more photos, my dealers reputation, MY dealers selection of inventory with more points of conversion - the place where a shopper tends to make a decision on visiting the dealership. Once on my website, my focused point of form conversion was the AutoHook lead form, incentivizing the customer to COME IN for a test drive.
Like I said, I didn't get the opportunity to fully see The plan through. Once I left, the dealer went in a different direction. But tracking what I was able to track during the 2+ months:
1. Slight increase in form leads from the listing sites - volume, not necessarily quality.
2. Slight increase in phone calls from the listing sites - "does the car have this or that" type of calls.
3. Increase in referral traffic from the corresponding listing site - direct and indirect (I had dataium tracking installed but this was prior to their partnership with Cars and ATC - it would have been nice to have seen clearer attribution)
4. Increase in AutoHook conversion / incentive form
5. Increase in phone calls from dealer site VDP (dynamic call number tracking)
The increase in 3 was 10-15%. 4 and 5 was 15-20%.
Those where the "trends" I was witnessing for the 2 months I was able to track. We did happen to have 2 very strong corresponding months. The important variable here is the call to action within your listings of less photos. I started off with utilizing the overlay and mid term added a default image to each vehicle, re-enforcing to find the vehicle in our dealer website and to get your $25.00 GC for test drive.
What I was not able to track was any performance sway in walk-in traffic from the listing sites (duh). However, I do believe by providing more photos on a listing website would result in increased "walk-in" traffic, or as Alex calls it "visitation decision based on the photos".
I really wish that I had been able to see this all the way through for a few more months to get a more clear conclusion. In NO WAY take this this plan here to the bank. The testing of this idea was incomplete and not in quite the controlled environment long enough to make a solid conclusion on.
This explains why when I read this statistic from Vast, I had an Ahh-ha moment and wondering if what I was seeing/trending could have had merit.
- May 7, 2015
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- Kim
This is great discussion -- we love that CarStory's data is sparking conversation! To clarify, this research is based on information gleaned from marketplaces that we power -- not dealer websites. It is an important point as the behavior of shoppers high in the purchase funnel is going to be different from those in the middle or bottom. The data pulled on pricing was from numerous marketplaces that Vast powers and included over 300M consumer searches of 7M unique vehicles over a six-month period.
As we mention in the whitepaper, the data shows that 9 is the optimal number of images to show to maximize lead conversion (with a lead being a form submission). As part of the research we analyzed over 180k submitted leads and here is what we found:
- 50% higher lead submission rate than those without any images.
- 56% higher lead submission rate than those with 20 images.
- 71% higher lead submission rate than those with 30 images.
As a result we recommend dealers use 9 images on marketplaces, but continue to show more images on their sites. We also suggest testing an exterior hero shot followed by interior shots including the dashboard. Forcing the users to navigate all exterior shots, before getting to the interior can be frustrating, especially for top of the funnel shoppers.
If you’d like to hear more, CarStory will be presenting material from our white paper, How to Convert Used Car Shoppers to Buyers, at an upcoming DealerOn webinar on May 21st at noon EST. Let’s continue the discussion there — reserve your spot here or on DealerOn's website under Webinars > Tips & Tricks to Engage Customers and Turn Shoppers into Sales.
As we mention in the whitepaper, the data shows that 9 is the optimal number of images to show to maximize lead conversion (with a lead being a form submission). As part of the research we analyzed over 180k submitted leads and here is what we found:
- 50% higher lead submission rate than those without any images.
- 56% higher lead submission rate than those with 20 images.
- 71% higher lead submission rate than those with 30 images.
As a result we recommend dealers use 9 images on marketplaces, but continue to show more images on their sites. We also suggest testing an exterior hero shot followed by interior shots including the dashboard. Forcing the users to navigate all exterior shots, before getting to the interior can be frustrating, especially for top of the funnel shoppers.
If you’d like to hear more, CarStory will be presenting material from our white paper, How to Convert Used Car Shoppers to Buyers, at an upcoming DealerOn webinar on May 21st at noon EST. Let’s continue the discussion there — reserve your spot here or on DealerOn's website under Webinars > Tips & Tricks to Engage Customers and Turn Shoppers into Sales.
I gotta drop my 2 cents in here - I also downloaded the whitepaper yesterday after seeing something about it online.
As I was scrolling though the first few pages, reading about who Car Story is, I clicked on the link to their site to dig a little deeper. That's when I figured out it is a "Vast" product which purports to be very similar to Pure Cars, I think.
Having not seen a "Car Story" presentation of value validation before I thought I would search out of few of their "Dealers" to get a better idea of what the product is. I have slept since then, so I honestly don't remember which ones I looked at, but if memory serves it was 5 or 6 of the ones listed on their page in the section "A Few CarStory Dealers".
