Taking inventory of your dealer advertising tracking phone numbers.

[Jeff Kershner]

I’m sitting at my desk and the phone rings. The gentleman says he calling about a vehicle I have listed on eBay (local). While I’m wondering why the call didn’t go directory to my cell phone the customer informs me that the number I have listed on eBay was forwarding him to a Toyota dealer in Virginia. NICE!!!

In-case you're not aware, when you sign up for eBay local, you are assigned a phone number. The eBay local qualified vendors have a script that overwrites your phone number even if you have your number listed in the copy of your description, changing every displayed phone number on your eBay local listing.

As soon as we got off the phone I called the number on our eBay local listings to confirm that the calls were indeed forwarding to a dealer in VA. The sales manager told me that he has been getting these calls for awhile now but couldn’t remember when it started. From what I could track, it had been for over a month at least. I was wondering why I was not getting any leads from our eBay local listings. How many sales did I loose?

With a few phone calls I was able to get this fixed. I’m not sure where the fault lays; was it eBay or ebizauto? Who cares at this point, but props to my eBay rep for helping me straighten this out within only an hour’s time. He even cut me a break on a few national listings!! Thanks Derin, awesome customer service.

After this mishap I figured it was time to take inventory of ALL of my online marketing phone numbers. When I completed the spreadsheet, I realized that I had quite a few phone numbers to manage and keep track of.

AutoTrader - 1
Cars.com – 1
Dealer Mercedes OEM site – 1
Dealer site (DriveMB.com) – 1
Other Online Marketing - 2
AutoMediaOne – 1 (sem landing pages)
eBay Local – 1
AutoBytel – 1

Giving me a total of 9 different phone numbers.

The part that sucks about this is; vendors like AutoTrader, Cars.com and even some OEM manufacturers use another vendor for their call tracking and most of the time these vendors won’t allow you to merge 2 admins together. So you find yourself having to log into several different sites and admins to view your reports and listen to the recorded phone conversations. It sure would be nice if there was a system that you could port all of your numbers into so you would only have to log into 1 system.

Needless to say, I now have all my numbers listed in a spreadsheet and all numbers are scheduled to be called once every 2 weeks for verification. If you’re not already doing this, I suggest you do.

 

[Greg Kelley]

I am surprised that no one has created a software system for dealers so they can login to all their “numbers”. I’m sure someone reading this could make it happen!

 

[Multichannel Musings]

What happens when your call tracking numbers don't work?

Your customers become very unhappy, and their business with you comes to a screeching halt.DealerRefresh has...

 

[Corey Salzano]

Jeff, in your Digital Dealer interview (very next blog post), you said..

"I end every vehicle description with our phone number; these same descriptions carry over to my other online marketing ads."

Shouldn't this technique reduce the amount of different phone numbers listed on all the classifieds sites?

The other numbers that these sites keep aren't managed by your data feed. For example, the dealership name, phone number, and contact salesman's name at Autotrader.com need to be changed with your account rep and not the company that feeds your inventory data to Autotrader.

This is likely why there's no piece of software that can manage this number for you--third parties aren't supposed to meddle with your account information.

I'm interested now, though--if you have two different phone numbers on a classified ad, one near the dealership contact information and one at the end of the description, which one gets called more?

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Corey,

Thanks for commenting.

You asked - "Shouldn't this technique reduce the amount of different phone numbers listed on all the classifieds sites?"

I wish it would but since the vendors assign you phone numbers, you ultimately have several number to manage. For instance; AutoTrader gives you a phone number that displays under your dealer name in the vehicle details page. This is not the same number I use in the body of the description. I have been able to track for every 1 phone call I get with the AutoTrader displayed number, I get 3 phone calls from the number in the description.

I wish I had an automated way of replacing the phone number in my descriptions on AutoTrader with the actual assigned AutoTrader phone number. I'm surprised AutoTrader has not figured out a way of doing this.

With eBay, this is actually being done. No matter where I have a phone number listed, there is a script that replaces it with the ebay local assigned number. This allows total trackability for my ebay local listings.

Better yet..if your inventory management software could automatically replace the phone number in your description with the assigned phone number to the corresponding website (autotrader, cars.com), that would be best.

"This is likely why there's no piece of software that can manage this number for you--third parties aren't supposed to meddle with your account information."

I was actually referring to a program that would allow you to log into 1 system to view and track your Whoscalling, CallBight, CallSource numbers or any other vendor.

 

[umer.autojini]

Hmm... why not have all calls from AutoTrader, Cars.com, Ebay Local go to your number with Whoscalling and have whoscalling send it over to you... that would give you all stats under Whoscalling and then when you have to change the number you just make the change at whoscalling.

Or setup a Asterik@Home or Trixbox at your dealership and track it that way... lot of companies offer this PBX for under 1k.

 

[Reis Hauser]

Of all the 9 different lead providers you use. Which would you recommend and which would not?? I am new to internet managment and kind of got tossed in pretty green. Anyway if you would let me know that would be fantastic. Or anyone else

 

[Corey Salzano]

Thanks, Jeff. Makes more sense now.

I agree with Umer--you need to get leads into the call tracking funnel as early as possible.

 

[umer.autojini]

I would say AutoTrader and Cars.com for sure... may be eBay Local... some do outstanding with eBay and some not that well.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Reis, it's hard to say really. The buying behaviors of the consumer can very by demographics. It also depends on what you are selling. I do well with AutoTrader but their cost is getting obnoxious. One month I do well with ebay and ebay local and the next I do nothing. You should really have a combination of SEM and SEO for your dealer website and or landing pages. It's really having the right combination and working each to the max.

Umer, I never thought about forwarding all of my numbers (even if they are a callbight number) to 1 system/vendor like whoscalling. Will that work? Will you not loose customer information as it transfers from one line to another? Would the forwarding through so many numbers cause lag in the time the call actually gets to your phone? Something to think about!!

Thanks for the heads up on that idea.