Fort Lauderdale, FL – May 20^th, 2013 — AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions (www.autousadealers.com) today introduced Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro^SM, powered by DriveItNow, a patent-pending next generation payment marketing tool that offers consumers a new way to shop on auto dealer websites. When a customer visits a dealer website with Shop-By-Payment, they are given the option to search inventory based on their desired monthly payment. The customer is prompted to enter in their name and a few details—no SSN or DOB required. Shop-By-Payment searches the available inventory based on their actual credit, the dealers’ current finance programs and returns a list of new and used vehicles that match the desired payment.

 

“Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro revolutionizes the online auto shopping experience,” said Phil DuPree, President of AutoUSA. “Instead of searching for vehicles based on make, model or price, customers can now view and choose from all the vehicles they know they can afford based on the monthly payment.”

 

After displaying a list of vehicles that match the customer’s payment range, Shop-By-Payment allows the customer to change criteria such as monthly payment, down payment or the bottom line price they are willing to pay. The inventory displayed instantly adjusts to the new criteria selected by the customer. When the customer narrows the selection of vehicles, they click on a button with the desired monthly payment. That information then becomes a credit analyzed website lead and is sent to that dealership.

 

Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro offers dealers the following benefits:

 

·      For the majority of car buyers, it is all about the payment. According to CNW Research, 70.5 percent of car buyers finance their vehicles. Shop-By-Payment instantly engages these customers by offering an easy, interactive and immediate way to view the vehicles they can afford, instead of viewing the vehicles they want and not knowing if they can afford them.

 

·      Because no Social Security Number or date of birth is required, Shop-By-Payment protects consumers’ privacy and credit reports. Payment Pro delivers payment quotes based on the customer’s credit without negatively impacting the credit score.

 

·      Payment Pro delivers accurate monthly payment quotes based on the customer’s credit, the dealership’s finance programs and the specific inventory available, producing high-quality, credit analyzed leads. With customers this far down the sales funnel, the next step is for the customer to visit the dealership and take delivery of the vehicle.

 

Shop-By-Payment is initially available to car dealers who are currently using AutoUSA’s Payment Pro. To see a demonstration of Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro, visit www.AnywhereMotors.com.

 

Dealers interested in learning more about Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro can call AutoUSA at 800-509-8714.

 

About AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions (www.AutoUSADealers.com)

AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions brings the best-in-class tools to increase Internet sales and lower costs for automotive dealerships. Leading products include Payment Pro^SM, a payment-based pre-qualification tool for dealer websites; ShowPro^SM incentive program, proven to turn more leads into shows; Leads&Listings^SM, providing the highest quality, new and used car email and phone leads from 100+ sites; PowerListings^SM 2.0, helping dealers increase traffic to—and leads from—their social media sites; and AVA Virtual Sales Assistant, helping dealerships manage more leads at a reduced cost. AutoUSA products are currently benefiting thousands of active dealers all across the U.S.

 

For more information, visit AutoUSA’s web site, subscribe to our blog at http://blog.autousadealers.com, follow us on Twitter @AutoUSALeads and “Like” us on Facebook at /AutoUSADealers

 

About DriveItNow® (http://www.DriveItNow.com)

DriveItNow® is a patent-pending monthly payment marketing technology service of Automobile Consumer Services, Inc. (ACS). ACS is a leader in developing innovative online shopping technology with the initial launch of LeaseCompare.com in 2000. LeaseCompare.com continues to be one of the top destinations for auto financing and leasing in the industry.

The broad term “Internet Marketing” encompasses a fast-changing industry. In the past two years, “new” developments such as mobile, social and reputation management have quickly become mainstream, while the effectiveness of “old” methods such as banner ads and e-mail marketing have been debated.

 

While dealers should be aware of the latest technologies, ensuring that perceptions about the Internet and its capabilities is extremely important too. Here are three things every dealer should know about Internet marketing:

 

1) The Internet Creates Buyers, Not Shoppers

 

Given a choice between greeting a showroom customer and working an Internet lead, most salespeople would choose the former; simply because they believe they have a better chance of closing the showroom customer in the short term. Many dealers (and salespeople) still view Internet leads as “Internet shoppers” who are potentially difficult to work with or even reach.

