Which Automotive Advertising Websites Are The Best?

[Brian Pasch]

PCG Digital Marketing, in preparation for the 2010 Automotive Website Awards, has launched a nationwide survey for consumers who shop and research automobiles on the Internet.

The survey contains seven questions and seeks to determine which popular automotive website is the consumer’s first choice when shopping for a new and used car. The survey also seeks to collect feedback on which websites consumers consider the best designed for their needs.

How to Take The Survey

Consumers and members of the automotive industry are invited to take the 7-question survey by visiting this link: Automotive Website Survey


The data from the survey will be used in conjunction with scoring from PCG’s website review panel to determine the best designed automotive website that serves consumers shopping online for a car.


If DealerRefresh members can help get this survey in front of consumers, we would appreciate your assistance. You can post the link on Facebook and include it in your monthly newsletter.


I will share the results with everyone who helps.

 

[TVGBrian]

Used cars, craigslist, hands down!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Taken and shared on my personal fb account. Looking forward to the results Brian. It might have been a good idea to get zip codes.

 

[joe.pistell]

Brian,

Some feedback about your survey; Automotive Website Survey


We all agree that people SCAN text, the 2nd question can be read wrong . It reads:

*2. What website comes to mind FIRST when you want to research a new or used car on the Internet?

Which can be read as "What web site did I go to first?" Ooops.

Next, shoppers are surfing the net 9-10 hours a week, seeing hundreds and hundreds of sites. The further you get from the "date of the purchase event" the less likely the shopper will recall which sites they saw AND will use the list to drive answers.

The answers are alphabetical, shopper scans the list, AT has a strong brand, many sites are unknown, the bias will be to Autotrader. To isolate this problem by further example, How different would the results be if the answer area was simply a black space to write in answers?
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On another topic, Your question asks "what comes to mind FIRST?" This leaves the survey taker to iterations that branch off in different paths. Consider that websites have one mission, to assist shoppers with completing a TASK. IMO, you'll find "frequency of use" a simple hallmark of success. Consider: “Which Web site did you find yourself using the most?â€

Another way to assist the survey taker to improve the outcome would be to ask them to check all the sites they DID NOT visit while shopping. This exercise would help them re-visit the shopping experiences and bring those experiences to top of mind.


Brian, you also broke RESEARCH and SHOPPING into 2 questions with identical answers. Marketing people know that research is different than shopping, shoppers don’t.

5. Which of the following automotive websites has the BEST overall design for shopping for a car?

Your asking a shopper this? To what end? For example, Amazon.com is a visual trash heap, but, has no peers.
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6. What is the MOST important factor in rating an automotive advertising website as your TOP choice to shop for a car?

1. Speed Of Search Results
2. Number of Cars On Website
3. Price Comparison Tools
4. Online Trade-In Calculator
5. Ease of Navigating Website
6. Ability To Save Search Results
7. Number of Photos Of Each Car
8. Videos Shown For Each Car

You'd get a lot more actionable data is you asked the shopper to rank each feature rather than try to filter out the best of the group.


Lastly, this is just opinion, but to reduce bounce rates, I like to ask for personal info LAST.