Evolving Call to Actions - should ePrice die?

[Alex Snyder]

Speaking of something that should die, Ford just showed their future version of Chevy's Shop Click Drive with a main CTA of "Buy Now". I would challenge anyone to show me, in automotive digital retail, where "Buy Now" out-performed something. Well unless someone tried a CTA of "Bend Over".

According to Dealer.com, Gubabgoo, and CarNow's presentations at AAAS this week less than 8% of people who enter the digital retailing tunnel come out. Most of those tunnels start with a "Buy Now" call to action.

 

[Dan Sayer]

According to Dealer.com, Gubabgoo, and CarNow's presentations at AAAS this week less than 8% of people who enter the digital retailing tunnel come out. Most of those tunnels start with a "Buy Now" call to action.

Not even considering the through-put of those tools, or even the success of the UX within, what is the click conversion to even START on "Buy Now" vs a "Get Started" or a "Start Buying Process" button?

 

[Dan Sayer]

I would like to add, @GerryFoster, that the level of anticipation conveyed by the expression on your profile pic has me to believe you'd be up for an epic good time at any time.

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

So...what are CTA's that perform better? (genuinely curious, and woefully underinformed).

The most proven SRP/VDP conversion CTA since 2008 (attached).

It does three things for the shopper.

1) Shows them instantly what their payment could be on every vehicle.
2) Lets them know they can Drive It Now (buy it!).
3) Gives them a compelling CTA to pre-qualify instantly.

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

According to Dealer.com, Gubabgoo, and CarNow's presentations at AAAS this week less than 8% of people who enter the digital retailing tunnel come out. Most of those tunnels start with a "Buy Now" call to action.

For those who want to finance/lease a vehicle, there is no way to come out of the tunnel using a credit-last digital retailing solution.

 

[Dan Sayer]

The most proven SRP/VDP conversion CTA since 2008 (attached).

It does three things for the shopper.

1) Shows them instantly what their payment could be on every vehicle.
2) Lets them know they can Drive It Now (buy it!).
3) Gives them a compelling CTA to pre-qualify instantly.

View attachment 5194

@Tarry Shebesta you lost me at "...since 2008". Do you have the data to back that up? To me, you are basically throwing three CTA's within a clickable image. "Drive It Now" "explore payment (implied with a shown payment)" and "Pre-Qualify" so to say it is the best CTA isn't really a comparison. If you broke out those three, I'm sure you'd have some different data on each. If any of us just took the entire SRP image which may include two, three, five, CTA's and make the entire thing a single clickable area, it would be the "most proven CTA" ever.

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

@Tarry Shebesta you lost me at "...since 2008". Prove it.

2008 was the year it was rolled out to dealers based on the original digital retailing website, LeaseCompare.com, launched in 2000.

Hundreds of dealers use it, including AutoNation, and it helped catapult McCluskey Chevrolet to the #1 New Car Chevy sales dealer in the world: https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...d-1-Volume-New-Car-Chevy-Dealer-in-the-World!

 

[Dan Sayer]

@Tarry Shebesta in fairness, I edited my original response so please review. If I had a dime for every vendor that claimed to be the silver bullet behind a dealer's success....

I'm just asking that you show your data for the claim of "most proven".

 

[Alex Snyder]

Not even considering the through-put of those tools, or even the success of the UX within, what is the click conversion to even START on "Buy Now" vs a "Get Started" or a "Start Buying Process" button?

Nobody brought that up. I think Dealer.com was the only one of that group who could answer that question. From my conversations with smart dealership marketers (I consider you in there, Dan) it is very low when the CTA has the word "Buy" in it.

 

[Tony Howard]

With some help from our friend @georgenenni from Generations Digital we've done some A/B testing on our site over the last 6 months to see if the verbiage on the CTA had an impact on conversions. We are not a one price store, but I am personally not a fan of setting the expectation of the customer getting a different price if they click on the button. I am sure we miss out on some opportunities, but I soooo want to believe in the idea that market based pricing is a real thing, so it leaves us with little additional wiggle room on the first click. I was never a fan of the token $100 discount for a form submission, so we try to stick with CTAs that don't lead the customer to expect a price different than the one we have advertised. I am not saying we are right, or that it is the best way to do it, but we try to match our CTAs with the experience the customer should experience on the showroom floor or as a phone up. For now we have settled on Confirm Availability for pre-owned vehicles and are using Confirm Your Price for new. With all the different incentives available based on region, loyalty, conquest, financing, previous lease customer, etc. it is really tough for us to know what the customer's actual price on a new vehicle will be until we get the chance to connect with them to get some additional information. We discussed the idea of trying to jam all of those questions into a lead form, but were concerned about how it would impact the customer experience and potentially hurt form submissions as well.

Love the thread subject and anxious to get some new ideas to test...