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Counting the Prospects on Your Web Site

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A Nicer Way to Sell a Car

November 16 , 2007
By Barry Baker

The last couple of articles have discussed how the success of a dealership’s Internet effort typically relies on two things: measurement and management. Why? Because the Internet is a volume play. Franchise dealerships typically experience between twenty and eighty times more visitors to their web sites than they see on the lot. To take full advantage of those opportunities dealerships must be led by interested and involved managers, managers who are well informed by standard measures of Internet performance.

First, it’s important to understand that Internet activity is easily measured; in fact, it is probably the most measured form of human behaviour. Web site providers can track practically everything that happens on your dealer web site, including visits, clicks, the community the visitor is in, and sometimes even the employer. There is literally so much information available that the task becomes identifying which data is relevant to winning more customers and focusing your marketing efforts.

Web providers summarize this information in statistical reports. Below is an example (Summary by Month) of a how a year’s worth of online activity at one dealer’s web site is summarized using one common reporting tool. While your provider may use a different reporting tool, the concepts and terminology are fundamentally the same.

2007 auto dealer web site traffic summary

The first order of business is to dispel the popular misconception that the number of Hits (the green column) you receive is somehow indicative of how many people are on your web site. That is not the case; Hits are only meaningful to system administrators who need to ascertain the computing power necessary to serve web pages and the elements of which they consist, including individual pictures, logos, and menus. Unfortunately, given that the number of Hits any web site receives is typically the largest number on the report, some web providers may quote the number to impress their clients. Don’t be fooled.

The basic measure dealerships should really focus on is Unique Visitors (reported as Sites, the orange column, above). Unique Visitors refers to the number different IP (pronounced eye pea) addresses that have accessed your web site within a given calendar month. In the above example, this dealer’s web site welcomed 8,860 Unique Visitors during the month of October 2007, which translates into an average of over 285 prospects per day. The number of Unique Visitors will fluctuate every month just as the foot traffic in your store varies; during December 2006 for example, this dealer received 5,628 Unique Visitors for an average of 181 daily prospects, for an increase of 100 visitors per day over the past 10 months.

Traffic will also vary on a day-by-day basis. The image below (Daily usage for October 2007) shows the daily traffic pattern for the same dealer’s web site during that specific month. Unique Visitors again appear in orange.

october 2007 auto dealer web site traffic - daily usage report

Management should review the monthly summary and daily traffic reports at least once a month. Do the web traffic fluctuations coincide with your offline marketing efforts (newspaper, radio, etc.)? Better yet, does the traffic to your web site suggest shopping patterns of which you were previously unaware, but of which you can now take advantage?

Now that you know how many Unique Visitors your web site receives, you can use industry benchmarks to determine how many leads your web site should be generating. We’ll get into that next month, as we continue to explore how the Internet’s natural aptitude for measurement provides your dealership its best opportunity to achieve sales and marketing success.

Internet Sales & Marketing Training

This article is the third of a continuing series that examine how the Internet is helping dealerships deliver better results:

Internet Sales Results Start at the Top
Technology vs. Results on the Internet
Counting the Prospects on your Web Site
How does your web site compare to industry benchmarks?

We would love to hear what you think of this article. And of course, if you have any suggestions for future articles that you'd like to share with us, please send those, too!

Need some fresh, free content for your web site or e-zine? You are welcome to reprint this article on your web site or in your e-zine. We simply ask that you let us know where the article will be appearing, and include our byline with a link to the ASLInternet.com website.

Barry Baker is Director of Professional Services for ASL (Aged Stock Ltd), a company that empowers dealerships to achieve superior results through effective Internet sales process and effective Internet sales tools. For more information, go to www.ASLInternet.com/training.

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