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Internet Manager Metrics

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CFrentzen

CFrentzen

Boss
Apr 24, 2009
172
0
First Name
Chris
#1
Good morning everyone,

The Internet Manager position is newly created at my dealership, and we are wondering how to go about measuring the "success" of the position. I was hoping to get some metrics that are already in place in dealerships that have this position fully fleshed out. Also interested in similar positions - what about Internet Sales Reps? What works well and what doesn't?

Any and all information is welcome
 
#2
Look at the current metrics:


  • Unique website Visitors
  • Returning website Visitors
  • Number of leads coming from your website
  • Number of sales being made on all Internet leads
  • Closing Ratio on those Leads
  • Conversion Ratio on the website
  • etc.

If your boss is going to figure whether the position was worth it, then he needs to figure out what each of those items is worth.

Here's a thought on a way to do it....

Say a unique visitor is the equivalent of a customer walking into the dealership, a returning website visitor is a be back, an Internet Lead is a referral, and a sale is a sale.

Let's say your dealership is currently spending $100 per floor-up and $400 per sale in traditional advertising dollars. Then it isn't incredibly difficult to figure out what each part of your eCommerce strategy is worth.

If you're spending $10,000 per month on eCommerce, and getting 300 leads (referrals), 200 people on the showroom mentioning something about your website (walk-in/be-back) then you're looking at roughly $20 per "up" and if you do a little better than industry standards (let's say a 10% closing ratio) then you're looking at 50 sales at an advertising cost of $200 per sale.

When you compare the traditional advertising spends and results against those of the Internet, you can measure the effectiveness of things - but only if you have your benchmarks to measure against. Doing things this way also helps to put eCommerce in terms traditional business people can understand ;)

------------------------------------

What's a good job? It is an extremely personal question your dealership is going to have to figure out based on old figures. Take your current statistics and your current costs and find a way to mesh those together. Then if your statistics are improving and your costs are going down...well...you aren't going to get fired for doing that!
 
#3
Alex Snyder said:
Look at the current metrics:


  • Unique website Visitors
  • Returning website Visitors
  • Number of leads coming from your website
  • Number of sales being made on all Internet leads
  • Closing Ratio on those Leads
  • Conversion Ratio on the website
  • etc.

If your boss is going to figure whether the position was worth it, then he needs to figure out what each of those items is worth.

Here's a thought on a way to do it....

Say a unique visitor is the equivalent of a customer walking into the dealership, a returning website visitor is a be back, an Internet Lead is a referral, and a sale is a sale.

Let's say your dealership is currently spending $100 per floor-up and $400 per sale in traditional advertising dollars. Then it isn't incredibly difficult to figure out what each part of your eCommerce strategy is worth.

If you're spending $10,000 per month on eCommerce, and getting 300 leads (referrals), 200 people on the showroom mentioning something about your website (walk-in/be-back) then you're looking at roughly $20 per "up" and if you do a little better than industry standards (let's say a 10% closing ratio) then you're looking at 50 sales at an advertising cost of $200 per sale.

When you compare the traditional advertising spends and results against those of the Internet, you can measure the effectiveness of things - but only if you have your benchmarks to measure against. Doing things this way also helps to put eCommerce in terms traditional business people can understand ;)

------------------------------------

What's a good job? It is an extremely personal question your dealership is going to have to figure out based on old figures. Take your current statistics and your current costs and find a way to mesh those together. Then if your statistics are improving and your costs are going down...well...you aren't going to get fired for doing that!
Click to expand...

This is really useful to me. Thanks Alex.
 
#4
Chris do you have a google anylitics account? If not get one its free and will help you determine if the things you are doing to market your site are working. You will be able to see your base line (where you are starting from today) and monitior improvements month to month.
 
#6
Hey Chris,

One of the easiest things to do is set up a dashboard full of numbers without any insight behind it. Having 50,000 visitors to your site each month is wonderful-- but what does that mean?

I always recommend that comparison graphs be set up, along with referral sources and conversions and if possible direct budget calculations are performed. That way, instead of focusing on the numbers you can focus on the strategy-- what advertising to increase, which is efficient, and how to drive both more traffic and leads.

If you're interested, I'm happy to send you one of the basic example dashboards we usually provide to clients. Let me know :)
 
#7
Hey Chris,
Having just started our newly revamped internet department a few months ago with the help of Sean Bradley and Dealer Synergy I thought I may have some insights you might find useful. We track progress daily using an excell spreadsheet comprised of a few important factors. Using imagiclab we can easily track these metrics so having a goold ILM/CLM is crucial in keeping tabs on these metrics. We can track new leads recieved per day per person, calls made per person, contacts made per call and the percentage of, appointments, shows and finally sales. We then add all these metrics up to try and come out with a final overall percentage of leads sold which (if your doing well) should come out to about ten percent. We have had great success since implementing this system of accountablity and have had concrete numbers to show management of our success. Ultimately gaining more dealer support , money, and expansion within our department. Its not that hard to keep up with and I help Bobby Preston (our GSM/DIO) keep track of all of our staffs stats. It may seem like a lot to do at first, but trust me, once the system (however you finally decide to do it) in place its easy. Feel free to contact me directly if I can be of further assistance.
 
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