Four Google Analytics Tips for Auto Dealers
In my experience, most dealership GMs, Customer Experience Managers and Marketing Managers don’t hang out much with Google Analytics. It’s not surprising – what part of all that data are you going to look at and what does it all mean anyway? It’s confusing and too time consuming.
Here are some tips about what to focus on in Google Analytics that will give you meaningful insight and information that you can act on.
1. Lead forms tell only part of the story
Lead forms give a more accurate representation of the number of people interested in purchasing a car but not all those who are looking will fill out a lead form – the percentage of people who visit your site and fill out a lead form will vary from 5% to 20%. What you want to look out for is people who are in the market for a car purchase.
2. How to identify an in market shopper
The way to tell if a website visitor is in the market or indeed is in love with a car on your site, is to inspect the vehicle detail page data. The number of views and the amount of time spent on the page is the best way to predict sales. Did these people then click on an hours and directions page? If so, they’re pretty likely to walk in to your dealership.
3. Bring traffic to your vehicle detail pages
It’s not only important to look at volume and times spent on vehicle detail pages, but also what sites are delivering you that traffic. A site may bring a large volume of traffic but if that traffic has a high bounce rate or doesn’t visit the pages that indicate it is quality traffic or ‘in market’ traffic then, as a referrer, it is not as valuable as one that does. Look at your referrers. Which is bringing you traffic to your vehicle detail pages? These are the referrers to prioritise with your time and budget resources.
4. Narrowing your focus
Don’t get overwhelmed by all the data in Google Analytics. A great way to approach a task that many find daunting is to start small and as you get more comfortable increase the metrics you look at. But remember the only meaningful metrics are the onese that you can do something about – the ones you can take action on.