 

The reality is that, whether they’re in your virtual showroom or your physical showroom, they’re a buyer. Maybe not today, but statistically the Internet customer is highly likely to buy within 90 days.

 

94% of car buyers begin the process online, according to recent estimates, yet most dealerships attribute less than 30% of actual sales to Internet leads. Why the discrepancy? Most consumers do research online but instead of submitting a lead, they decide to call or walk into a dealership when they’re ready to buy. Because of all the research they can do on their own, though, customers today visit only 1.4 dealerships before purchasing a car, down from 4.5 in 2005, according to J.D. Power.

 

And, according to a recent study by CAR-Research XRM, only 25% of people leave showrooms because they are “still shopping.” The rest leave because of inventory, financing or some other issue. These customers are ready to buy, the only question is, are they buying from you?

 

2) Internet Marketing is More Than a One-Person Job

 

If I asked you, “Who is in charge of your Internet marketing,” would you answer, “The Internet Sales Director?”

 

To be effective, Internet marketers need to have knowledge of and take advantage of all facets of the Internet. This means managing the dealership’s website and SEO, e-mail marketing campaigns, and being the resident CRM expert.

 

In addition, Internet marketers should know how to properly leverage and manage the dealership’s presence on independent auto shopping, research and review sites, the manufacturer website, social media sites and reputation management sites. Finally, they need to keep up with the latest trends and create strategies for search marketing, payment marketing, mobile marketing, banner advertising, e-mail marketing and video marketing.

 

That’s a lot for one person to keep up with, let alone the time needed to work the leads that come in as a result of all that work. To stay competitive, dealers need to allocate the appropriate budget, training and resources for their Internet departments. According to a recent article in Ward’s Auto profiling the top 100 e-dealers, successful Internet dealers typically spend 40% or more of their overall advertising and marketing budget on digital.

 

3) Evolve Your Communication

 

Most dealers are probably not Internet gurus; nor do they want to be. Several years ago, the perception was that this was okay. Hiring an “Internet nerd” who could run the Internet operations was the norm. But staying competitive today—and maybe even survival tomorrow—depends on how successful your dealership’s Internet marketing program is.

 

Every manager needs to understand that customers can engage with the store and its sales staff anywhere online. They need to stay abreast of trends, direct strategies, manage processes, hold teams accountable and respond to customers’ online concerns and opportunities—wherever they arise. One click, one call, one person doesn’t work any more.

 

What do you think dealers need to know about Internet marketing?

 

In October, we facilitated a panel called “The Five Things in Common That Successful Internet Departments Share” at the 13^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas. We were thrilled to have over 200 attendees and want to thank our panelists for doing a great job. We decided to share some tips from our panelists for the benefit of all who couldn’t make it to the conference in hopes that you’ll find it as helpful as the attendees did.

 

Our panelists included:

- Greg Coleman, Director of Business Development & E-Commerce Director, Lexus Store of Lexington & Toyota of Nicholasville

- Justin Brun, E-Commerce Manager, Acton Toyota of Littleton

- Richard Tolsma, Internet Manager, Dan Wiebold Ford, Idaho

- Ray Fenster, President & CEO, RayFenster.com, LLC

- Dennis Colome, Vice President Sales & Marketing, eXteres Auto

 

Here’s a summary of some tips from their discussion:

 

1)      Boost your phone call volume without paying additional money: “Make your phone number prominent on every website page. In addition, include your phone number in the website page title and description.” – Ray Fenster

 

2)    Relevance is content, not just keywords. “Don’t ‘keyword stuff’ your website search terms, i.e. don’t go after every city in the state. Google is onto this and no longer allows it.”  – Dennis Colome

 

3)    All leads are created equal. “Our dealership uses a strict 180-day process for follow up. Once a lead reaches 60 days with no contact, then the process becomes automated.” – Richard Tolsma

 

4)    Turn your “dead” leads into service opportunities. “If a customer isn’t ready to buy a car, give the lead to fixed ops to market and see if they can get that customer in for service. Something like 80% of service customers will buy a new car from that dealership. The closing percentage goes way up.” – Ray Fenster

 

5)    Don’t be afraid to share pricing, just be smart about it. “Be up front in your pricing, but be sure to give the customer several pricing options. Give them the price for the vehicle they inquired about, then follow up with second and third pricing options that are lower.” – Dennis Colome

