Internet ROI Report

Stefan · Apr 26, 2010

What "Sources" should an "Internet ROI Report" take in consideration?

I have decided that from now on I will put it up for vote before I ask vendors to make any changes on their side. Here is a simple poll... Help me see the light if I am wrong, or help me convince the vendors that its time for some changes...

Jerry Thibeau · Apr 26, 2010

All of the above. A good ROI report will break out your advertising campaigns and count the total amount of leads that come in from all four sources you mention.

Lead Source
Amount spent on lead source
Number of leads generated per lead source
Number of appointments per lead source
Number of shows per lead source
Number of sold customers per lead source
Average revenue generated per lead source sold.
Total revenue generated overall per lead source

A lot of the better CRM providers have reports that calculate this for you. The tough part is getting your sales team to source each customer.

Stefan · Apr 26, 2010

Jerry Thibeau said:
All of the above. A good ROI report will break out your advertising campaigns and count the total amount of leads that come in from all four sources you mention.

Lead Source
Amount spent on lead source
Number of leads generated per lead source
Number of appointments per lead source
Number of shows per lead source
Number of sold customers per lead source
Average revenue generated per lead source sold.
Total revenue generated overall per lead source

A lot of the better CRM providers have reports that calculate this for you. The tough part is getting your sales team to source each customer.

Thanks Jerry,

My bad... The question should of been :" What "SOURCES" should an "Internet ROI Report" take in consideration?"

jdavidson · Apr 28, 2010

Jerry Thibeau said:
All of the above. A good ROI report will break out your advertising campaigns and count the total amount of leads that come in from all four sources you mention.

Lead Source
Amount spent on lead source
Number of leads generated per lead source
Number of appointments per lead source
Number of shows per lead source
Number of sold customers per lead source
Average revenue generated per lead source sold.
Total revenue generated overall per lead source

A lot of the better CRM providers have reports that calculate this for you. The tough part is getting your sales team to source each customer.

Now that we have established what shoud be tracked...what are some standards that should be met by each?

Jerry Thibeau · Apr 28, 2010

Well it's either red or black. Red obviously gets my attention. Is it just a crappy lead source or is the process broken. I get calls all the time from lead providers telling me they feed leads to dealers only to hear them seriously botch the lead on the recorded phone call. Then it becomes a training issue. You can spend all the money in the world on advertising, but if your process is broken it's like fishing with a net that has a bunch of big holes. Sure you're going to catch a few, but a lot are going to get away. I mystery shopped a local HUGE Hyundai dealer known for spending lots of money on advertising and the results were pathetic. Talk about wasting advertising dollars.

Just because a lead source is in the black does not mean it's a good one. How much money are you really making when you factor in all your cost associated with the sale? Most dealers just look at how much they spent on the source versus the commissionable revenue. If you spent 5K on an add source and only made 5.1K in return, you probably lost money since you're not factoring in the 1-2K in paid commissions.

Different lead sources have different appointment and close ratios. I would certainly expect different numbers if I were comparing a mail campaign to AutoTrader or Cars.com

I would like to see a CRM company generate a report based on data from all their clients and provide a master report with average close ratios on some of the nationally recognized lead providers. How about it CRM vendors, is this something you could make happen? Measuring lead providers would help hold them accountable and obviously lead them to providing a better product. When you measure something the bar tends to get raised since nobody wants to be on the bottom.

:2cents: