GA4 ASC Wishlist

[Ryan Everson]

Am I getting ahead of myself dreaming up a GA4 Automotive Standards Council 2.0 wishlist?

In my deep dive into GA4 over the past couple of months, I've identified 7 event parameters that could add significant reporting value:

1️⃣ item_location = A must-have parameter for group sites, rollup GA4 properties, and sites with shared inventory to identify which dealership the vehicle is located at.

2️⃣ item_sale_price = to track the impact of discounts and OEM incentives. It pairs well with item_price to calculate the $ / % of the discount.

3️⃣ item_photos = # of vehicle photos. This would allow us to track the performance and impact of merchandising. It could also be used in conjunction with item_age to provide an added layer of understanding.

4️⃣ item_age = # of days in stock at time of asc_item_pageview. This would allow us to track performance by inventory age instead of a static inventory date.

5️⃣ item_video = A simple true / false boolean

6️⃣ item_360 = Another true / false boolean

7️⃣ item_model_normalized = I know the intention was for item_model to use a 3rd party lookup table, but that does not seem to be happening. Could we create a list of official OEM preferred model names to use (or maybe the Chrome Data ID)? For instance, merging model names like Silverado with Silverado 1500 ensures user metrics by model are accurate without duplication.

I'm well aware many vendors are still in the midst of rolling out ASC. Nonetheless, my hope is ASC will continue to evolve and improve from its debut version (and maybe include some of the parameters on my wishlist ).

And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a huge shoutout to Brian Pasch and the entire Automotive Standards Council. Their efforts have ushered in a refreshing wave of collaboration in the industry!

So, have you come across any other event parameters that would be beneficial?

 

[craigh]

7️⃣ item_model_normalized = I know the intention was for item_model to use a 3rd party lookup table, but that does not seem to be happening. Could we create a list of official OEM preferred model names to use (or maybe the Chrome Data ID)? For instance, merging model names like Silverado with Silverado 1500 ensures user metrics by model are accurate without duplication.

I think the ideal solution would be to have a unique ID that represents each Year, Make, Model, Trim, etc - like a Chrome Style ID.
I don't think it should be the Chrome / JD Power ID though - we need a more universal way that isn't attached to a single vendor.

By having this publicly available, we could reverse engineer these back into more common models, etc.
Although it might be nice to have that right in GA.

 

[Ryan Everson]

1️⃣ item_location = A must-have parameter for group sites, rollup GA4 properties, and sites with shared inventory to identify which dealership the vehicle is located at.

^ This is the parameter that I'm most surprised was overlooked - I can report on the color of a CTA button which is cool and all, but knowing which dealership a vehicle is at is far more important and fundamental.

We've been able to overcome the deficiency by sending our own event parameter via GTM, but the average dealer would have no idea where to begin.

 

[Mark A Hoffman]

Definitely agree about item_location, and it's something that we'll be pushing for for version 2. I know that many of the website vendors have pushed back against having to include too much information that would be tough for them to track and maintain, and understandably so, because it pushes them into becoming a reporting / analytics tool just to be ASC compliant.

But item_location would be something that most website vendors should already know and wouldn't require them to calculate it, etc. The sale_price one is a bit trickier because the pricing stack can get so complicated, and often there are 3'rd parties involved, etc so I can see that one being a bit further away.

I also echo your sentiments on ASC. We've been on the reporting / analytics side of the business for years and ASC is truly the first major step forward that we've seen for vendor transparency and accountability. It's been exciting to pull down all of this data from GA4, into BigQuery and then do analysis on an entire dealer group and not have to be concerned with website vendor, call tracking vendor, etc they are using. Just focus on the ASC events instead.

 

[Ryan Everson]

I know that many of the website vendors have pushed back against having to include too much information that would be tough for them to track and maintain, and understandably so, because it pushes them into becoming a reporting / analytics tool just to be ASC compliant.

Yeah, I'd gladly give up parameters like button color in exchange for getting a vehicle's advertised sale price. There are plenty of other better-suited A/B website optimization tools on the market already to report and optimize on button color than having it in GA4.

Vehicle sale price, though? Pretty important to the average dealer. Item discount is even one of Google's official recommended GA4 event parameters. Luckily, most website vendors have fairly standard CSS class names across all of their clients for starting price and sale price - that's how we're grabbing it using a GTM DOM Element variable / CSS selector. I know having the data in the data layer is best practice, but for now it fills the void!

I agree on the pushback experienced from some vendors, it's unfortunate that some already seem to have a fairly negative attitude towards ASC and respond to requests to implement/fix the current standards begrudgingly, let alone even begin to think of considering future improvements. I'm hoping the momentum of the initial rollout continues and incremental improvements can be embraced by all.

 

[Mark A Hoffman]

I agree though, it's unfortunate that some vendors already seem to have a fairly negative attitude towards ASC and respond to requests to implement the current standards begrudgingly, let alone even think of suggesting further improvements.

