Thank you pages, Form abandonment tracking

[GerryFoster]

My apologies if this has been posted before. I looked through some of the search results for the forum and didn't see it right away...

I come from the land of agency work and have switched into an in-house role in a dealership. It has its fair share of challenges to be sure but the one I struggle with most is the lack of a thank you page after a form submission in both CDK Global and Dealer.com sites.

Without some fancy tag manager code, I am unsure of how to track real form submissions or abandons on our website. CDK straight up refuses the idea of a thank you page, and dealer.com is willing to work on it.

In the meantime, does anyone have any advice on how best to implement form tracking? This is part of tracking ROI, and the effectiveness of our Organic, Paid, and 3rd party effectiveness. I really really appreciate any help that can be offered.

 

[Alex Snyder]

With your background you should be fairly proficient in Google Analytics.... unless you've had the luxury of being able to use proprietary tools. But you can work with Dealer.com to setup event tracking in GA. I don't know how open CDK is to that.

 

[Alexander Lau]

As Alex said, you'll need to use an analytics package (GA, etc.) in order to track the actual submissions. Evidence that variables have been passed through the form page you want to measure. Good luck finding someone at CDK to help you.

For GA, go to Admin -> Your View and create a Custom Goal (either Destination or Event). The goal will depend on the way CDK creates their pages.

More specifically... (I personally have created over 400 of these set-ups for tops = not fun)

You probably can also hack this, depending on the form widget that is being used. Like the ultra-popular Contact Form 7 for WordPress.
https://contactform7.com/tracking-form-submissions-with-google-analytics/

https://webris.org/creating-goals-out-of-events-in-google-analytics/

 

[GerryFoster]

Thank you, @Alexander Lau. As someone who comes in from the organic side of things and not the automotive side of things, there are common practices happening at almost every level that baffles me.

An example of this is that lack of a thank you page or confirmation. HOW!
Another: I can't for the life of me, figure out who is running adwords for us. To clarify, I know who does our main campaigns and I am in contact almost daily, but there are a couple of campaigns going that are registering in my analytics as (not set), which of course is not good, because no control or input means that we are driving up CPC costs elsewhere. I want to just yank the unidentified codes but fear they are somehow OEM or LMA related, and that we will "get in trouble."

 

[umer.autojini]

@GerryFoster Have you tried reaching out to digital marketing support @cdk.com (no spaces in email) for this change. Last option is always Google Tag Manager... you have to get bit fancy with it...

I think the problem you are alluding to is lack of flexibility to edit the thanks/confirmation page...

Not every vendor does what the big guys are doing... but that is by design to keep you locked into the same vendor for everything. PPC, SEO, Websites... but at the same time it is not the vendors fault either... OEM requirements do get in the way as well.

But welcome to world of Locked in... you are coming from open everything... to closed everything... it's mind blowing the lengths to what some vendors go to keep you locked in or creative ways to squeeze that last drop...

 

[Alexander Lau]

Thank you, @Alexander Lau. As someone who comes in from the organic side of things and not the automotive side of things, there are common practices happening at almost every level that baffles me.

An example of this is that lack of a thank you page or confirmation. HOW!
Another: I can't for the life of me, figure out who is running adwords for us. To clarify, I know who does our main campaigns and I am in contact almost daily, but there are a couple of campaigns going that are registering in my analytics as (not set), which of course is not good, because no control or input means that we are driving up CPC costs elsewhere. I want to just yank the unidentified codes but fear they are somehow OEM or LMA related, and that we will "get in trouble."

Track Forms Without Thank You Pages Using GTM
https://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2015/07/01/gtm-track-forms-no-thank-you/ (actually, I know Robin Steif owner here)

Implementing a goal without a “thank you page”
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31167774/implementing-a-goal-without-a-thank-you-page

etc.

 

[Alexander Lau]

So, how did that work out for you?