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ILM as % of Business

john.quinn

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Dec 2, 2009
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Does anyone track their Internet Lead Management efforts as a percentage of overall sales? As in, I did 20 ILM sales this month, out of 100 Dealership Sales, so my ILM % of Overall Business is 20%. I'm very curious to see what this forum users' opinions of the significance of this number is. Is there a certain number we should strive to reach? As in, 20% is bad, but 30% is good? Or is it more a case of "have a heck of a process, and take what the market gives you?" I welcome your input, and thanks!
 
Last year while with IML I compiled a report to see what percentage of a dealers customers where in fact Internet based. After looking at over 100 dealers, the number was right around 40%. Keep in mind, all internet leads get logged and the same can't be said for phone and walk-ins. So in reality it's probably more like 30% Since the closing ratio is generally lower on Internet than walk-ins, I would imagine that 20% is respectable, but I really don't have the data to give you as more precise answer. Perhaps someone else out there can.

The big question you need to ask is, "how many leads did it take for you to sell 20?" That's what I would be more focused on.
 
I would say that 30 to 40% should be a goal. I work at a Honda dealership and we had 56 sales.

56 sales where just over 30% of total cars sold or 13.6% of all lead received and we're pretty consistant month to month.

It's an improvement over last year, but 16 to 18% is our hefty goal.

Of coarse, if we gave the vehicles away, we'd be 18 to 22% in a heart beat.

Our dealership refuses to lose money when other Honda dealers will sell for $1.00 over net , net invoice.
 
My BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) for our dealership is 40% for our entire group. I fluctuate from 30% in one dealership to 15% in another. We float between 22-25% of the auto group's sales.

I know of some of our competitor's are running 30-40% - but they are also giving away their cars. It is a fine line of how to price your vehicles, but regardless my realistic goal for 2010 is 30%.
 
I in fact do measure my ILM sales as a % of our total vehicle sales. I found that this measurement was not only reassuring to myself but that ownership wants to see this number weekly. It also drives the GSM to push his (floor) to produce results.

We tend to flucuate between 25 - 32% as a % of total vehicle sales. My goal is to consitantly fall 30% + of total vehicle sales. I have read through the thread, and I would agree that you should analize the number of leads it will take you to close at the 30% mark. We are a small store and do not get more than 170 total leads per month. We try to make the mark even on the low number of leads that we have.
 
All of the above are good answers. I have always tracked close and ROI very consistently. I do now also report % of sales but it is more for my information. I use it as a percentage each month to show our "contribution" that way if I say well we sold 50 and someone says that was a good month or bad month I have the same percentage for each month.

We run about 20-30%, have been as high as 38% (from trackable leads)

But I will say closing % and ROI are much more important to show success in my humble opinion.

This question reminds me of a constant battle I had years ago with an ISM at one of my sister store. They were a smaller store with around 50 monthly sales total. He would always say to me that he met his goal 10% of overall sales. I always thought was funny because he could never tell his closing percentages nor his ROI. At the time, he was spending more money on leads than I was and we were outselling them in numbers. But he always told me he was doing better because the percentage of contribution. I never understood how for example 500 leads into 10 sales was better than 300 leads and 20 sales. So, I guess that's my thought on that. God bless him, I could never convince him but maybe it was because he was about 25 years older than me.

Thanks
Lori Finney