All but one of the sites I looked at were NOT using Car Story, and in fact...one of them has moved to Pure Cars! The one I did manage to locate using the product had a very basic logo widget at the top of the page which was not only barely noticeable, it certainly didn't scream "click on me to add value to your experience!"
Bottom line for me --- I quit reading the paper, so I never made it to the section about reducing the number of vehicle photos on a used car
AS IF!
Quite possibly one of the most counter intuitive pieces of advice I have run across in quite some time - kind of like "don't put a price so they will have to call us" DUH
Props to @jmcreavy for telling it like it is - MORE photos is ALWAYS better - MORE Transparency is ALWAYS better...baiting the consumer into submitting a lead is ALWAYS BAD!!
/Mic Drop "BOOM"
As I was scrolling though the first few pages, reading about who Car Story is, I clicked on the link to their site to dig a little deeper. That's when I figured out it is a "Vast" product which purports to be very similar to Pure Cars, I think.
Having not seen a "Car Story" presentation of value validation before I thought I would search out of few of their "Dealers" to get a better idea of what the product is. I have slept since then, so I honestly don't remember which ones I looked at, but if memory serves it was 5 or 6 of the ones listed on their page in the section "A Few CarStory Dealers".
All but one of the sites I looked at were NOT using Car Story, and in fact...one of them has moved to Pure Cars! The one I did manage to locate using the product had a very basic logo widget at the top of the page which was not only barely noticeable, it certainly didn't scream "click on me to add value to your experience!"
Bottom line for me --- I quit reading the paper, so I never made it to the section about reducing the number of vehicle photos on a used car
AS IF!
Quite possibly one of the most counter intuitive pieces of advice I have run across in quite some time - kind of like "don't put a price so they will have to call us" DUH
Props to @jmcreavy for telling it like it is - MORE photos is ALWAYS better - MORE Transparency is ALWAYS better...baiting the consumer into submitting a lead is ALWAYS BAD!!
/Mic Drop "BOOM"
- May 7, 2015
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- Kim
@eddyshaf, thanks for taking time to review our website. We've got 2 CarStory dealer products in the market right now -- our first product is an app that dealers purchase to help their customers with discovery while shopping on the lot. This is the customer list that you see on our website. Our other product, which launched late last year, is a free market report that dealers can add to their SRPs and VDPs. The CarStory Market Report provides customers with localized pricing, condition and feature analytics (as does the app) and helps them gain confidence and accelerate purchase decisions. Both the app and our Market Reports present analytics derived from our database of over 7M used vehicles and 8M weekly searches.
Over the past few months, we've been focused on getting dealers live with our free CarStory Market Report. To date, we have over 3,000 dealers live. Volkswagen selected our reports for their US dealers and we have begun integrating CarStory on their 600+ dealer sites. We’re also live on VW’s WorldAuto site. Last month, AOL’s marketplace, autoblog, added CarStory to all their listing VDPs.
We’re working at lightning speed here and have a new website in development right now. I encourage you to take a look at some of our CarStory Market Report customers mentioned above and reread the white paper. We’d love for you to join us on May 21st for a presentation of the white paper with DealerON (Register at DealerOn’s website > webinars).
Over the past few months, we've been focused on getting dealers live with our free CarStory Market Report. To date, we have over 3,000 dealers live. Volkswagen selected our reports for their US dealers and we have begun integrating CarStory on their 600+ dealer sites. We’re also live on VW’s WorldAuto site. Last month, AOL’s marketplace, autoblog, added CarStory to all their listing VDPs.
We’re working at lightning speed here and have a new website in development right now. I encourage you to take a look at some of our CarStory Market Report customers mentioned above and reread the white paper. We’d love for you to join us on May 21st for a presentation of the white paper with DealerON (Register at DealerOn’s website > webinars).
How many of the submissions on the 9 photo vehicles are "Does it have navigation" or "Does it have leather seats?"
Doesn't matter how many are asking simple questions that could and should have been answered via thorough photos - the bottom line is that I have no actual relationship with these various sites powered by Vast yet they scrape MY INVENTORY to generate traffic to put $$ in their pocket - furthermore, the lack of an actual relationship leads to inaccuracies - cars being listed after they are sold, incomplete dealer information, leads that never actually get delivered to my CRM etc. which make MY DEALERSHIP look like we are still playing the bait and switch game or are non responsive...all of which leads to TRUST erosion and damages MY BRAND.
Believe me - if there was a way to keep my inventory OFF these sites, I would remove it in a heartbeat.
I don't think that answered my question or was related at all, but I understand your frustrations.
At the same time, I don't think that you are going to get an answer to your question LOL