 

6)    Generic responses don’t add value to the conversation. “Respond to specific questions and concerns in the customers’ initial e-mails. Also acknowledge the source from where the lead came; for example, if you get a lead from ZAG American Express, mention something about the program and how exclusive it is and how happy you are to be working with them.” – Justin Brun

 

 

7)    Have a pricing strategy. “When responding to pricing questions, use a “we start as low as” strategy and show the customer the option, i.e. a Toyota-Corolla. Giving them the lowest price on the lowest model will set their expectations and they usually upsell themselves. The vast majority of our customers buy a different vehicle than they originally inquired about.”  – Greg Coleman

 

8)    Be patient. “Third party leads typically research five to six vehicles on the third-party sites because they are looking for unbiased info. When they submit leads they are often three to four months out, so work with them for a while. True ROI has to be measured over time.” – Dennis Colome

 

9)    Know Your Market. “We perform a competitive analysis via e-mails and mystery shopping websites and third-party sites, and build a pricing matrix based upon the information gathered. On new vehicles we found our competitors are just showing the MSRP; so by displaying that number minus any available rebates, we automatically show a lower price than what’s in the market.” – Greg Coleman

 

10)Trends are worth more than ‘snapshots’. “When you report to management, they want to see results. Whatever program or product you are reviewing, show 30-day, 60-day and 90-day snapshots so they can see trends as to what’s working and what isn’t. Don’t be afraid to get rid of what’s not working. Not all products work for all dealerships.”  - Ray Fenster

 

Which is your favorite “top tip?” What are you doing in your department that works? What’s your “top tip” to share with other Internet sales personnel? 

 

Justin Brun, E-Commerce Manager with Acton Toyota of Littleton, shares three tips for effective Internet lead response.

This is the third in a series of blogs I’ve been writing on metrics: in my last blog we discussed the average percentage of sales in dealerships that can be attributed to Internet leads. This week, I’d like to talk about average front-end gross per vehicle.

 

In a recent survey we conducted, we asked dealerships representing all types of makes and models:

 

These were the two questions related to front-end gross in the survey:

1) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the showroom (floor sales) in your store?

 

2) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the Internet department in your store?

 

We wanted to first quantify the difference between gross from showroom sales and Internet sales, and we wanted to compare the averages of stores in different “performance brands.”

 

Here are the survey results:

 

• 29% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is > $1,300

• 15% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is > $1,300

 

At the same time:

• 9% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is < $800

• 21% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is < $800

 

It’s clear there’s quite a disparity between averages in the showroom and the Internet department. We consulted David Kain of Kain Automotive on this question, because he believes (and the survey results reflect this), that most Internet salespeople tend to discount too soon. This tendency leads to lower front-end gross averages in the Internet department.

 

Regardless of what your dealership’s average gross per vehicle (PVR) is, the goal is for the showroom and Internet department averages to be the same. Why is this important? The higher the gross per vehicle, the higher your ROI and profits are.

 

We compared answers from dealerships making seven times or more ROI on their Internet spend, to those making three times or less ROI on their Internet spend, regardless of make or model. The results were compelling:

 

Internet Department ROI	Showroom PVR > $1300	Internet PVR > $1300
< 4x	21%	7%
> 6x	58%	44%

 

So how can you increase your average front-end gross per vehicle, as well as get the Internet department gross in line with the showroom gross? Here are a few tips:

 

1)   1)  Always provide the customer with choices and carefully review leads for model selection and trim levels. If you’re quoting your customer the loss leader or base model and they want the luxury model, then you’re setting them up for a price expectation way lower than is reasonable.

2)   2)  Just like when you’re face-to-face with a customer, focus on building value in the vehicles. Customers want to know what they’re buying is worth the money, and you have the opportunity to explain why the price is what the price is

3)    3) Don’t be tempted to immediately give a discount, and be wary of programs that send inventory selections to customers with quotes designed to beat your competition or that are loss leaders. Big discount quotes make the customer believe all vehicles can be significantly discounted.

4)    4) Mystery shop your competition from time to time on key vehicles to ensure you’re pricing your vehicles to market.

5)    5) Consider location. If a customer is close to you, then price in the convenience of shopping with you. If the customer lives 20 miles away and has to drive past multiple competitors in order to get to your store, you may be more aggressive in your pricing.

