Afternoon Guys,
I know I haven't been in the forums in awhile, but for the past few days I have had a question in my head and I am looking for some input.
My question is where does most of the incoming web traffic for car dealer sites come from? I did a quick study of some sites I had previously installed Google Analytics for and came up with some interesting numbers. But they were limited to just 68 sites that I had in my old (and previously forgotten about) Google Analytics account, too bad I hadn't thought of this 8 months ago as I could have added hundreds more, ohh well.
I have posted the numbers on my blog at: 67% of Web Traffic to Used Car Dealer Websites from Google!
But to save you from having to click over, here is the most import stuff from it.
Some of the numbers I found:
It looks like the vast majority of incoming traffic sent to the used car dealership sites we reviewed came from Google accounting for over 67% of all incoming web traffic, sending in 388,702 unique visitors. This was followed by:
Paid Classifieds
You will also notice that Autotrader and Cars.com, (both tied at 1% sending 6,269 and 7,144 unique visitors respectfully) sent very little traffic back to the dealership’s site. This is to be expected as these sites are not designed to direct traffic directly back to the dealerships website, rather they are designed to capture the lead from the prospective buyer and email that directly to the dealer. For this reason the numbers listed here for Autotrader and Cars.com are not a justifiable argument for their value.
This in stark comparison to CarsForSale.com, which does link back to the dealership’s website on every vehicle listing. They sent back only 135 total unique visitors to the dealer’s sites we reviewed during the 1 year review period. This accounted for less than .000161% of the total traffic counted, which is lower in performance than any of the free listing sites reviewed in this study.
The regional paid listings site of Dealers Lot Online also showed very respectful numbers for the Virginia area dealers, accounting for 1% of all incoming web traffic, sending 5,556 unique visitors.
Free Classifieds
In addition to traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Craigslist. There was also a significant amount of traffic from automotive listings sites that do not charge the dealer for inclusion. A few of these sites include:
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What do you guys think? What are your sources of traffic? What has worked well for you? What hasn't?
thanks
I know I haven't been in the forums in awhile, but for the past few days I have had a question in my head and I am looking for some input.
My question is where does most of the incoming web traffic for car dealer sites come from? I did a quick study of some sites I had previously installed Google Analytics for and came up with some interesting numbers. But they were limited to just 68 sites that I had in my old (and previously forgotten about) Google Analytics account, too bad I hadn't thought of this 8 months ago as I could have added hundreds more, ohh well.
I have posted the numbers on my blog at: 67% of Web Traffic to Used Car Dealer Websites from Google!
But to save you from having to click over, here is the most import stuff from it.
Some of the numbers I found:
It looks like the vast majority of incoming traffic sent to the used car dealership sites we reviewed came from Google accounting for over 67% of all incoming web traffic, sending in 388,702 unique visitors. This was followed by:
- Yahoo at 10% (56,226 visitors),
- Bing at 9% (53,374 visitors),
- and Craigslist at 7% (42,796 visitors).
Paid Classifieds
You will also notice that Autotrader and Cars.com, (both tied at 1% sending 6,269 and 7,144 unique visitors respectfully) sent very little traffic back to the dealership’s site. This is to be expected as these sites are not designed to direct traffic directly back to the dealerships website, rather they are designed to capture the lead from the prospective buyer and email that directly to the dealer. For this reason the numbers listed here for Autotrader and Cars.com are not a justifiable argument for their value.
This in stark comparison to CarsForSale.com, which does link back to the dealership’s website on every vehicle listing. They sent back only 135 total unique visitors to the dealer’s sites we reviewed during the 1 year review period. This accounted for less than .000161% of the total traffic counted, which is lower in performance than any of the free listing sites reviewed in this study.
The regional paid listings site of Dealers Lot Online also showed very respectful numbers for the Virginia area dealers, accounting for 1% of all incoming web traffic, sending 5,556 unique visitors.
Free Classifieds
In addition to traffic from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Craigslist. There was also a significant amount of traffic from automotive listings sites that do not charge the dealer for inclusion. A few of these sites include:
- Oodle.com at 2% (9,956 unique visitors),
- Facebook at <1% (2,498 unique visitors),
- Findcars.com at <1% (1,529 unique visitors),
- AutomotiveGuideOnline.com at <1% (1,469 unique visitors),
- Ask.com at <1% (1,300),
- Vast.com at <1% (791 unique visitors),
- eBay at <1% (683 unique visitors),
- iSeeCars.com at <1% (373 unique visitors),
- and AOL Autos at <1% (153 unique visitors).
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What do you guys think? What are your sources of traffic? What has worked well for you? What hasn't?
thanks
