3rd Party Attribution

[Mike Phillips]

We did a study with Transparency.ai. It's a joke in my opinion. It was an opportunity for AutoTrader to come in and tell us how they generate 90% of our business and income. Whoever is suggesting the study, is paying for the study, and in turn, has their own motive and ego to protect.
Knowing what I know now, I would not waste your time.

Until CRM's find a way to import attribution or pathing data to each lead (I don't know of one) and produce elaborate reports. Your CRM will stick to showing you either the first or last point of contact, and every other third party trying to justify their existence.

I sat through a demo with DealerInspire at one point (though we don't use them) - and I think that they are getting close to path tracking better than any other provider I have seen. Though I don't know where they would be able to push that data as probably no one else supports it yet.

The most valuable pieces of data by far that I have seen ar 1. Google Analytics and 2. VistaDash (does a good job of breaking up some of the attribution data).

 

[Jeff Kershner]

 

[Alexander Lau]

We did a study with Transparency.ai. It's a joke in my opinion. It was an opportunity for AutoTrader to come in and tell us how they generate 90% of our business and income. Whoever is suggesting the study, is paying for the study, and in turn, has their own motive and ego to protect.
Knowing what I know now, I would not waste your time.

Until CRM's find a way to import attribution or pathing data to each lead (I don't know of one) and produce elaborate reports. Your CRM will stick to showing you either the first or last point of contact, and every other third party trying to justify their existence.

I sat through a demo with DealerInspire at one point (though we don't use them) - and I think that they are getting close to path tracking better than any other provider I have seen. Though I don't know where they would be able to push that data as probably no one else supports it yet.

The most valuable pieces of data by far that I have seen ar 1. Google Analytics and 2. VistaDash (does a good job of breaking up some of the attribution data).

BINGO!

and... dealers aren't going to want to keep paying for continuous use of an attribution tool, once they figure out what works (vendors / services that convert) for them. IMO, that's a big issue and smart dealers know this. IOW, once a dealer knows who "sold it" for them, why keep paying a monthly fee for attribution (the marketing around their wares is just NOT dynamic enough), as most offerings are expensive? Multi-touch journey measurement only means so much and chances are dealers will see the same pattern and trends monthly.

The monthly subscription model is flawed. If I'm a dealer, I'd license an attribution tool for three months, enough of a sample size to tell me what's working and then dump it.

Plus, are attribution groups providing actionable insights? Which direction is a dealer supposed to head after analyzing their data? Are dealers responsible for making marketing decisions after they see their reports? What should be their expectation?