6)    6) Set the rules in the Internet department based on what vehicles are selling for in the showroom. If they know the ‘floor’ price, you’re less likely to have a significant discrepancy between the showroom and the Internet gross.

 

What other tips do you have to raise the average front-end gross per vehicle, and more importantly, to increase the averages in the Internet departments to be more in line with showroom averages?

Fort Lauderdale, FL – September 24^th, 2012— AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions (www.autousadealers.com) announced today the availability of a free white paper for auto dealers, titled Pre-Qualified Payment Marketing: Converting Online Car Shoppers to Customers. The white paper gives an overview of the current payment marketing options offered by dealers to their online customers, outlining the benefits and drawbacks of each. The paper then compares these options to Payment Pro^SM powered by DriveItNow®, a new product that offers online customers instant, real payment quotes and delivers pre-qualified leads to auto dealers. In addition, the white paper shares proven results in a case study featuring Grubbs Nissan in Dallas, Texas.

 

“Since we launched Payment Pro in early August, we have received many inquiries from dealers about how this revolutionary payment marketing option impacts the bottom line,” said Mike Shawd, Vice President, Sales of AutoUSA. “This white paper demonstrates exactly how Payment Pro works, how it differs from other available tools and how it converts more online shoppers into pre-qualified leads from the dealer’s own website that close at an average of 20%.”

 

The white paper delves into what is most important to consumers in the car buying process, including:

 

• ŸThe answer to the question, “What is the monthly payment and how does my credit affect it?” Most customers know their monthly budget, but often don’t know the corresponding vehicle cost to achieve their target monthly payment.
• ŸCompleting most of the car buying process online before talking to a dealer, and progressing themselves down the sales funnel at their own pace.
• Protecting personal information; most consumers don’t want to share their social security numbers, date of birth etc. and don’t want their credit scores affected with credit checks.
• ŸA desire for information provided by car dealers to be more complete and more accurate.

 

In addition, the white paper outlines the benefits of prequalified payment marketing:

 

• Close more existing website visitors
• Increased leads & closing ratios
• Keeps consumer engaged
• Consumers are less likely to consider alternative financing
• Additional F&I profit per deal
• Builds consumer confidence
• Highly qualified prospects
• No negative impact on consumer’s credit score
• No personal sensitive information required
• Eliminates discriminatory lending
• FCRA Compliant

 

Pre-Qualified Payment Marketing: Converting Online Car Shoppers to Customers with Payment Pro is available for free download at: http://www.autousadealers.com/DisplayDocList.aspx?DocId=126 

 

About AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions

AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions brings the best-in-class tools to increase Internet sales and lower costs for automotive dealerships. Leading products include Payment Pro^SM, a payment-based pre-qualification tool for dealer websites; ShowPro^SM incentive program, proven to turn more leads into shows; Leads&Listings^SM, providing the highest quality, new and used car email and phone leads from 100+ sites; PowerListings^SM 2.0, helping dealers increase traffic to—and leads from—their social media sites; and AVA Virtual Sales Assistant, helping dealerships manage more leads at a reduced cost. AutoUSA products are currently benefiting thousands of active dealers all across the U.S.

 

For more information, visit AutoUSA’s web site, subscribe to our blog at http://blog.autousadealers.com, follow us on Twitter @AutoUSALeads and “Like” us on Facebook at /AutoUSADealers

 

About DriveItNow (http://www.DriveItNow.com)

DriveItNow is a patent pending payment marketing technology service of Automobile Consumer Services, Inc. (ACS).  ACS leads the industry with innovative proprietary technology, superior customer service, and over twenty years of auto financing and leasing experience.

As a follow up to my recent blog on Internet Lead ROI, I would like to discuss another important metric for dealerships to track: the percentage of a store’s sales that can be attributed to Internet leads. Just like Internet lead ROI is not a simple formula that everyone can agree on, the percentage of sales that can be attributed to the Internet is not easy to measure.

 

In a recent survey we asked 184 dealership personnel this question: What percentage of your store’s overall sales is generated by the Internet department? Fully half (50%) of the respondents reported they were in the 20-40% range. Only 15% of respondents reported less than 20%, while 35% of respondents reported their dealerships attributed more than 40% of their sales to Internet leads.

