Page 14 - GIADA Jan-Feb 2020

Identifying Consumer Touchpoints and

What Drives Traffic Into the Store

By Ryan Gerardi, Founder & CEO, AutoConversion

Today’s dealership receives leads from an tribution, from the campaign to the key- Understanding which consumer touch-
array of consumer touchpoints that all words that are driving people to the store. points are most effective for your client
have the same purpose: To drive the cus- [Shoppers] come to the website, a lot of base hinges on being able to interpret all
tomer into making a positive response times it looks like everything is coming that data into usable information. It’s a job
in the sales funnel. It goes for all depart- from Google, but we can see those nurtur- that almost certainly requires a specialized
ments: sales, service, parts, and even col- ing vendors that are helping them get to skill set.
lision repairs. the website.”
What Are Current Trends Telling Us?
Dealers invest thousands of dollars month- And what should dealers do once their Phone calls and emails are still prima-
ly into campaigns for all these consumer marketing techniques are broken down ry touchpoints for consumers, but it’s far
touchpoints, but how do you gauge their and the effective consumer touchpoints from the only effective strategies. Text
success? It isn’t like you can ask every cus- are identified? They’re able to adjust cam- messaging is on the rise. A dealer that has
tomer what path led them to choose your paigns, media sources, copy, and engage- a text-enabled number on their website
store as their provider. ment to further increase that success, and can see an increase of 20 percent in in-
adjust their ad spend accordingly. bound leads.
Complicated Marketing Broken Down
What’s necessary for any retail or ser- How to Identify Effective Strategies Text messaging is a growing touchpoint
vice-based industry like dealerships is a Even with data from all marketing plat- today, but that may change in the future. It
complete understanding of where their forms funneled into one place, how can boils down to understanding the audience
traffic comes from. While every market- you tell what’s effectively driving traffic and growing your campaigns with them.
ing tool can be tracked and monitored in- into your store? Imagine sifting through
dividually – at least, at a high level – it’s data from thousands of phone calls, What the data tells dealers is this: you must
extremely time-consuming. emails, text messages, live chats, and be- have the ability to adapt and change with
yond, trying to correlate the contact meth- your customers’ needs. n
Aggregating touchpoint data can assist od with actual in-person traffic to your
dealers in understanding where their cus- dealership. And which of those leads has Ryan Gerardi is an automotive media and
tomers are coming from. received follow-up? marketing professional devoted to being part
of the great convergence in mobility tech and
As Kelley Koliopulos, director of regional It’s not easy to sift through, if not near im- connectivity, exploring people, ideas, and
sales at CallSource, explains in this video, possible. technologies that influence how we are con-
“[Dealers] can have a full spectrum of at- nected and the way we get around.

12 | GIADA Independent Auto Dealer JAN/FEB 2020