The gold standard to compare is? Bounce Rate? Conversion?

[anthonycapital]

Hey all!

A little background: We are in a fortunate position of having an opportunity to compare our Google analytics directly with some other dealers outside of our market.

In these comparisons the moderators are using Bounce Rate as the gold standard. Out of 18 pages with 50 lines per page bounce rate is used almost solely as the "key metric" to determine overall success.

From what I understand (and from browsing a few posts on here.):

1) A high bounce rate can be both good and bad.
2) Bounce rate can be considered a key metric, however, is primarily useful for internal comparison.

So to the crux of it,
what would be good metrics to compare?

Conversion Rate? Pageview/Visitor? SRPs/Total Pageviews? Time on Site? %Mobile Traffic? New vs Returning?

(One note: The stores are considered comparable, however, there is still a large divide between overall unique visitors so key comparison stats would have to be a percentage or average/x to be meaningful to all parties.)

 

[Alex Snyder]

I'd love to hear the reasoning behind why one would compare dealership websites from multiple markets based on bounce rates

Every market is different and every business radiates a very different reputation. Comparing things in black and white metric such as a bounce rate is just that; too black and white. When looking at any performance metric I'm personally looking for conversion rates.

• -Number of new opportunities vs. deals closed = Closing Rate
• -Number of appointment schedules vs. appointments shown = Appointment Quality Rate
• -Number of leads + phone calls vs. website visitors = Conversion Rate

When it comes to a website I like to look at VDP views for the sales department and phone calls for the service department.

• -VDP views ÷ Website Visitors = VDP Conversion Rate
• -80% of Phone Calls* ÷ Website Visitors = Service Conversion Rate

*roughly 80% of all recorded calls from a dealership website are for service

 

[cmjerry4531]

There is so much context with bounce rate that it is hard to use it as a measurement. I have SEO landing pages that get between 5-10% bounce rate, and I have direct from Craigslist VDP views that get 60% bounce rate. Overall it averages out around 27%, but that doesn't give you the whole picture.

The only fair way to measure websites against each other is conversion rate: leads vs website visitors. Keep in mind that the more traffic you have to a site, the more variance of where people are in the funnel. So, more traffic usually leads to a small dip in conversion rate.

 

[craigh]

I think we fall somewhere alongside where Alex does on this one.

My top things to track when comparing websites, in no particular order:

a) Pageviews including "inventory/used" or "inventory/new"
b) Bounce rate for organic customers in the correct geographic region
c) Non-inventory page traversal - I remove all pages containing "inventory" and the homepage and compare the remainder.

 

[craigh]

So, more traffic usually leads to a small dip in conversion rate.

I recently had to explain this to a client.
We brought their traffic up 40% in 1 month and their bounce rate went up.
In addition to that, their leads didn't go up by 40% with the visits, but went up closer to 20%.

Where visitors come from, what they were looking for and other factors all affect bounce rate and conversions.
The more "out of the box" targeting you do (ie: vehicle landing pages, manufacturer related content), the less targeted your visitors will be. We widen our net to catch people looking for related things, but a % of them will always see that it's a dealership website and leave immediately.

 

[joe.pistell]

Anthony, you write: "...moderators are using Bounce Rate as the gold standard"

This is a CLASSIC example of the dangers of big data. Who are these moderators and how did they arrive at 'bounce rate' trumping all other metrics? Are they an authority in automotive franchised dealer analytics, or, are they dealer guys sharing this in a 20 group setting?

Uncle Joe's $0.02
I can't think of a better way to deliver low ROI from your work that optimizing for 'bounce rate' (BR). It's only slightly related to whats required to energize that shopper and get him into your store. Yes, BR has value, but, IMO BR is a separate, stand alone study where you to look into the traffic that arrives to your site (BR is highly contextual. It's highly dependent on your traffic source(s) and your business's brand, the franchise, etc, then you look into the Landing Page experience for clues for BR optimization...)

You need a specific definition of exactly what and how Bounce Rate is calculated... and I mean specific.

For example, Think about a customer that wants to make an appt with svc for their state inspection, they're at work, they google your biz name, click the link, hit your site, write down the phone # and close the browser. Was that a bounce? You can see where I am going, You'll want answers on this.

Analytics job is to serve your business's goals. Is your top goal is to sell service, or sell cars? Is your top goal to sell a car and service is not so important? Is it your business's goal to create a strong impression into ALL of your shoppers that your service department is the best on the planet? What I am saying is that you can't let analytics dictate what a win is, it's up to YOU to decide what a winning shopping experience looks like.

Next, I agree with what Alex said, be very very weary of making big decisions based on the results of another dealer's numbers. I've written about this extensively here in the forums, to summarize, when comparing dealer to dealer, there are soooooo many variables that can skew the metrics, that all you can take away are some high level ideas that you'd like to try on your site.

I believe the metrics that Alex has mapped out to be excellent business goals. I'd add the "Be Back-o-meter" (create a breakout study of Return Visitors). From my +20,000 surveys at delivery, one of the strongest hallmarks of a sale was a shopper that was at the site 3x or more.

HTH
Joe

 

[Kevin McKillop]

Bounce rate as a whole is not good, you have to compare bounce rate by traffic source and destination. Advertising direct to VDP will have a much higher bounce rate, you gave them exactly what they wanted right away. If you get them to a landing page, then provide links to inventory, you're naturally going to drop the bounce rate, but doesn't make it any better or worse, unless of course all you care about is the bounce rate.

Organic traffic searching for your store by name has a very low bounce rate, they're interested in You already. Where as organic traffic that is non-branded will have a much higher bounce rate, they're not sold on you yet.

Traffic from Google Display Network vs. Search is always quite different between the two and depends on the keywords.

 

[anthonycapital]

Thank you all for the feedback and responses!

Alex, thank you very much, your point on service I find especially interesting.

Cody and Craig, We do have more visitors (think order of magnitude) more than a few of the other dealers in the group, so I completely agree this skews it.

Joe, It is more of a 20 group thing. Agreed. The “be-back-o-meter” is an excellent metric. I plan to bring up this with them. That would be a really interesting metric I think to compare to others.

Kevin, Agreed!

Thanks again everyone for such detailed responses! I <3 DealerRefresh