Category: Article

4 Data Informed SRP Best Practices

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Your website’s search results page (SRP) is your digital lot. It’s where shoppers narrow down results to find their perfect car. Think of it as a self-guided tour—a place where customers can do research, look at cars, and form opinions about potential purchases.  

If your shoppers have a good experience on your SRP, it can be the key to your customers progressing down the path to purchase. Here are a few data-informed ways you can optimize your SRP to ensure a positive experience for each website visitor.  

1. Feature Custom Photos Prominently  

Make sure that your SRP includes custom vehicle photos and that they appear prominently on the page. That doesn’t mean photos have to take up the entire screen. Just make sure that they stand out and appear larger than a little thumbnail—that’s especially important on mobile.  

Also, the impact of recent photos of the actual vehicle you’re selling cannot be overstated. When customers visit websites with more than 65% of inventory using actual photos, they stay about 5% longer, view approximately 20% more VDPs, and see approximately 5% more VLP/SRPs. * Plus, new vehicles with actual photos were 30% more likely to receive at least one lead in a seven-day period and used and certified vehicles were 40% more likely.   

2. Cut Down the Calls to Action  

You want your SRP to be simple and easy to use. Crowding it with multiple calls to action distracts from the purpose of the SRP: to conveniently filter cars as part of the research process. Competing calls to action add unnecessary clutter and confuse the customer.  

If you think of the SRP as a self-guided tour, excessive calls to action can feel like an aggressive, overbearing salesperson constantly interrupting the customer, pressuring them to take the next step. Commit to keeping calls to action to one or two per SRP.  

3. Simplify Pricing 

Customers like to see pricing on the SRP, but too many pricing details can feel like information overload when they are browsing. Detailed disclosures of discounts and incentives are especially problematic on mobile devices, where even a small amount of information can feel cluttered and unprofessional.  

Instead, show the customer the vehicle MSRP, the total discount (including incentives and other discounts, but not including conditional offers), and the final price. This strikes a nice balance between full disclosure and optimal user experience.   

4. Use Free-Text Search Together with AutoComplete 

Many SRP visitors gravitate towards free-text search for simple filtering. Making sure this feature includes autocomplete suggestions can speed up the search process, avoid typos, and guide the user to the right vehicle filters. As long as your facets (drop downs) are organized correctly, free-text search adds to the overall user experience.  

With the right user experience, your SRP can give your customers a self-guided shopping experience and a dealership-directed focus on displaying the right information at the right stage in the shopping journey. Start implementing these changes to beef up your user experience and increase your car buyer leads.  

* Dealer.com’s New Search Results Page: Performance Analysis, Dec. 2020 

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Meet Consumers Anywhere

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How many times have you heard that the customer is always right? Whether true or not, being able to deliver flexible solutions to the consumer has been a make-or-break factor for years. From booking flights to ordering take out, shopping for holiday gifts to getting a vehicle valuation, consumers expect choices in how and where transactions are completed.  

The trend toward remote shopping is shaping automotive industry and it’s here to stay. Today, there is an undeniable need to be able to meet the consumer wherever they are, whether it be virtual, in person, or somewhere in between.  

Dealers rely on their Digital Storefront more than ever before. Whether your website is optimized to the hilt or a work in progress, stay up to date on new ways to improve consumer experience and efficiency.  

Communicate New Services 

As you are refining your dealership operations and Digital Storefront to meet business needs, consider your display and communication strategy. Consumer experiences should be consistent and focused for your in-person showroom as well as your digital showroom. If your dealership is spotless, organized, and frequently changing out signage for new offers and services, then your Digital Storefront should mirror this.  

Dealers now have the digital tools to tell consumers how safe and easy it is to complete a purchase from the safety of their home. Share new services as they are relevant for your dealership, such as contactless pick-up and service, updated building sanitation standards, and extended test drives. This lets them know that they still have options for how to purchase their next vehicle or service, taking some stress out of the process. 

