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Car Dealer Industry Averages?

Great discussion here and having been in the industry for 15+ years, and 10 years prior selling cars, knowing how to compare ourselves is the only way to know if we are succeeding or failing in certain areas.

Without some point of comparison, we really don't know "how we are doing" when the GM or owner asks.
There are some great stats here, and as you have noticed, they all come from a different and single source and perspective.

What I have learned, in starting an automotive web analytics company for the purpose of having a central, non-biased, independent source of web and autoshopper data...is that national averages really don't apply to any specific dealer. Web traffic and shopper behavior very so widely between regions,states, brands, dealer size etc, that national numbers only apply to a very small percentage of dealers. Although they are good benchmarks to know where the auto industry is, they can do little to help you push specific levers within your own dealership to make noticeable improvements.


Using regional or DMA averages, or even better, metrics from your own city or competitive market, give you a much better understanding of how you are doing compared to other dealers in your area.

We found that these DMA numbers very widely but are much more accurate in knowing what is going on in your own market.

Example; if you see a large dip in traffic or leads, you need to be able to see if this was a trend in your market overall, or just something specific to your website. Perhaps traffic to your site dipped 17%, but overall shopper traffic in your market dipped 25%, you are not doing as bad as you thought, and that dip probably had nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do.

Example; LTV or lead to Visitor ratio is such a small number, it is very difficult to change by itself. So we break down that metric into smaller, more “trackable”and manageable metrics. We first look at Visitor to Shopper ratio, meaning of all the people who visit your dealer site, how many actually make it past the home page. The national average for home page bounce rate is about 60%, meaning of all the people that hit your home page, about 60% leave without doing anything. (the bail-out rate from a SRP or VDP page is half that, around 32%)


Again, being a national average, this varies widely among dealer sites. But you want to know what your bounce rate isand start by lowering that number by making the home page more conducive for shoppers.

Next, we look at shopper to active shopper, meaning, of all the people who do engage in the site, how many actually perform vehicles searches or look at details pages. This gives us an idea of how easy your vehicles search is and how effective your vehicle display is. This can then be addressed with your web provider to make the inventory listings, search criteria and details pages more attractive and simpler to use.

From here, we can then analyze active shopper to lead ratio, meaning, of all people who look at inventory, how many send leads. This is where the rubber meets the road. How easy is your lead form to complete, how many fields are required, where is the form located, etc.

By looking at these metrics individually, it will be clear where you need to focus your attention to get the most out of your website.

 
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Jason, how does one obtain this information? I don't think a single internet manager would pass on getting regional information like this. National averages just seem like they would be more available. The fact that this post exists says that most of us don't know how to go about getting even the broadest data. Are you able to supply such reports at Datium?
 
Jason, how does one obtain this information? I don't think a single internet manager would pass on getting regional information like this. National averages just seem like they would be more available. The fact that this post exists says that most of us don't know how to go about getting even the broadest data. Are you able to supply such reports at Datium?

I feel the same way. I wouldn't post my info just for the fun of it, but I'd do it if there was some type of agreement with other dealers that I would get to know their info as well . I will step up and offer to propose some type of REAl information sharing to anyone in The CEntral Atlantic or mid Atlantic regions. If it helps ease others into it maybe we could submit it to an admin and they could post the stats anonymously for us? We would need to set guideline for what qualifies as what (phone , walkin, form lead) how to count duplicates and what qualifies as invalid.

This is a rough draft proposal and I'm open to hear how it would work or hearing suggestion, but I just wanted to see if anyone is interested in pursuing this seriously. By "seriously" I mean being 100% honest in your numbers and that you will actually track it every month/week , not just submit slightly above average numbers just to see everyone else's numbers.

Ps. For record, I'm all for an "ideal world" where we all post our numbers in an open forum with our names attached to it, I just don't see it happening on a broad scale. People might be worried about dp's or gsm's reading it and catching crap, this is a paranoid business.
If letting people remain anonymous enables them to sleep at night while posting real numbers then I'm okay with that. Bottom line , I want to see the real stuff, not the brag to dealer refresh stuff; and I want to see a lot of it, not 3 dealers that are all killing it from different regions.

What do you think?

Pps. I'm too busy for proof reading , sorry for the grammar :dunno:
 
Jason, how does one obtain this information? I don't think a single internet manager would pass on getting regional information like this. National averages just seem like they would be more available. The fact that this post exists says that most of us don't know how to go about getting even the broadest data. Are you able to supply such reports at Datium?

This is exactly what be started Dataium to do; provide dealers with no only their web stats, but comparative data from their DMA, market, brand and nation. It gives dealers, for the first time, an idea of how their websites are performing compared to industry averages but specific to their own market as National numbers are not a good point of comparison.

Kershner and I spoke and he wanted to offer our standard analytics tool to all refresh members so he allowed me to refer you to a link to do so: VisiCogn® INSITE | Enterprise level Business Intelligence Reporting for the automotive industry use promo code: DLRREF and let me know when you have registered and I'll walk you through the tool.

I think you will find it very helpful and give you a better idea of where to focus your improvements.
 
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I just got some great info from my CRM rep. Not going to mention the specifics but if you've seen some of my other posts you'd know. You may know from their lingo as well. I found it very interesting but at the same time it is not an overall average but rather these are averages from their top performing dealers;

Appointment Process

Confirmation of Appointments 76.4%

Show Percentage (of set appointments) 73.6%

Appointment Sold Percentage 31.0%

Percent of Sold Deals with Appointment 54.7%

Activity per Lead
Phone Call per lead 5.4

Email sent per lead 1.5

Appointments made per lead 0.2

Store Visit Process

Fresh Up Closing Percentage 28.3%

Turn Percentage 80.4%

Close Date Updated Percentage 57.9%

Be Back/Store Visits 14.8%

Phone Up Process

Appointments per lead 34.6%

Show Percentage 76.0%

Appointment Sold Percentage 31.6%

Overall Closing Percentage 18.7%

Internet Process

Response Time Average (adj for business hours) 0.4

Response to 1st Email (not adjusted) 4.2

Appointments per Lead 22.1%

Show Percentage 73.4%

Appointment Sold Percentage 29.2%

Overall Closing Percentage 10.2%

I have a particular interest in this stat :

Store Visit Process

Fresh Up Closing Percentage 28.3%

I would imagine it is even trending higher now due to the prevelance of internet shoppers- would you folks agree that the retail buying public is coming into the showroom with a clear picture of what they want to buy and at what price?
I would love if i could see data somewhere to support my theory that this number has consistantly climbed over the last decade, unfortunately i think you need to own a CRM to substantiate it.
 
I have a particular interest in this stat :

Store Visit Process

Fresh Up Closing Percentage 28.3%

I would imagine it is even trending higher now due to the prevelance of internet shoppers- would you folks agree that the retail buying public is coming into the showroom with a clear picture of what they want to buy and at what price?
I would love if i could see data somewhere to support my theory that this number has consistantly climbed over the last decade, unfortunately i think you need to own a CRM to substantiate it.

Fast forward two nearly two years and is this ever the case. Ad budget and inventory levels are significantly higher, but we have less phone and email 'leads' (% wise), and we're turning quicker and breaking our own sales records each month for the last year. More than ever I am preaching that each call/email/up is exceedingly valuable. You are talking to them because they've already done their research and now they're making a decision, they want to buy. Like my man Baldwin famously says "A guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to buy." That statement seems to be truer than ever.

We hopped off of the CRM we had then a while back and now getting ready to jump back in with another vendor. Getting accurate data without it has been a challenge but looking forward to seeing proper reporting soon.