I’ve been spending a lot of time digging into the data collected from the analytics of our dealership website recently. Ultimately, I’m trying to discover what consumers are looking to get out of my website so that I can offer them the opportunity to convert into a lead with ease. Naturally, I won’t try to make them feel like they are turning into a lead; rather, I would like to provide convenient options that cater to purchase decisions and actions in a way that entices the user to use the website as a communication tool. Most people don’t want to fill out lead capture forms (and rightfully so), so I have to give them a compelling reason to do so – but how do I do that?

I’m a young guy, so I understand why our target demographic is a little weary of filling out a form online. Personally, I’d be more than willing to fill out a form on a product that I was actually interested in purchasing. I’ve been socially conditioned to treat the Internet as a purchase tool and I’ve had quite an interesting time figuring out how to entice the older generations to follow suit. I believe the only way to do that is to make the car purchase process easier for the consumer.

From looking at my lead conversion data, I can tell you with quite confidence that users aren’t really interested in the opportunity to “Request Information” or “Express Interest” in a vehicle. So I ask the automotive website providers – why are these calls-to-action still so prevalent across dealer sites? Have you even been doing any conversion optimization testing across your dealer pages? If not, can you really consider yourself to be a respectable “player” in the automotive website business? Tangents aside, since users aren’t interested in requesting additional information, we have to decide what calls-to-action will enable them to divulge private information.

The most common call-to-action in the automotive industry is “Get A Quote.”

A quote, you say – for what? The price of the vehicle is right next to the lead capture form, so what exactly am I getting a quote for? Monthly payments? Interest rates? The ambiguity of this call-to-action is rather puzzling – would we be more likely to generate leads if we provided more options for the user that are fairly specific? I understand that people convert all the time on the “Get A Quote” call-to-action, but what if we provided more options for the user?

Lead generation is an interesting topic in the auto industry. Contrary to an e-commerce site whose primary goal is to entice the user to buy a product, we are faced with the challenge of converting visitors online for something that they cannot readily purchase through the Internet. In order to improve, we need to dissect the purchase process in an attempt to provide a simpler, more efficient means of acquiring a new vehicle. What’s the primary reason somebody will contact us via our website? It is most certainly to negotiate a price. Does “Get A Quote” imply that the user will be negotiating a price? I don’t think it does and it certainly isn’t clear-cut enough to entice the average consumer when they can just as easily “Get A Quote” in the actual dealership. We can make this process easier by appealing to the current actions of the consumer. In this case, we need to offer them the opportunity to negotiate a price online before they make the trip into the store. Consumers are already using automotive websites for this task, so let’s make it easier for them.

“But wait,” you might say, “we don’t want to encourage the consumer to request a lower price!” Unfortunately for you, the automotive industry has been doing a pretty good job of encouraging that practice for many years now. The consumer is conditioned to think that they can get a better price than what the dealer lists and I can almost guarantee that you’re selling vehicles for less than MSRP, so why not start the process earlier? You’ll have the opportunity to learn more about your customers and grab some contact information in the process. Let’s give the consumer an opportunity to start the purchase process in the comfort of their home so that they can come into the store when they are good and ready to purchase -- it’s what they want to do anyway.

Our culture has done a great job of reinforcing stereotypes of salespeople in the auto industry. Although we know better as insiders, many people still believe that the shark salesman is going to rip them off when they decide to make the trip into the store. What if we turned the process into a friendly encounter with an informative, yet confident salesperson that is willing to negotiate before they get you “in the box”? If you’re looking for dealer differentiators, there’s a good place to start.

I’m not a fan of TrueCar, but I believe they got 1 thing right: consumers want an easier, more transparent vehicle purchase process. However, it is not the case that we have to give away our internal costs to make that happen. Consumers start their research online, so let’s learn from the past and appeal to their purchase behaviors, not fight them. Watch how consumers interact with your website,
track their requests, and appeal to their desires. We need informed ISMs in our industry because the current inflexibility and lack of control from automotive website providers needs to change. This is a dynamic industry, so let’s start heading in that direction with regard to our online presence.

Do you agree/disagree?

Is it useless to try to convert consumers online if they are already interested in a vehicle? Let’s discuss in the comments.

The PureCars Value Report offers consumers the ability to chat with a Dealership Sales Representative

ALPHARETTA, GA. February 1, 2012 – Contact At Once!, the dealer chat leader, announced the addition of PureCars as a member of their dealer chat network.  Dealers may now quickly and easily add Contact At Once! dealer live chat features to PureCars Value Reports, PureCars Trade-In Reports and other PureCars tools, allowing customers an additional way of  digitally communicating with car dealers.