Facilitate 1-on-1 Interactions 

If there is one thing that hasn’t changed over the course of 2020, it’s that people still crave interaction with others. This certainly applies to consumers who are shopping for a new vehicle or scheduling service. Fortunately, there are new tools to make this interaction more user-friendly, efficient and enjoyable for both the consumer and dealer 

Guide shoppers through a remote car buying process while replicating in-store interactions with these tools: 

  • Video Chat lets consumers interact with your sales staff within the automobile leads workflow.  
  • Co-Browsing lets your staff screenshare and guide shoppers through deal creation. 

Guide Consumers to Speed Up Conversion 

After looking at key website metrics collected over several months, User Experience experts observed that the time on site went down. This is a good thing, because it translated to quicker lead conversion. What made this improvement possible?  

The launch of Dynamic Inventory and Full-Site Search spurred a new way of thinking about the value of consumer time on site and how to make the most of it. The new objective is to maximize efficiency, which is achieved by quickly guiding consumers to the critical inventory or service information they need. Type-ahead efficiency and predictive results are two features of these new products that help guide your shoppers to inventory and prevent dead ends during their search. And of course, these tools are built for today’s modern, mobile-first consumer.  

Deliver Relevant Content 

Here is a challenge: how do you introduce the most relevant content to shoppers on their first visit to your website? The answer is Experience Optimization, a website personalization tool that is powered by Cox Automotive data. 

This powerful solution lets the dealer vary the experience throughout the website for each shopper, such as by swapping out slides, specials, banners, and/or content. It can also pull in fresh creative, specials, and offers based on their browsing history. This personalized experience applies to both vehicle shoppers and fixed ops customers, which means it stretches across the ownership cycle and creates more value for your dealership.  

Explore more ways to invest in your Digital Storefront and remove barriers for digital shoppers. By implementing the latest digital marketing technology to support an efficient and personalized consumer experience, you will pave the way for meeting shoppers however and wherever they choose to shop. 

Wondering if it might be time to change digital marketing providers? Download eBook Analyze Your Website Metrics for key next steps and questions to ask your team.  

Clear 4 Digital Marketing Hurdles for Success Today

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Today’s environment is challenging. The 2020 Cox Automotive COVID-19 Consumer Impact Study reported we’re dealing with tight inventories as well as fewer in-market shoppers — 20 percent of consumers were in-market to purchase a vehicle in March, while early August reported 15 percent in-market. To combat numbers like that, you need your digital marketing on-point and working for you. 

Fully optimized digital marketing will drive in-market opportunities to your website and generate sales and service leads for your dealership. Let’s talk through the digital marketing hurdles you must face head on right now — and how to clear them for your dealership. 

Hurdle 1: Expertise  

Digital marketing is comprised of vast, highly specialized skill sets, and with 49 percent of businesses increasing digital marketing efforts in the wake of 2020, you need experience and expertise stay competitive.1   

It takes a lot of time to read all the marketing blogs, evaluate social media platforms, and anticipate and prepare for algorithm changes. Not to mention, studying your analytics to inform changes to strategy amidst shifting priorities and challenges. You may be able to check some digital to-dos off your list, but if it’s not your primary job, can you give it the time and attention it needs? Look for a partner that specializes in core digital marketing fundamentals, with deep knowledge of the automotive industry, to help you stay ahead of emerging trends and ever-changing best practices.   

Hurdle 2: Resources 

We are all trying to do more with less today. This year has forced you to create necessary efficiencies at your dealership, and an unintended consequence might be fewer digital marketing resources. This comes at a time when you need your sales and service messages to stay relevant in a highly competitive search environment while also creating new messaging to ensure shoppers understand the new digital sales and service processes you’ve put in place in order to help them, and your employees, stay safe. 

The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself, nor do you have to invest in costly agencies. Look for a digital marketing company that puts a team behind your dealership to work with you and expertly execute your digital marketing strategy.   

Hurdle 3: Multiple Vendor Relationships  

Digital marketing efforts should be connected. If you’re working with several vendors, you may not reap the benefits of a single, cohesive strategy to tie your digital plan together. There may be other pitfalls too, like an unclear ROI for your marketing dollars and differing KPIs that make performance difficult to judge.  

