"Did your $2M spend in marketing work?" What Report Shows That?

[Dan Sayer]

What do you use to measure your Advertising/Marketing efforts? When the owner asks you if your efforts are working, what do you use to show that it is/isn't? What are your OKR's (if you're a John Doerr fan) or your KPIs or your Scorecard lines if you use Traction? Do you measure site sessions, lead volume, showroom visits, etc? Do you factor in inventory indicators like merchandising, pricing, quantity of inventory, quality of inventory? Do you just look at Sold?

We currently look at initial showroom visits which include walk-ins as well as shown internet and phone leads as a KPI. I'm also watching site sessions as well as VDPs across multiple sources (GA, Cars.com, CarGurus).

Interested to know what other dealers are using to answer the question, "Did your $2M spend work?" Thanks!

 

[Alex Snyder]

Years ago... when I was a younger man hawking metal over the digiNets, I was constantly frustrated with the sales floor. My department's efforts would get them in the door and their efforts would let them walk out too often for my liking. I now believe I was paid on the wrong attributes because my pay plan was nearly 100% tied to sales volume.

In a perfect world people would be paid on the metric they have a direct impact on. How does this tie into the question you're asking Dan?

Tracking metrics that are attached to pay plans makes sure these things are measured month in and month out. It also helps to make sure they're taken seriously. So, I'll throw another question on top of yours: are the metrics you're chasing part of your pay plan?

And I'll add one: interactions. In the technologies you're using do you have a measurement for quality? On your website, is that site sessions, number of VDPs, or time on site? Are these things the owner cares about?

P.S. these questions are not directed at you Dan. I'm building off of your initial asks.

 

[john.quinn]

I dunno lads... There's only one metric the OWNER is looking for... geek out with all the digital tomfoolery here and with your marketing reps, etc. For the Owner? You either sold more cars or you didn't.

 

[Alex Snyder]

I dunno lads... There's only one metric the OWNER is looking for... geek out with all the digital tomfoolery here and with your marketing reps, etc. For the Owner? You either sold more cars or you didn't.

I was lucky to have an owner that understood a funnel existed to get a customer into the showroom. "Does it sell cars" is fun to say, but there's more to it than how many deals went over the curb. HOW you got more cars over the curb is something every owner I've ever spoken to has been interested in.

 

[Dan Sayer]

@Alex Snyder I'm picking up what you're putting down. I get paid on a base plus units sold so my ultimate goal is sales volume. If we are hitting our sales forecast, the request for external measure decreases. BUT I still measure what I can control.

The reason for mainly measuring showroom traffic is those are numbers that my activity impacts directly. I'm responsible for digital marketing (walk-ins are online shoppers, duh) as well as training the stores to convert web leads to an appointment that shows (I'll soon be doing the training for phone as well). The caveat on the showroom volume is that our inventory "health" will impact the conversion from traffic to lead or walk-in. High market-days-supply or high price-to-market or poorly merched units are traffic killers.

I ask a lot of questions that have no easy answer on the forums, I know, but am interested if someone would share what they measure.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

The examples you provide are really advanced.

At the end of the day, I think we must look at KPIs for this industry.

It's easy to dwell on reports & endless metrics. Sometimes you can even be thrown off of the real issues if you narrow down too much.

In this business, dealers could hire a team of 10 Business Analysts and they'd still have unfinished work going home every night.

For me, I like to keep it simple in 4 categories. It's the simple use of the 80/20 rule.

Always master the 35,000-foot view first. This business is about selling cars.

 

[Dan Sayer]

@Alex Snyder and @john.quinn lets not assume it is the owner (sorry I phrased it that way). Let's assume it is yourself and your peers that understand how "it" works that you are generating reports for. What do you measure?

 

[Dan Sayer]

The examples you provide are really advanced.

At the end of the day, I think we must look at KPIs for this industry.

It's easy to dwell on reports & endless metrics. Sometimes you can even be thrown off of the real issues if you narrow down too much.

In this business, dealers could hire a team of 10 Business Analysts and they'd still have unfinished work going home every night.

For me, I like to keep it simple in 4 categories. It's the simple use of the 80/20 rule.

Always master the 35,000-foot view first. This business is about selling cars.

@Mark Daniels Assuming you are talking about Unique site visits and not showroom visits, correct?

 

[Dan Sayer]

Our group has an in-person meeting with Dale Pollak here in an hour so I plan on asking him this question as well to see what he says.

 

[john.quinn]

@Alex Snyder and @john.quinn lets not assume it is the owner (sorry I phrased it that way). Let's assume it is yourself and your peers that understand how "it" works that you are generating reports for. What do you measure?

Pick your favorite stat(s), whatever you like, I'm sure you have your reasons and you'r comfortable talking about it/them. When I'm gauging the effectiveness of a campaign, I'm watching for the trends. Are the needles I'm watching moving synchronously with my spend? How does the effort compare to last month? Last year? What is the money affecting?

For me, and I'm sorry to say it here, the only stats that matter are the ones tied to actual Human Beings. Is the phone ringing or are people answering the phone? God forbid... people actually walk through the door? Leads SUCK unless there is an actual human being who wishes to engage in actual conversation, so you really cant even hang a hat on Lead generation anymore.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying there's zero relationship between the 10-million-to-1 Site visit to Lead Submission ratio (facetious), but if I'm spending $2 million and I can't show that I'm having more actual conversations with real people, then the "noisy" stats continue to not mean very much.