Anyone know of a good online payment calculator

[Rick Buffkin]

I'm just curious if any of you guys are using an online payment calculator / credit app thats vin specific. I spoke to the guys at AutoUSA about their new calculator "Payment Pro" and I know DealerTrack has one. Are there any others you guys / girls are familiar with and recommend that would help convert visitors to leads? I've looked at the piece "Get pre approved in seconds" but that is only geared towards credit apps. I'm looking for something that will do both. Similar to this AutoUSA | AutoUSA PaymentPro

 

[colson]

Drive it now/Payment Pro is the best I've seen. Great tool.

As with anything it's important your staff understands what it is and how those leads were generated. IMO, there is not a better email lead generated than a person who is looking at a specific car on my website and is motivated to give me all of that info for a payment on that car.

 

[Jason Petkov]

One of our stores wanted to try out "Drive It Now" and they have been using it for a little over a month. I have not noticed any substantial change in leads generated vs the Get e-Price button that was there. This isn't to say that you won't experience different results based on your market and demographics.

Have you done any A/B testing with your details pages? Moved forms, changed button colors/verbiage/icons? You'd be surprised at some of the results that you see off of just changing little things.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Thanks guys for your input. I'm on DDC's V8 platform right now and I'm moving over to the V9 later this week. I have tried different testing on the current platform. A few of my competitors locally are running the two programs I listed above. I think what I will do is see how the new platform performs and build off of that.

 

[VVAuto1]

Jason do you have any suggestions for software to assist in A/B testing on VDP page thats compatable with ddc? Joe any update on on dealer.coms internal A/B testing?

I had similair experience with drive it now. I will we've had a positive experience with Dealercentric. Some of my stores went from 10 credit apps a month to 25-30 with no change in web traffic.

 

[Jason Petkov]

Jason do you have any suggestions for software to assist in A/B testing on VDP page thats compatable with ddc? Joe any update on on dealer.coms internal A/B testing?

I had similair experience with drive it now. I will we've had a positive experience with Dealercentric. Some of my stores went from 10 credit apps a month to 25-30 with no change in web traffic.

Unfortunately I am not very familiar with DDC and it's limitations. If they don't offer any type of direct integration with an A/B Testing tool you may be able to setup some clever Analytics Goalsets and tweak things around to get an idea of what works the ol' fashioned manual way. Not ideal by any means, but better than guessing.

Just remember in A/B Testing that you should match similar visitors to each other for the best results, this means tracking pageviews, TOS, referral source as it will give you the best profile of your visitor. Something like this can also be setup in GA as well, just a little more complex.

 

[joe.pistell]

Thanks guys for your input. I'm on DDC's V8 platform right now and I'm moving over to the V9 later this week. I have tried different testing on the current platform. A few of my competitors locally are running the two programs I listed above. I think what I will do is see how the new platform performs and build off of that.

Hi Rick, I've got many new products in the pipeline, a new payment calc tool is in the 1st round of beta. Would you like to be in on round #2? Lessons learned from round one will be mapped into #2.

If so, send me a private message here, or email me at: joe[dot]pistell[at]dealer[dot]com

 

[joe.pistell]

Jason do you have any suggestions for software to assist in A/B testing on VDP page thats compatable with ddc? Joe any update on on dealer.coms internal A/B testing?

I had similair experience with drive it now. I will we've had a positive experience with Dealercentric. Some of my stores went from 10 credit apps a month to 25-30 with no change in web traffic.

Mornin' Victor,

Construction of the on-board split testing tool is under way. I'll be looking for betas on this tool. PM me or email me if you'd like to jump on. This is tied to the new mobile website, you'll love it!

Also, if anyone wants to split test their ideas RIGHT NOW, here are 2 awesome tools that are very nicely priced:
A/B Testing Tool |Split Testing and Multivariate Testing Software - Visual Website Optimizer
https://www.optimizely.com/ <--my favorite

p.s. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what caused the dealercentric lift.

 

[joe.pistell]

Unfortunately I am not very familiar with DDC and it's limitations. If they don't offer any type of direct integration with an A/B Testing tool you may be able to setup some clever Analytics Goalsets and tweak things around to get an idea of what works the ol' fashioned manual way. Not ideal by any means, but better than guessing.

Just remember in A/B Testing that you should match similar visitors to each other for the best results, this means tracking pageviews, TOS, referral source as it will give you the best profile of your visitor. Something like this can also be setup in GA as well, just a little more complex.

Jason's right, be careful, split testing is easy, creating business driven design rules from split testing results is NOT EASY. If you keep the split test simple, you can have clean results.

Beware! After your 1st win, you get excited and want to build on that win... Keep Uncle Joe's Rule #44 on a post-it note on your monitor:

"The narrower your analysis gets, the wider your error rate will be. Beware making critical decisions keying on narrow data"

​

You need to have a "scientist's mindset" to split test. Getting split testing right requires can get lost in the weeds. As crazy as this sounds, when you get into the weeds, you'll test your test: A/A vs A/B. Jason's suggestions spoke to the technical and UX elements in split testing, split testing wins are also highly sensitive to shopper data that can only come from "boots on the ground".

This is by far the best one page guide to split testing. These great tips are from Neil Patel*

What Spending $252,000 On Conversion Rate Optimization Taught Me​

NOTE: Keep your eyes wide open, you can bet that Neil has that landing page totally dialed in to convert.

HTH
Uncle Joe


*CEO of KISSmetrics and CrazyEgg

 

[VVAuto1]

Mornin' Victor,

Construction of the on-board split testing tool is under way. I'll be looking for betas on this tool. PM me or email me if you'd like to jump on. This is tied to the new mobile website, you'll love it!

Also, if anyone wants to split test their ideas RIGHT NOW, here are 2 awesome tools that are very nicely priced:
A/B Testing Tool |Split Testing and Multivariate Testing Software - Visual Website Optimizer
https://www.optimizely.com/ <--my favorite

p.s. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what caused the dealercentric lift.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'd be a liar if I said I truely A/B tested or split tested dealercentric. That being said here is what I do know. I have from 12/1 - 4/1 I recieved a total of 60 app leads that converted at 8% . Last month when we launched we implemented dealercentric we recieved 30 apps and they converted at 16 percent.

I put in the links in case I didnt post pictures correctly.

Spitzer Kia in Cleveland | New Kia & Used Car Dealer Serving North Olmsted & Akron, OH




New 2014 Kia Forte For Sale in Cleveland, OH | Stock: 14CK031


Did I push for credit applications on Homepage, Navigation and VDP alot more....Heck yeah! That being said I have tried the exact same strategy using a similiar call to action with a regular credit app and got no where near the same results.

Here is my thought on why it works, #1 I pushed like heck on the website to land customers on the page. #2 dealercentric did a good job of converting when the customer landed on the app. #3 the customer liked the instant gratification of approved not approved. Not only did we see a jump in leads but deals but actually the show rate in our initial numbers is much higher than the typical credit app...I think when a consumer sees approved I think they jump off their couch and run in.

Again, not perfect ab testing at all...excited to get the split testing up and running ....Maybe different language, colors or calls to action will drive more