As an add on to my post on the PCG SEO Study, I wanted to get out a point Brian Pasch made on Internet providers recording the entry point of the visitor should they submit an inquiry. It’s great to see where you’re traffic is coming from but if you don’t know which sources are converting for you there’s some huge holes. How do you make informed decisions without that insight?
I don’t know much about how to accomplish this in terms of technical needs. I feel that a post on the Dealer Refresh forums might help, I’m also confident the proponent of the idea would have some pretty exact knowledge on how to execute. Part of what I’d like to accomplish, as a fringe benefit, is to set up Google Goals and really try to use our tracking thus far to put some dollar figures on our traffic.
We track as much as we can for our internet leads as far appointments and sales and is essential that we dial in to see where our best traffic is coming from. Best to me doesn’t mean most visitors it means most leads. This would be exceedingly helpful for banner ad campaigns, traditional marketing that drives people to a site via a unique redirect and tons of other sources we use to drive traffic that costs either time or money.
The Capital Automotive Group, who I work with, recently switched our web providers from Dealer.com to DealerOn and thus far have been pleasantly surprised at the results but neither platform can supply how a converted visitor got landed on the website. Dealer.com recently put something in place that shouldn’t be confused with incoming source. DDC tracks what the prospect did during their visit on the site and provides the click path to submitting a lead, which is a step up on DealerOn but neither let the incoming traffic source out of the box.
I know it’s possible to get this in place, hell when you’re shopping for a provider their all keen to tell you “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE” but what are the steps that we need to be take to get there. I want to work with DealerOn to make this happen but it sounds like this should be a movement across the industry.
I’m a little pessimistic about getting DealerOn to change. It seems to me that web providers are constantly apt to sign on as many dealers as fast as possible, like a game of hungry hungry hippo, slapping at the market as fast as they can and shitting out marbles that are all fairly similar so that they can fit through the pipes quickly. It because of the mass production and desired speed to get the round glass hippo dung (yes dealer sites can be analogous to hippo shit) through the pipes that I think it will be hard to crack the process of a providers setup and support system. Pessimism aside, it’s a very valuable idea that shouldn’t be all that hard. After hearing him voice the concern, I have a feeling Brian Pasch knows exactly what it would take…
*****UPDATE*****
I had a webinar with DealerOn on Thurs Aug 19th and they have a report that tracks exactly this and they’ve also been making steps towards including a subset of this data within Google Analytics for their dealers but are running into a few walls. Regardless, it looks as though both my web providers of the past month are able to do exactly what I ranted about. Ignorance is bliss baby!
Hey Mitch – nice article. Thanks for the shout-out to DealerRefresh!
I agree with you on having that great information. It sure would be awesome to know which search phrases are converting all the way to a sale and not just ending with a simple visit conversion to your website. You’re dead on!
However, I wanted to point out one inaccuracy. Dealer.com does provide the data you’re after in the reports section of Control Center. You can get it anytime you want. The report is pretty slick. It gives you a ton more than just the number of leads that came from a specific term; there are quite a few other pieces you can act on with it. That report simply looks at Search Referrals. There is another report that details things based on overall referrals.
If you need me to walk you through it, let me know.
Thanks for the comment Alex, the crown for first participation and first comment on my blog, ever, are yours good sir! I appreciate it. I’ll dig into my DDC reports asap as we only have the access for a few more days. Thanks for the heads up. I’d like to know it inside out if I plan to push the subject forward so it would serve me well to actually know what the hell I’m talking about! I’ll let you know if I hit a wall and need a walkthrough, thanks for the offer.
I’m the first? Nice!
Here’s the path in Dealer.com’s Reporting:
Search Conversions: SEO >> Search Phrases
Referral Conversions: Website >> Referral Summary
Thanks Alex. I’d like to get this type of tracking built into some micros as well as try and push for other web vendors to implement. Are you aware of what type of cookies or other technology it takes to make this happen?
I don’t know a whole lot about how this data is attained. The little I do know has do with Google pings and basic visitor capture stuff.
Mitch
This fall I will be working on getting an ADF 2.0 specification proposed for the industry which should help pass valuable information like referring URL and search phrases all the way through to the sale. This is key to determine the traffic generated by off-site content, social media sites ,etc. Dealer.com has a great set of tools to review this sort of data.
The specification will also support leads from parts and service websites which basically have been ignored.
Mitch,
Nice badge by the way! Welcome to the study.
Thanks for the comment Brian, I caught wind of the specific format when you had done the webmaster/analytics webinar via Dealer Refresh. It sounds pretty tough to get everyone to play nice in the same sandbox. It seems to me that the fault we’re running into is the actual incoming source being attached to the incomming leads via our website, to allow for us to individually track them. Would that sound a little more accurate then my rambling post do you think?