7 Important Digital KPIs for Auto Dealers

1. Website Visits

Although total website visits is a high-level metric, the data that it can potentially uncover can’t be discounted. Knowing what your overall traffic patterns are (YOY and MOM) can clue you in to any possible issues or opportunities. Examine the changes that caused the dips or high points and if they were intentional or experimental. What components of your marketing mix did you beef up or scale back on? Use these trends for insights and predictions on your marketing mix in the future.

2. Paid Clicks

The amount of clicks you’re getting for your money is another integral piece of your marketing puzzle. Whether these clicks are on search, display, video, mobile, social, email or an ad platform that isn’t known to mankind yet but will be soon, keeping up with how many visits resulted from paid traffic will help you determine what mediums are driving the most traffic.

3. Click Through Rate

Click through rate (commonly referred to as CTR in the biz)  is a great indicator of how relevant your ad is to your audience. If you find your CTR is falling, consider updating your ad creative or including special incentives in the copy. Look at what your direct competitors are doing and make your ads even more engaging.

4. CPC

Although Cost Per Click (CPC) isn’t the most critical metric for judging a campaign’s performance, it dictates the volume you can get for your budget, and makes a great argument for quality over quantity of traffic. This KPI is especially crucial for smaller budgets that need to make sure every click counts.

5. Conversions and Conversion Rate

Knowing if and how often users are taking the actions you’ve labeled as valuable can alert you of plenty of possible insights. Low conversions could clue you in on if your website is difficult to navigate, your contact forms are too long, you’re capturing the wrong type of traffic or if your campaign is converting well and your campaign has great targeting.

6. VDPs

VDP (vehicle detail page) views provide measurable data to connect the dots between website activity and sales. Research tells us that there is a direct correlation between the number of views a VDP gets per day, and the number of days that corresponding piece of inventory takes to sell. In short, more VDP views = less time on the lot.

7. Email Leads

Email leads are not coming in at the volume they once were (making VDP views an even more important metric); however, this is still a good indicator of interest in your dealership’s vehicles or financing offers. Make an effort to know your internet lead closing ratios for each lead provider and adjust your messaging accordingly.

Daisy Glankler graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in Advertising. She handled in-house digital advertising in the casino and automotive industries before moving to Lafayette and joining Potenza in 2016. Daisy is part of the Interactive team as the Automotive Digital Manager and spends her Sundays working on her tennis game.