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Evolving Call to Actions - should ePrice die?

I found your 6 points beneficial (#3 is spot on) and my response was based on a bit of shock that you're basically not taking your own advice (#6) and giving the customer no value or even the implied return (the price) for their PII. Why not actually Unlock the Price?

Dan,

We are giving the customer value; we show the "Unlocked" price. For this dealership, a email is sent with the pricing instead of displaying it on the site (per the dealer). With other dealers we unlock the pricing across the board on all vehicles for a determined amount of time.

Vendors have got to chill out on this forum. Instead of offering their product as the fix or answer, explain how they came to that answer (with data) within their product and not be fearful that a dealer may be able to replicate without using their product. Are vendors using Dealer Refresh as a sales opportunity or an opportunity to partake in discussion to improve the industry. @Tarry Shebesta could have shot back at us but I felt he handled the questions with calm and a professional approach.

I don't feel anything I wrote was unprofessional.
 
Hi Jason, would you be willing to share the data on the conversion rate of a CTA button vs. an inline form if you have it? I'm not trying to attack, I'm genuinely curious which performs better because I've seen it both ways and always wondered what converts better.

It seems like all of the third party sites (Autotrader, Cars, CarGurus) still use an inline form, while most dealership website providers have switched to a CTA button. That leads me to assume that the third party sites have run tests and found that the inline form performs better. But I hate to assume things.

Regarding my color and sizing suggestions, that was just some constructive feedback on what I experienced as a user. I'm sure I'm not the only one that could have an issue tapping something super tiny or seeing gray font on a gray background. Could give your sites an even bigger conversion boost :)

Data from @Dan Sayer dealership's site.

I'm a big proponent of inline forms. Also, look at real estate sites, they all have inline forms. The jump for inline exclusive form to CTA button was similar to what you saw. I looked at over 10,000 user messages from leads and noticed a trend of "Confirm Pricing", "Confirm Availability", or "Confirm Pricing and Availability" from customers. So I added that CTA directly to SRP and VDP which prepopulated the lightbox/modal form with "I want to confirm pricing and availability on this 2020 xxx xxxx stk xxxx".

6 months, 1 site
Over 1,700 leads on SRP/VDP (all devices)
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 35.07% <-- CTA right below price on VDP
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 26.76% <-- inline form
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 16.97% <-- CTA button on SRP above View Details Button
Get Additional Rebate - VDP 4.78% <-- Link on VDP right below price

Mobile only -- 1,100 leads
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 34.30%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 25.20%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 21.29% <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Get Additional Rebate - VDP 3.82%
Transfer Vehicle Request - SRP 3.37%
Schedule Appointment - VDP Form 2.00%
Get Video Walk-Around - VDP Form 1.64%

Desktop only -- 525 leads
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 38.40%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 28.71%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 8.94% <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Get Additional Rebate - VDP 6.84%
Transfer Vehicle Request - SRP 4.56%
Schedule Appointment - VDP Form 3.04%
Get Video Walk-Around - VDP Form 2.66%


So the biggest takeaway from this is on mobile, users are more likely to click the CTA button for "Confirm Pricing & Availability" and NOT go into VDP. Desktop users are more likely to go into VDP.



EDIT:
Just looked at different dealership's site:
Site 2:
Mobile
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 37.00%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 24.01%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 14.10%

Desktop
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 37.33%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 28.11%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 8.29%


Site 3:
Mobile
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 33.45%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 22.80%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 22.80%

Desktop
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Form 35.94%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - VDP Button 27.65%
Confirm Pricing & Availability - SRP 6.45%

These two sites the inline form jumped ahead of the CTA on desktop.
 
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The only exception we allow to any of the above CTA's is on our Toyota site. We have a button that says, "Confirm Best Price Instantly" that opens directly into a chat so that we can instantly tell people when we are priced below MAP pricing.

LOVE this strategy.

Until I read that I would say that Get e-Price should go away at the point customers stop submitting leads with it. For a particular OEM I worked with we had visibility to all of their website leads/traffic. Get e-Price was hands down the best performing CTA, and lead volume remained consistent across the 4 years I was with them in spite of the fact we would lose visibility of dealers month after month as dealers enrolled with Digital Retailing providers who didn't report back to us.