- Feb 11, 2015
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- Alex
Yeah, that's a trend that I have been seeing across the board for many dealers, the past two or so years. Granted, what works in one demographic might not in another, I'll say that again.
YIKES! Autotrader Referral Traffic falls off a cliff in July 2018
- Thread starter George Nenni
- Start date
Yeah if it's a GUI issue for all devices with call to action, then they're shooting themselves in the foot with attribution!
Haha! Yeah I was kidding about sending the email, but I really do hope they knew. If they didn't.. they surely do now.
- Apr 13, 2012
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- George
Mike, I think it is less about UI/UX and more about driving success metrics that Autotrader is targeting. They are under huge pressure from CarGurus from a VDP and lead perspective, so they are changing their site to drive those metrics up. They pulled content off of their SRPs I believe to drive more VDPs (forcing the consumer to click through to VDP), see article. And in order to drive more leads from VDP, maybe the idea is to bury the dealer website link so the consumer must use one of the ATC calls-to-action. What do you think?
I'm not sure what their strategy was if any, but we didn't see any noticeable increases with other leads, engagement or contact methods. Our website referrals tanked since May for the group, see the snapshot below from ATC backend reporting (green line on right) on a dealership with no changes to ATC in the given time-frame. Our dual analytics attribution shows a 67% drop in ATC referrals too from June to July.
Now if they removed CTA's from the SRP to boost VDP's or leads, engagement... it's not working. They are killing their attribution. On a shopping portal website would you believe that strategy would increase engagement substantially? The time a shopper (buyer) spends on ATC is probably still high enough that one shopper (buyer) probably accounts for numerous VDP's spread out across multiple dealers in a given (zip code) search area. They will either choose to contact a dealer through ATC website or not depending on the vehicle of interest, trying to corral or force shoppers into a funnel to boost quality conversions is extremely difficult.
Moving the dealer website button or link for referrals to the bottom of the page is a questionable move. I would put the dealer website referral link on the SRP & VDP near the top of the page. I feel like that's the most important metric for any dealer, I want shoppers on my website, once they are there I can see everything they do and look at my own attribution reporting down to the user level. Maybe I'm wrong on the mobile tracking issue, that URL metric jumped out at me, I've had that issue before.
Here's a look into the ATC executive team's reaction, they're really broken up
In all fairness, your metrics look to be up in July? Am I missing something there? Your phones, emails, chats, and saves are all up.
In all fairness, your metrics look to be up in July? Am I missing something there? Your phones, emails, chats, and saves are all up.
- Apr 13, 2012
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- George
Great points Mike, I'm diving into more of that data and should have a bunch of metrics compiled by end of next week. At a quick glance, SRPs look to be flattish, and VDPs down. Clicks to dealer websites down of course. Focus on the shopper, and you can't go wrong. Try to force them to do certain things, and you are doomed as there are too many other choices.
- Feb 24, 2018
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- John
AutoTrader better pool their money together and purchase a competing platform that works (something like CarGurus) or they are going to be a memory like the BuyLines...
Yes technically up for July to June, 2 phone, 10 email, 8 chats.. not substantial in lieu of 99 less in referrals.. look at May or April.. what was broke there? I'd take those months over June & July, the trend isn't progressing at all with engagement.
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- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
It isn't questionable if you're trying to prove value where there isn't any. One might argue it was smart on their part to try to bury the stat and focus the conversation away from attribution.
hmmmm…. where have I seen them do that before? 
oh yeah! The Chip Perry days. As much as I hated working with ATC during those days, as a dealer, I must admit that ATC seemed much more profitable and innovative then.