We've definitely seen some of that, with a few vendors flat-out refusing to support it. Fortunately, I think the market will speak loudly and they will find that their customers choose a platform that provides the transparency that ASC provides. It's great to see dealers that are excited about it because, at the end of the day, that is what it is going to take to get vendors to move towards being more open and transparent.

 

[CarlAutofusion]

As a website provider (Autofusion), I was curious how difficult it would be to add these event parameters so I asked my dev team.
They said most vehicle-level (vin-specific) ASC parameters should be relatively easy to implement as long as we're receiving the data from the inventory provider.
They tricky ones would be:

• item_photos if the photos are being provided by a widget, integration would be needed.
• item_video if the video is being provided by a 3rd party widget, integration would be needed.
• item_360 would require the website provider to integrate with the 360 provider.

Regarding, item_model_normalized, could we use a partial VIN to determine the normalized model name? This would be vendor-agnostic.

 

[craigh]

• item_photos if the photos are being provided by a widget, integration would be needed.
• item_video if the video is being provided by a 3rd party widget, integration would be needed.
• item_360 would require the website provider to integrate with the 360 provider.

I would agree with all 3 of these - it really depends on the vendor.
Many vehicle videos are just an iFrame, so the src URL would work pretty universally, but with the 360 it's not always that easy and the website vendor often has no access to anything except an integration script.

That said, if those vendors want to join in then we would need standards for them as well, so it makes sense to have them as options.

 

[KodyVoyles]

Am I getting ahead of myself dreaming up a GA4 Automotive Standards Council 2.0 wishlist?

In my deep dive into GA4 over the past couple of months, I've identified 7 event parameters that could add significant reporting value:

1️⃣ item_location = A must-have parameter for group sites, rollup GA4 properties, and sites with shared inventory to identify which dealership the vehicle is located at.

2️⃣ item_sale_price = to track the impact of discounts and OEM incentives. It pairs well with item_price to calculate the $ / % of the discount.

3️⃣ item_photos = # of vehicle photos. This would allow us to track the performance and impact of merchandising. It could also be used in conjunction with item_age to provide an added layer of understanding.

4️⃣ item_age = # of days in stock at time of asc_item_pageview. This would allow us to track performance by inventory age instead of a static inventory date.

5️⃣ item_video = A simple true / false boolean

6️⃣ item_360 = Another true / false boolean

7️⃣ item_model_normalized = I know the intention was for item_model to use a 3rd party lookup table, but that does not seem to be happening. Could we create a list of official OEM preferred model names to use (or maybe the Chrome Data ID)? For instance, merging model names like Silverado with Silverado 1500 ensures user metrics by model are accurate without duplication.

I'm well aware many vendors are still in the midst of rolling out ASC. Nonetheless, my hope is ASC will continue to evolve and improve from its debut version (and maybe include some of the parameters on my wishlist ).

And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a huge shoutout to Brian Pasch and the entire Automotive Standards Council. Their efforts have ushered in a refreshing wave of collaboration in the industry!

So, have you come across any other event parameters that would be beneficial?

Why not just create these events yourself working with your website vendor?

GA4 is so good at handling custom events, it's kinda wild that ASC gatekeeps with a $500 yearly fee to use them.

Here is an example for you for vehicle location on a page view fire this JavaScript event:

    gtag('event', 'view_item', {

        currency: 'USD', //Required By Google

        value: 7.77, //Required By Google

        item_id: 'N11111', //Stock Number

        item_name: '2024 Hyundai Elantra', //Vehicle Title

        item_brand: 'Hyundai', //Vehicle Make

        item_category: 'Elantra', //Vehicle Model

        item_category2: 'SE', //Vehicle Trim

        item_category3: 'KMH12345678910538', //Vehicle VIN

        item_category4: 'New', //Vehicle Condition

        item_category5: '2024', //Vehicle Year

        item_variant:'GRAY', //Vehicle Color

        price: 11111 //Vehicle Price

        affiliation: 'Kody Hyundai' //Vehicles Dealership Location

    });

 

[Ryan Everson]

Why not just create these events yourself working with your website vendor?

GA4 is so good at handling custom events, it's kinda wild that ASC gatekeeps with a $500 yearly fee to use them.

Here is an example for you for vehicle location on a page view fire this JavaScript event:

Yes, we've created a lot of these events ourselves using Google Tag Manager, but getting them incorporated into the ASC specs is preferred because it makes events available to every dealer regardless of skill level and standardizes them across all vendors - which is absolutely critical considering GA4's limit of 50 custom definitions.

Regarding the $500 ASC annual membership dues, that is a nominal fee that vendors choose to pay to support ASC and have a voice at the table. This is a per-vendor fee, not a per-client fee.

I would not consider a $500 annual fee a "gatekeeping" type of expense, especially spread across hundreds or thousands of clients. That being said, I believe any vendor is free to download and use the ASC specs even if they aren't a paying member.

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