Auto dealer conversion rates

Many dealers are asking, what's the average conversion rate for a dealership?

This is the wrong question to ask as there are no global standards in order to compare the conversion rates of 2 different dealerships, therefore the conversion rates could vary significantly from dealer to dealer.

The conversion numbers depend on the dealer's profile in the market (for example high profile dealers will generaly show higher conversion rates) or also the dealer's position in the market (for example dealers that are known for aggresively competitive prices will most likely get higher conversion rates in their websites).

Having said that, you should still measure your conversion rates and monitor them closely as an internal measuring tool. For example, it's important to know if in January you had 100 conversions and in February you had 60. You can then ask questions and investigate why this happened.

Auto dealers should put pressure to their web site providers to give them more information about their website traffic.

Web site traffic information

This should include all sources like organic searches, PPC (pay per click), OEM, referring sites, and direct traffic. It's very easy to track this information using tools like Google's web analytics (which is free to use!).

Search engine keywords

Tools like Google's web analytics also let you know which keywords your visitors are using to find your website. This is important information to know and your web site provider should be able to provide this to you.

Variances in traffic and lead generation

This is something the auto dealer should be able to calculate based on the web traffic statistics provided by the web site provider and the lead generation information that the dealer should collect every month. In fact, the auto dealer should be able to collect such information daily and be able to answer questions such as "how many leads did we receive yesterday", "how many lead conversions did we have last week", "how many visitors used our service form last month" etc.

Check at your dealership. Is anyone keeping track of this information? If not then you should re-evaluate you Internet strategies.

The other side of conversion rates

There's another side to the conversion rates story: Internet has allowed people to be able to avoid the face-to-face interaction, therefore a dealer may receive several requests from people who can't really afford a specific vehicle yet they spend the time to send a form just for the shake of it.

Why do this? Well, the purchase of a car starts out as a fantasy for many people. Let's say John Doe wants to buy a BMW X5 but he can really afford a Pontiac Cavalier. He would never visit a BMW dealership in person to ask questions about the X5 because the salesman would easily see through him and know to ignore him.

However, John Doe can easily send an email message to the local BMW dealership and ask about his dream BMW (which he can't afford...) without risking to be ridiculed. Worse than that for the dealer, the salesman has no idea that he's dealing with John Doe. For all he knows John Doe is a hot lead interested in a brand new BMW X5. Only a few emails or phone calls later a salesman will figure out that Mr. Doe can't really afford the vehicle.

Therefore, it's critical for the sales people to identify as quickly as possible the "valuable" leads. This is discussed in more detail in the "Auto dealers: qualifying internet leads" article.

e²media (e-squared media) is an internet marketing and interactive advertising company based in Edmonton, AB offering affordable internet advertising, search engine optimization, web development and corporate identity services. Over the past 12 years we've worked with many organizations mainly in the Edmonton and Calgary area. We're specialized in the automotive industry and in Internet marketing and web development in general, but we've also worked in several projects for small, medium and large size organizations ranging from website design, flash movies, databases, shopping carts, search engine optimization (SEO) to full Internet marketing campaigns and corporate identity design. For more information on any previous projects, or for client references, please click here to contact us.