“The PureCars Value Report offers consumers a wealth of detailed information to help them better understand the value in a vehicle,” said Contact At Once! Director of Business Development, Lloyd Hecht.  “Still, it is impossible to answer every question car shoppers have, so adding Contact At Once! chat into the PureCars Value Report allows the consumer to ask questions to the dealer in real-time, and to gain instant answers from the dealer, greatly increasing the value of the report to the shopper, while enhancing the ROI of the dealer’s investment in PureCars.”

The Contact At Once! dealer chat network includes third-party listing sites such as AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, CarsDirect.com, CarSoup.com and EveryCarListed.com, as well as manufacturer websites like Kia.com, partner websites and applications - as seen with PureCars Value Reports - in addition to traditional dealership websites. Using a single set of tools and processes, dealers can respond to consumer chats originating from anyplace in the dealer chat network. Dealers that leverage Contact At Once! dealer chat software typically experience an increase of at least 25% in the number of online shoppers that contact the dealership.

“Car shoppers conduct quite a bit of research online prior to calling or visiting a dealership. PureCars is dedicated to answering the top concerns through the PureCars Value Report and PureCars Trade-In Report which both now allow a customer to chat with the dealership instantly to get additional clarity or questions answered,” notes Jeremy Anspach, PureCars President and Co-Founder.

“The PureCars mission is to answer the top concerns of a car shopper and do it with fully automated technology for the dealership. Adding Contact At Once! chat to the PureCars Value Report makes it easier for the customer to have any additional questions answered in real-time, greatly enhancing the value of the PureCars Value Report to both the shopper and the dealership.”

Dealers with a current license for either the Contact At Once! Deluxe or Premium Dealer Edition and subscribers of the PureCars Value Report may immediately add chat to their PureCars application at no additional charge by simply logging into the Contact At Once! customer portal and selecting the ‘Provisioning’ menu.

About PureCars

PureCars is an automotive research company dedicated to answering the top concerns of car shoppers.  Car shoppers want to make sure they are getting a good value, buying a reliable vehicle and dealing with a reputable dealership while shopping for their next vehicle.  PureCars Value Reports answer these top concerns and more!  They are available for $14.95 on PureCars.com and are free of charge for PureCars subscribing dealerships. To learn more about PureCars visit www.PureCars.com or call 877-860-7873.

About Contact At Once!

Contact At Once! is the leading automotive chat software provider and operator of the industry’s only dealer chat network connecting more than 9,000 auto dealers with the websites car shoppers visit most often. Adding Contact At Once! dealer chat software to a website typically increases a dealership’s sales conversations by at least 25%. Named to the Inc. 500 as one of America’s fastest growing businesses in August of 2011, Contact At Once! is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information about the company’s auto dealer chat product, please visit: www.autodealerchat.com.

Lately I have been digging into Google Analytics to leverage the data and insights provided by Multi-Channel Sales Funnels (MCSF). If you ever wanted more insights into which digital investments are influencing website traffic and leads, you need to setup MCSF. It's free and takes about 10 minutes to setup.

In order to use MCSF you need to setup what Google calls "goals" for your website. (Read Tutorial) One of the four types of goals can be setup is when you visit a specific website page. If you wanted to set a goal that counted visits to your Service Appointment page, you would you set the goal to that web page URL.

Then you can use MCSF to see which digital paths are influencing people to visit that page. This insight is exactly what dealer principals have been asking for years!

Checking For Unique Thank You Pages

However, if you want to set a "goal" for when a consumer submits a lead, it gets tricky. I'm finding that many website platforms used by car dealers have decide to move away from presenting a new "Thank You" page after a lead is submitted.

Here is an example of what I mean by NOT having a new Thank You page. The first screen capture shows a lead form that is located on a used car Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) and I filled out the information:



Once I clicked on the Submit Message button, the page URL did not change. The consumer is kept on the VDP and only the text in this region of the VDP is changed:



The Impact Of No Thank You Page

After much thought, I think that NOT having a Thank You Page is a mistake for two reasons.

The first reason is that you can't get a Google Analytics "goal" when a lead is submitted. This will prevent you from seeing which digital investments in your budget triggered a consumer to submit a lead using MCSF in Google Analytics. There are some third party software solutions that have work arounds to this issue but not for Google Analytics.

The second reason is that dealers may be missing a great opportunity to encourage the consumer to continue engaging with their website or visit their social media sites. Think about it for a minute. After a lead for a new or used car is submitted, wouldn't a targeted "Thank You" page more effective than just leaving them on the Vehicle Detail Page (VDP)?

