How to Tell if Your Dealership’s Digital Marketing is Working

When you invest money in marketing your dealership—whether through Web design, PPC, SEO, social media, or email—you obviously want to see a return. The question is, how can you tell when your dealership marketing efforts are really paying off? Here are 10 metrics to consider as you seek to evaluate your digital marketing ROI.

Digital Marketing Metrics to Consider

  1. Website traffic. Here’s the obvious one: If more people are coming to your dealership website, then your marketing efforts must be having some effect. You always want your website traffic to increase over time.
  2. Web traffic source. As you evaluate your website traffic, pay special attention to where it’s coming from—organic versus paid referrers. This can shed some light on which marketing channels are giving you the best results.
  3. Time on site. If your website visitors spend a few minutes on your site, it means you’re offering content that engages them. This is a key ranking signal—meaning it’s something Google’s algorithms use to determine your SEO placement.
  4. Bounce rate. This is almost the opposite of time on site; bounce rate refers to the people who visit your dealership website and then immediately navigate away. Of course, you want to keep your bounce rate low.
  5. Pages per session. This refers to the number of pages a visitor accesses in a single session at your website. Having a high rate of pages per session can sometimes mean that the user in question is looking at a lot of different content—for example, researching several different cars or reading multiple blog posts. As such, it’s generally a good thing!
  6. VDP. Especially pay attention to the time spent on your Vehicle Detail Pages—an important way to surmise which of your vehicles are generating the most interest among buyers.
  7. Click to call or chat. Are these buttons performing well? Are they driving engagement and conversions? If not, it may be because you haven’t made them prominent enough.
  8. Form submissions. Are people filling out forms to request more information, sign up for your dealership email list, etc.? High form submission rates are always desirable.
  9. Cost per lead. How much are you actually paying for each lead you generate? This is an important metric as you consider which of your marketing efforts are truly worthwhile.
  10. Conversions. This is what it’s all about, ultimately—though how you define a conversion (sales? Appointments? Phone calls?) may vary from one dealership to the next.

Does Your Digital Marketing Get Results?

As you make an investment in marketing your dealership, it’s important to know that it’s all paying off—and if you’re worried that it isn’t, give us a call. The marketing professionals at Get My Auto are standing by to talk with you about ways to improve your marketing ROI. Contact us today to start the conversation!