• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Do you value VDP views? Or do only leads matter?

tnfly

Full Sticker + Prep
May 7, 2021
24
10
Awards
1
First Name
Alex
Hey everyone!

I posted a few months ago about my regional classified ads (Tennessee) website offering storefronts to dealers. We are deep into it now! A dozen new car dealers in our area are piloting our storefronts and automated inventory syncing (used inventory only, via HomeNet). In the process, we added ADF/XML capability so that leads can be sent directly to Elead or whoever they use. So far, so good.

In testing the product, the focus has been the creation of value for the dealership (as well as more options for our users). Measuring value has been a little muddy, though. Obviously, an incoming lead is valuable and measurable, but what about VDP views? Do you guys apply a cost and value to VDP, or do you only evaluate leads with TPL sites? All of these dealers are right in the densest part of our audience. Most of our users can see an ad on our site and then be on the lot in 10 minutes, so they may skip the contact form.

I guess the question is: If you have 100 vehicles on my site and I produce 1000 views this week... do you value that? How? How does that compare to local printed media for you?

BTW, I'm hoping to have a bit stronger sales pitch with the changes happening at FB next month.

Thank you for your insight,

-Alex
 
Hey everyone!

I posted a few months ago about my regional classified ads (Tennessee) website offering storefronts to dealers. We are deep into it now! A dozen new car dealers in our area are piloting our storefronts and automated inventory syncing (used inventory only, via HomeNet). In the process, we added ADF/XML capability so that leads can be sent directly to Elead or whoever they use. So far, so good.

In testing the product, the focus has been the creation of value for the dealership (as well as more options for our users). Measuring value has been a little muddy, though. Obviously, an incoming lead is valuable and measurable, but what about VDP views? Do you guys apply a cost and value to VDP, or do you only evaluate leads with TPL sites? All of these dealers are right in the densest part of our audience. Most of our users can see an ad on our site and then be on the lot in 10 minutes, so they may skip the contact form.

I guess the question is: If you have 100 vehicles on my site and I produce 1000 views this week... do you value that? How? How does that compare to local printed media for you?

BTW, I'm hoping to have a bit stronger sales pitch with the changes happening at FB next month.

Thank you for your insight,

-Alex
Hey Alex, I am happy to see your project moving along!

You are asking "What is the meaning of life" type of questions here. There is value in a VDP view for sure. What is that value, I have no idea. I can't compare that value to local print media because I don't do any local print media.

Here on Dealer Refresh, dealers that place all of their faith in the lead are quickly convinced that there is a better way to be looking at the big picture. 8 years ago, I was one of those dealers. I listened, and changed the way I looked at things. I began to value exposure over actual leads. I made some changes to my website, and generally speaking I was happy with the way things were going. Other than UI changes, I have maintained that same philosophy because I felt that it worked. Sure we got leads, but we also got walk in traffic and phone calls as well. I just stopped basing success or failure of a 3rd party site exclusively on lead volume.

While I have not made any changes or adjusted my mindset on this issue, I find that it is very rare for us to sell a vehicle today that does not originate as a lead. We get very little walk in traffic. We get very few phone calls into our published phone number. Most of what we sell are from people submitting a lead form somewhere. Does that mean that we are going to make changes? Nope. It means that I don't know the meaning of life but life is good.

I hope that someone here can help you find the answers you are needing or wanting. I am sure that others will weigh in. In the meantime, keep swinging! I am proud of you and anyone with the determination it takes to build something like what you are working on.
 
Hey Alex, I am happy to see your project moving along!

You are asking "What is the meaning of life" type of questions here. There is value in a VDP view for sure. What is that value, I have no idea. I can't compare that value to local print media because I don't do any local print media.

Here on Dealer Refresh, dealers that place all of their faith in the lead are quickly convinced that there is a better way to be looking at the big picture. 8 years ago, I was one of those dealers. I listened, and changed the way I looked at things. I began to value exposure over actual leads. I made some changes to my website, and generally speaking I was happy with the way things were going. Other than UI changes, I have maintained that same philosophy because I felt that it worked. Sure we got leads, but we also got walk in traffic and phone calls as well. I just stopped basing success or failure of a 3rd party site exclusively on lead volume.

While I have not made any changes or adjusted my mindset on this issue, I find that it is very rare for us to sell a vehicle today that does not originate as a lead. We get very little walk in traffic. We get very few phone calls into our published phone number. Most of what we sell are from people submitting a lead form somewhere. Does that mean that we are going to make changes? Nope. It means that I don't know the meaning of life but life is good.

I hope that someone here can help you find the answers you are needing or wanting. I am sure that others will weigh in. In the meantime, keep swinging! I am proud of you and anyone with the determination it takes to build something like what you are working on.
Hey Clint,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm excited about the product! I'm going to need to charge for this service eventually, so determining the value provided to the dealers is my task. I was hoping that I would be able to just point out the leads generated to prove value, but some dealers don't really get any direct leads through us, but plenty of views. I'm hoping there is some other walk-on traffic from the awareness we're creating and that it is recognized.

A few years ago, when we bought my wife's van, I found it on CarGurus. The dealership was local, and I knew someone there. I just walked in and said: "I wanna see the tan Sierra". They had no idea how I found it. CarGurus made that happen, but got no credit, so the person deciding the value of CG for that month could not factor in that $30k sale. If there are no leads from CG/Autotrader for a month, does a dealer continue with that service just because?

I ask about print because I see dealers taking out pretty sizable spreads in local papers/flyers/shopping guides that cost several hundred up to $1000 per week. I think we can perform much better than that media for our dealers.
 
Hey Clint,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm excited about the product! I'm going to need to charge for this service eventually, so determining the value provided to the dealers is my task. I was hoping that I would be able to just point out the leads generated to prove value, but some dealers don't really get any direct leads through us, but plenty of views. I'm hoping there is some other walk-on traffic from the awareness we're creating and that it is recognized.

A few years ago, when we bought my wife's van, I found it on CarGurus. The dealership was local, and I knew someone there. I just walked in and said: "I wanna see the tan Sierra". They had no idea how I found it. CarGurus made that happen, but got no credit, so the person deciding the value of CG for that month could not factor in that $30k sale. If there are no leads from CG/Autotrader for a month, does a dealer continue with that service just because?

I ask about print because I see dealers taking out pretty sizable spreads in local papers/flyers/shopping guides that cost several hundred up to $1000 per week. I think we can perform much better than that media for our dealers.
Progressive dealers will see value if you can drive relevant in-market shopper traffic at around the $0.30 / VDP view mark.

The only caveat is a lot of VDP performance depends on each dealership's merchandising - price, photos, comments, etc.
 
Progressive dealers will see value if you can drive relevant in-market shopper traffic at around the $0.30 / VDP view mark.

The only caveat is a lot of VDP performance depends on each dealership's merchandising - price, photos, comments, etc.
Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the reply! This is very helpful. I don't think most of our dealers are all that progressive, but it's nice to see a number to apply to the views we generate. I do have a few dealerships that are part of a larger group where the value measurement could be more progressive, though.

Are you deriving that VDP value from the big TPLs? Do you happen to work with any smaller websites (classified ads or other marketplaces?)

PS. Congrats on the new arivall! She's beautiful.