Digital Dealer - May 2019 - 32

M A R K E T ING & ADVERT ISING: Da ta & An al yt i cs Continued from pg. 31

...IT'S IMPORTANT TO DIG DEEPER AND LEARN
HOW MANY OF THOSE VIABLE LEADS ARE TURNED
INTO ACTUAL SALES."
vendors - whether it's the
BDM, internet director, marketing director, or someone
else - should have a deep
enough understanding of
digital marketing to be able
to look beyond the standard reports most vendors
provide. Most dealerships
should expect to receive
customized reports from
vendors on a timely basis.
Weekly reporting is a
good minimum standard;
in many instances, even
more frequent reporting is
warranted.
It's especially important
that dealerships perform
their own offline conversion
match or "matchback" to
determine which online
source was the "last touch"
that actually led to a prospective customer's buying
action. Dealers should be
aware that third-party websites sometimes present
competing claims for the
same lead. But major digital
vendors such as Google
and Facebook offer tools
that let dealers track this information and link it to their
own customer data.
Marketing executives
should be willing to push
back and ask vendors
challenging questions when
appropriate. Furthermore,
while owners, CEOs, and
CFOs do not necessarily
need to understand all the
fine points of digital marketing, they should be able to
ask their marketing executives insightful questions
32

M AY 2 0 1 9

regarding issues such as
conversions and expanding
total impressions.
Industry benchmarks
provide a good starting
point for static analysis,
but it's essential that a
dealership be able to track
changes in its own digital
marketing performance over
time. If such an effort is
not yet underway it should
be launched as soon as
possible.

WHY IT MATTERS
MORE NOW

The need for accurately

scale campaigns. Dealers
- and to some extent dealer
groups - generally focused
on the later stages of the
buying cycle such as the
consideration phase (where
customers begin considering specific models, styles,
and dealerships) and the
conversion phase (where
customers' interests are
converted to leads - and
eventually to actual sales).
With today's growing
emphasis on used vehicles,
dealers should be prepared
to shift some of their re-

IT'S ESPECIALLY
IMPORTANT THAT
DEALERSHIPS PERFORM
THEIR OWN OFFLINE
CONVERSION MATCH OR
'MATCHBACK'..."
tracking digital marketing
effectiveness is taking on
additional urgency as the
industry shifts toward greater
emphasis on pre-owned
vehicles. New-car sales
always received the lion's
share of advertising budgets,
so most dealers will not have
as much digital marketing
data for used cars as they
do for new cars. That makes
it doubly important to start
capturing that data now.
Over the years dealers
generally relied on tier one
manufacturers to do most of
the work in creating brand
awareness through national
media buys and other large-

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

sources back to the earlier
phases of the sales cycle,
generating awareness of
their dealership brand.
Social media generally has
proved to be more effective
at building awareness, so
the changing dealership
business model is likely to
mean changes in digital
marketing strategy as well.
Dealers also need to
recognize that they now
will be competing with a
larger pool of rivals ranging
from small, independent
used car outlets to major
national pre-owned dealership chains. Furthermore,
because purchasers of

pre-owned vehicles typically
are willing to travel farther in
pursuit of a specific vehicle,
dealers also will need to
re-evaluate the geographic
focus of their marketing.
Similarly, it's likely that
some savvy dealers could
begin to shift marketing
resources toward their
repair and maintenance
services. Even though they
are a steady, reliable source
of revenue, fixed operations
usually receive only a small
share of the advertising
budget. Digital marketing
- including social media
community management
with recommendations from
satisfied customers - could
help change that.
A solid understanding of
digital marketing becomes
even more important when
all these various near-term
trends are viewed in the
context of the longer-term,
generational shifts that are
underway. The advent of
the millennial generation,
with its increased price
sensitivity and much greater
comfort with digital and mobile technology, means the
impact of digital marketing
will continue to grow over
the years to come.
TONY ALLISON
Partner, Crowe
Email: tony.allison@crowe.com
STEVE WOJCICKI,
Senior Manager, Crowe
Email: steve.wojcicki@crowe.com
JUSTIN CERONE
CEO, Lincoln Digital Group
Email: justin@ldg-mail.com
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - May 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - May 2019
