With all of the digital tools at customers’ disposal, dealers are seeing an influx of leads as more consumers pursue online transactions. However, not all of those leads are high quality. Here today to discuss how dealers can best identify the quality leads that come in is Kevin LeSage, director of digital marketing of Autotrader.
According to Kevin, right now dealers are seeing fewer ‘tire-kickers.’ Close ratios are increasing and overall, the shopper is more serious about buying a vehicle. If a consumer is willing to venture to a dealership, then chances are there is strong intent to buy. At Autotrader, consumer demand for digital retailing products is hitting record highs. However, the leads created from the digital retailing products are not created equal.
In order to define lead quality for dealers, Cox Automotive, Autotrader, and VinSolutions measured almost 4 million leads from across 7,000 dealerships. What they were looking for was the level of engagement from each lead. Instead of measuring success by a large quantity of low-engagement leads, Kevin recommends focusing on the cost-per-lead that showed at the dealership or the cost-per-lead that closed. These metrics are better indicators of a good consumer experience rather than the lead volume.
To hear more great insight from Kevin LeSage, be sure to watch our entire interview above.
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