Building a Better Thank You Page

What could be on your Thank You page is up to you but here are a few suggestions:

1. A presentation of your online reviews. Give them a reason to buy from you.
   
2. Consumer video testimonials. Their peers comments speak louder than you.
   
3. A list of "popular" internal website links to get them digging back in. Specials, Incentives, Directions.
   
4. Links to your Social Media sites. Why not connect if they are active users of social media?

You get the idea. Why not enhance your brand advantage once they submit a lead?

I suggest that dealers reading this article put in a request to their website providers add this feature BACK into their website.

Who Has Unique Thank You Pages?

Of the more popular website providers Cobalt, Dominion Dealer Solutions, and DealerOn have unique thank you pages. The elimination of separate Thank You pages is a result of website programming languages like Ajax, which allow only sections of a web page to be refreshed.

In the past, leads always had a Thank You page and it's up to you to consider if you should have them back. I am convinced that if you have an attractive Thank You page, you will increase engagement. What do you think?

Check Your Thank You Pages

If you are fortunate to have unique Thank You Pages, please check that they are optimized to increase ADDITIONAL click traffic. I visited two websites that had Thank You Pages and this is what I was presented with after I submitted a lead.

Two City Honda's page simply said "Thank You.



Preston Ford included a friendly graphic and set an expectation.



Could you see how much more effective a well designed Thank You could be for the hundreds of leads that get submitted each month? If you have a great Thank You page designed, share it with the community.

In any case, consider this challenge and opportunity to re-engage or educate your consumers who have taken the step to contact you at the First Moment of Truth (FMOT).

What ideas might you have to add for re-engaging the consumer with your "Thank You" page?

NEW YORK – February 2, 2012 – Today, HookLogic announced that it has partnered with Dataium, the largest aggregator of Internet automotive shopping activity, to build new insights and technology into its Lead to Show solution enabling dealers to breathe new life into older, upper-funnel leads. The new capability built in to Lead to Show 3.0 provides HookLogic customers with access to Dataium data solutions and opens up a new market of “forgotten” leads to automotive dealers.

Dataium’s Cloud Intelligence™ platform captures deep insights into shopper behavior, including browsing history, time in market, which models are in a shopper’s consideration set, etc. Because automotive marketing efforts are often targeted towards new leads, shoppers who are still in market after two months are considered “cold,” and are rarely pursued by dealers after the two-month mark.

“Our data indicates that up to 45 percent of leads are still in market after 120 days. This group represents a huge missed opportunity for dealers, however, it’s vital to understand the difference between a lead that is simply inactive versus an individual who is no longer in market, such as someone who has already purchased a car,” said Jason Ezell, president and co-founder of Dataium. “Data is the first missing piece of the puzzle. The second is relevant, attractive incentives to bring inactive leads back into market, and that is where HookLogic excels.”
HookLogic customers are no longer leaving money on the table by ignoring inactive leads who are still in market. The integration of Dataium insights and technology arms Lead to Show 3.0 users with a 360-degree view of shopper activity and enables dealers to deliver a customized, targeted incentive to re-engage individual shoppers, bring them into local dealerships and drive them down the consideration funnel.

“We are continuously working to improve our Lead to Show solution set for automotive dealers. We wanted to partner with Dataium because they are hand’s down the best in class in providing strategic, relevant data to the automotive industry,” said David Metter, president of automotive for HookLogic. “That data powers our execution and gives our dealerships a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”

About Dataium, LLC
Dataium is the largest aggregator of Internet automotive shopping behavior. With its Cloud Intelligence™ platform, the company collects, analyzes, and indexes billions of online automotive shopping events weekly from over 60 million active auto shoppers. The company supports cutting-edge data collection and reporting technology; VisiCogn® Collection Utility, VisiCogn® Knowledge Center, and is also known for its ASI™ index. For more information, visit www.dataium.com, email: [email protected], or call 877-896-DATA (3282).

About HookLogic’s Incentive Solutions for the Auto Industry
HookLogic powers targeted incentive programs that drive in-market shoppers to auto dealerships and other lead-driven businesses. HookLogic solutions are easily implemented, work with nearly any marketing medium and enable end-to-end reporting and optimization. Headquartered in New York City, the company has offices in Ann Arbor, MI, Atlanta, GA and Manchester, UK. Clients include MileOne Automotive, Germain Motor Cars, Suburban Collection, Acton Toyota, and AutoTrader.com. Learn more at www.leadtoshow.com.