Instead of juggling multiple technology vendor and marketing agency relationships, look for a solution that brings it all under one roof, with one point of contact. You need a single solution accountable to you as a true partner in your success. With a vendor like that, you get time back that was spent communicating across disparate providers and better results because you are more effective when discussing goals and strategy with one person, one time versus multiple people multiple times where important nuances may be missed.   

Hurdle 4: Specialized Skill Sets 

There are several disciplines within digital marketing that work together to create successful, polished campaigns. Most marketing professionals only specialize in one or two disciplines, like copywriting or SEO. It’s understandable the array of skill sets needed to write and design your creative, optimize your SEO, manage social media, create a competitive advantage with your online reputation, or even develop video content may be difficult to find in one person or even across your dealership.   

Put a team behind your digital marketing with all of those skills for a cross-coordinated effort. At Dealer.com, you have one point of contact, your performance manager, whose job is to help you obtain your goals. They do that through coordination with accomplished, specialized automotive marketers with the know-how to help you attract high-quality, in-market shoppers through optimized organic search visibility and a consistent look and feel across all digital channels.  

Your digital marketing success starts with the right team. Let’s talk about stellar results for your dealership. Visit dealer.com/a-team.  

1Digital Marketing Institute Whitepaper: Digital Paves the Way in Response to Covid-19 

Video Advertising: Connect Your Audience with Your Inventory

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“Help Me Sell More Cars” is Evolving 

From the industry’s earliest days, dealerships have had the same singular goal: sell more cars.

And, while increasing sales is probably still at the top of your priority list, the goal has shifted in recent years. Now, you want to sell more cars while maintaining or, better yet, reducing your advertising budget.

Enter digital video advertising. 

Digital Video Advertising is Underpriced

A good advertiser is always on the lookout for under-valued channels that meet the client’s needs, and digital video platforms do this while also being seamless and scalable to execute. Those channels deliver qualified leads because they meet shoppers where they are. Advertise to the right people, at the right time and in the right place.  You can buy an audience’s focused attention through digital channels for far less than is possible through established channels like television. Digital video advertising campaigns built using the Dealer.com platform are achieving $.02 and $.03 cost per 15-second video view, getting your brand and inventory in front of someone on a channel they’re already using. And you never pay for shoppers that watch less than 15 seconds.

Shopper Behavior is Changing 

Of course, an advertising channel is only as good as the audience that’s consuming it. You could have the best marketing message in the world, but if you advertise it on a channel that encourages skipping or grabbing snacks during commercial breaks, you’ll be hard-pressed to drive results. 

Fortunately, we know that shoppers are consuming video content on channels like YouTube and Facebook. In fact, they are using video to educate themselves at every step of the buyer journey. There are 4 million in-market auto videos viewed on YouTube every single day. Digital test drives now outnumber in-dealership test drives two to one. After all, watching 3-minute walkarounds on YouTube requires less time and energy than reading articles or visiting showrooms.  This combines with the fact that we can target better with in-market audience data based on past search history, so we know they will actually watch the ads.

A Content Shortage and the Dealer.com Solution

Okay, so you’re bought into digital video advertising as an undervalued channel with the power to reach quality audiences that actually see your videos. But where will you get all that video content?  

You guessed it—Dealer.com can help. 

We built an automated video solution that incorporates the vehicles and offers you want to showcase into existing video templates. You can even customize them with branded taglines and information. Then, from within the platform, you can launch your videos at scale across YouTube and Facebook. And if you decide you want something more personalized, we have premium custom packages that incorporate footage of your dealership, custom graphics, custom animations, and more.

The Time is Now

Like all advertising channels, digital video advertising may get more expensive as demand grows. Don’t miss your opportunity to get into digital video at the right time. With Video Advertising from Dealer.com, you can incorporate this exciting channel seamlessly into your existing advertising effort to improve results and increase sales. 

Click Here to learn more about Video Advertising.