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Correlation between sales and website traffic

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Jason

Jason

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Dec 22, 2009
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Jason
#1
I've been toying around with Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits correlation lately.

Please note, I am by no means a math or statistical whiz nor do I pretend to be one on interweb forums :)

Here's a real life example:

Dealership A (name has been redacted to protect the reticent)

November 2013 | 14,262 Visits | 299 Cars Sold = 21 Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits
May 2014 | 22,198 Visits | 464 Cars Sold = 21 Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits

The big jump in traffic from November to May mostly thanks to turning on a PPC campaign.

This particular store consistently performs in the 21-24 cars sold / 1,000 visits each month regardless of traffic fluctuations.

I don't know if this is good, bad or indifferent, but I like seeing that it's consistent.

Please note that this is combined new and used sales, and doesn't take in to account traffic source (internal traffic is filtered though).

If anyone is willing to calculate their own Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits I'd be quite intrigued to see your results.
 
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#2
Jason said:
Speaking of correlations, I've been toying around with Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits correlation lately.


Please note, I am by no means a math or statistical whiz nor do I pretend to be one on interweb forums


Here's a real life example:


Dealership A (name has been redacted to protect the reticent)


November 2013 | 14,262 Visits | 299 Cars Sold = 21 Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits
May 2014 | 22,198 Visits | 464 Cars Sold = 21 Cars Sold / 1,000 Visits


The big jump in traffic from November to May mostly thanks to turning on a PPC campaign.


This particular store consistently performs in the 21-24 cars sold / 1,000 visits each month regardless of traffic fluctuations.
Click to expand...


The key here is consistency with YOUR dealers performance. There are many variables that could prevent this same stat from representing performance for other dealers (more so outside of your dealer group).


Variables could include:


- quality of website usability (mobile too)

- best practices performed with online marketing
- listing sites you participate on (cars.com)
- number and quality of sales team -- this can be a fun correlation

This "consistency" could produce interesting benchmark to track your dealer(s) performance. Again, I would account for all varibles that impact sales. If possible, I would also no my best to track your lead/phone appointments to show rate. This tracking could get a bit complicated but if you keep everything the same (while grabbing your benchmark), you could potentially use the variables to back your way into some supportive reporting and interesting stories.

Wonder what other dealers would track if most varibles were alike?
 
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#4
Jeff Kershner said:
There are many variables that could prevent this same stat from representing performance for other dealers (more so outside of your dealer group).

Variables could include:

- quality of website usability (mobile too)

- best practices performed with online marketing
- listing sites you participate on (cars.com)
- number and quality of sales team -- this can be a fun correlation
Click to expand...

Uncle Joe Rule #87: "Dealers are like Snowflakes, no 2 are alike"

A few variables that impact sales p/web visitor are:

Franchise (i.e. Kia vs Jaguar)
Franchise competition
demographics of your marketplace
your proximity to your marketplace
your proximity to an additional marketplace
your inventory profile
--Inventory Count
--Inventory Scarcity
Your Traditional Ad budget (i.e. stimulus to drive DIRECT traffic)

All of these influence the traffic count to your site, then, from this traffic comes lead counts and closing rates.
 
#5
#6
Alex Snyder said:
Mind posting those results? Assuming a mathematical correlation can be found for today, it would be cool to do a second correlation to 2009 in the hopes of finding a trend.
Click to expand...


Its on that link:

1,304,094 Unique Visitors
8,393 Sales
0.64% Sales p/Visitor


In other words:
In 30 days, 1.3 million visitors bought 8,393 vehicles (new and used).


-which means-
1 sale for every 156 visitors to your site


-or-
6.4 sales for every 1000 visitors to your site.
 
#7
If I were a betting man (and I am) I would say those numbers have moved over the last 5 years. I have seen significant increases in website traffic, without the same kind of growth in sales, over the last 4 years. All that means is the laggard shoppers (the ones who were still reading the newspaper last week) have finally adopted online car researching. Dealers are still selling cars to the same people, but they're just hitting the website before driving in or raising a hand with a lead/phone call.

I bet we see numbers much lower than 6 sales per every 1,000 visits.

See you in your office in a few minutes Joe - I know how to test this ;)
 
#8
Would a better measure of the value of website traffic, VDPs, etc. be lot traffic rather than sales? Sales depends on a variety of factors (sales staff, customers credit, and on and on and on). If I have a website that is drawing people into the store I would consider that a success. The guy running the website and advertising doesn't control the way deals are negotiated, doesn't hire/fire sales people or sales manager and doesn't have control over financing; therefore, I would argue it would be better to judge his value/the value of the website and web traffic based on the customers he is bringing to the store, not how many of them are purchasing.

That said, does anyone have any data on how website visits, inventory page views, inventory searches, etc. correlate to lot traffic?
 
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