What drops in leads are you seeing?

[craigh]

I know, from various discussions with various people from various locations, that leads in general appear to be on the decline. However, I'm looking for some specific metrics on just how bad this is.
Some of the stores I'm working with are down 60-80% from last year, but it's not all in one area.

Specifically I'm wondering about website leads - not so much third party leads, AutoTrader, etc

 

[csabatka1]

Have you done a full analysis of why your leads have been decreasing vs last year?

Recently two of our markets (3 stores - 2 Ford, Lincoln, 1 used car lot) have complained about low lead volume - specially internet used car leads. I put together spreadsheets and reports galore. Upon analyzing them, I discovered our used car lead volume began the decline in the week of Oct 15-19, 2012. Upon asking around I discovered this was the exact week we went away from as-is vehicles and decreased our used car stock number substantially. The lead volume hit one store harder than the other two stores which this inventory reduction

May seem like a simple thing we should have seen right away, but the reports our marketing team, our internet teams, and managers were running didn't point this out. Reasoning being, our internet used car leads decreased, but our internet used car sold numbers increased, plus our internet new vehicles lead count increased. Our used internet lead convert to sold rose from around 15% to 38%. Even though leads decreased substantially the leads we did get were higher quality and sold at a higher rate.

Additionally, upon an 18-month analysis across new and used website leads I concluded mobile visitors have increasing hurt our visitor to lead conversion rate and overall website lead volume. Upon taking mobile visitors out of the figures our conversion rate has actually increased. In month 1 of this analysis our mobile traffic was around 15%, month 18 it was 41%. However, our lot fresh up leads have increased month over month. With this said, mobile users can be counted multiple times within unique visitor traffic numbers (computer, tablet, phone), mobile user tend to be overall lower converting and less likely to fill out web forms, and a number of mobile users are actually on your lot looking at inventory. Mobile is a huge factor in reports and numbers. I'm close to completely separating mobile website stats from desktop website stats.

 

[jimbell]

Our leads are up about 20% over last year so we aren't seeing that at all.

 

[craigh]

Jimbell,

I wish that's what I was seeing. I'm seeing the traffic increases (30-40%) but they're not converting.

Chad,

I've looked at the numbers and as much of the data as I can, but I don't really have all the variables.
When there's a BDC, Marketing team, Website team, Sales manager, Salesmen, General Managers and an It department involved in this process in one way, shape or form.. it gets really hard to track everything.

I'm going to keep hammering away, but we've definitely been seeing a steady decrease in leads over the past 18 months.
On the flipside of what you are saying, we're just starting into subprime, as is and really pushing the used car inventory.

 

[craigh]

Mobile is a huge factor in reports and numbers. I'm close to completely separating mobile website stats from desktop website stats.

I just re-read your post and this also caught my eye.
This is a big thing I've been considering - should I add a separate tracking code to the mobile sites?

The other issue therein is that most of our mobile sites have functional forms for inventory, but we don't have service forms.
Do you know if a high % of your mobile leads are service related? I guess that would make a bunch of sense if it was easy for customers to book their service from their phone.

 

[Chip Grueter]

I just re-read your post and this also caught my eye.
This is a big thing I've been considering - should I add a separate tracking code to the mobile sites?

The other issue therein is that most of our mobile sites have functional forms for inventory, but we don't have service forms.
Do you know if a high % of your mobile leads are service related? I guess that would make a bunch of sense if it was easy for customers to book their service from their phone.

If you're using Google Analytics you can separate out your mobile traffic into its own reporting but still also have it show up on your primary www stats. That's what we do and provides us with the full overall reporting and then a full look at mobile traffic. Really powerful.

I can do a quick how-to write up if anyone wants. It's great having all stats available on mobile but still be able to see a full traffic picture.

 

[craigh]

That makes perfect sense Chip.
I do the same thing, I just have to adjust how it handles some tablets in order to get "accurate" mobile results - often it includes tablets that are actually showing our full site in the mobile tracking section.

 

[anthonycapital]

We have been seeing an increase in leads.

Not to hijack this thread, but on a similar topic,
what is your opinion on lead quality comparing different types of leads?
ie a Text lead, vs Website lead, vs phone lead. (of even broken down to what type of website leads, e-price vs test drive etc.)

I am curious if anyone has large volume data to share on this? and would be willing too

Anthony

 

[craigh]

Hey Anthony,

I don't have large data (yet) to share on this, but we learned some interesting things.
When we switched away from Dealer.com websites, one of the biggest things we did was focus on making it easier for customers to input their information for forms - just require less fields, ditch the 13 minute trade in form, etc.
The end result is that we get more leads from these types of forms, but we also get fairly lazy form submissions. (Since then leads have dropped a bit)

I haven't started into SMS leads, but I am starting to analyze Test Drive Reqest vs Reserve This Price vs More Information.
Need to get more into payment / financing based leads though - we lack in that area.

 

[csabatka1]

We have been seeing an increase in leads.

Not to hijack this thread, but on a similar topic,
what is your opinion on lead quality comparing different types of leads?
ie a Text lead, vs Website lead, vs phone lead. (of even broken down to what type of website leads, e-price vs test drive etc.)

I am curious if anyone has large volume data to share on this? and would be willing too

Anthony

I have a huge set of data for our stores across 3 markets in Nebraska and Missouri. I have compiled this data for fresh, phone, and internet across all lead sources, as well as, fresh, phone, and internet across individual sources. This data covers a wide range of site (FordDirect, Kia Cobalt, Cars, Autotrader, in-house built group and location websites, and other 3rd party lead sources).

This is just from the top of my head, I'll have to pull up the spreadsheets to get more precise data.

The best quality of lead (highest % to convert to sold) is a phone call on used vehicle originating from from our group or location website followed by form submission on used vehicle from our group or location website.

Our lowest quality of lead was used vehicle lead from Autotrader both phone and form leads. All locations ranged from 0% close to 15% close rate, compared to 25-35% of phone and form leads from our websites.

Schedule Test Drive form has our highest show and sold rate on web forms, but also least submitted. Get More Information and Confirm Availability regardless of position are highest submitted forms. I've done a lot of A/B testing of form positions and wording. Regardless of what the open form on upper right corner is titled, it gets submitted the most. I randomly (probably not a great idea) but I titled that form "Give Us Your Information" and it was still filled out at same rate as Confirm or Get More Info were seeing in that opened upper right position.