 

Why such a disparity? I’m guessing that not every dealership answers the following question in the same way:

 

How do you define an Internet customer?

 

Since roughly 90% of your customers use the Internet before coming into the dealership, you could argue that 90% of sales are coming from the Internet, and that many of those customers don’t e-mail beforehand—they just call or walk in. But the opposite can also be true. One dealer group I know of, Homer Skelton dealerships in Tennessee, recently created a promotion for their new Payment Pro^SM feature on their website. The dealer group ran a radio campaign and produced a television commercial promoting that customers could pre-qualify for “real payments” without giving their social security number or date of birth. When the traditional ads ran, Homer Skelton saw a huge spike in visits to their website, which then turned into pre-qualified website leads. So are these Internet leads, or should they be attributed to the traditional ad campaign?

 

Although it may be difficult to arrive at an industry standard for what the definition of an Internet sale is, your dealership should have its own definition. Just as important as a standard measurement is tracking the performance over time so you can identify growth opportunities.

 

Best Practices for Improving Closing Percentages

.

The most effective way to increase the percentage of sales attributed to Internet leads is to improve the closing percentages of your current Internet lead volume.

 

From the same survey I mentioned above, we filtered responses from the highest-performing dealerships based on the metrics they shared. The most successful Internet departments claimed the following best practices were critical in order to make an Internet department successful:

1)    Quality & Speed of Lead Response (72%)

2)    Website search visibility (66%)

3)    Management Buy-In and Support (61%) and Staff Training & Accountability (61%) tied for third.

 

Other choices and responses included: quality of leads (58%); quality of staff (42%); tracking & measurement of leads and ROI (33%); online reputation (33%); quality of online merchandising (33%); written policies and procedures that are closely adhered to (22%); lead mix (17%); social media involvement (14%); and number of leads per person (14%).

 

Dealers continue to stress how critical it is to have a process in place to prevent salespeople from closing out their own leads. It’s too easy for them to say “this lead is bad,” or “that lead isn’t valid,” and simply close out those leads, which results in a higher reported closing percentage—albeit a false one. It’s no different than if 100 customers walk through the door and 10% of those customers are lot drops, and then you calculate the closing percentage of 90 customers instead of 100.

 

At most dealerships, a valid lead is one that comes in with good contact information; but I have heard some salespeople say a valid lead is one that returns their attempt to contact within three days. How many customers return a single call or e-mail? Most of the time, it takes repeated attempts to get through to a customer.

 

So I bring up many questions here, and I’m looking forward to everybody’s responses. I think it’s important to discuss metrics so that eventually, an industry standard or benchmarks can be established, to which all dealerships can compare themselves.

 

More results from our survey will be shared in our upcoming workshop, the “Five Things in Common Successful Internet Departments Share,” at the Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas. These and other best practices will be discussed by our panelists, each representing a dealership with high performing Internet departments.

 

Is your dealership's 'contact made' rate for Internet leads in the 65-75% range? If not, here are three things to focus on that will help. Josh Vajda, Director of Inside Sales at AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions, gives a tutorial on how to improve auto dealers' 'contact made' rates.

Phil DuPree, President of AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions, is at the AutoCON 2012 conference in Las Vegas! Here he shares why dealers are excited about Payment Pro.

We recently conducted a survey in which we asked Internet department personnel to share some key metrics. In one question, we asked:

How much total gross does your Internet department generate for every $1,000 spent on Internet leads from all sources (SEM, independent and third-party leads, classified site subscriptions, etc.) ?

Of the 183 responses, the answers broke down:

3X or less: 33%

4X-6X: 18%

7X-10X or greater: 20%

Don’t Know: 29%

 

These answers reveal there is quite a large disparity between auto dealers’ return on investment (ROI) on Internet spending, as well as a surprisingly large percentage that don’t even know their ROI.  So I wanted to know: what should a dealership target for a reasonable Internet marketing ROI?

 One of the experts we consulted for measuring this metric was David Kain, President of Kain Automotive. He suggested that 5X ROI was the absolute minimum that a dealership should strive for, and ideally Internet departments should be seeing 7X ROI on their Internet spend.

But how do you calculate your ROI? Basically, ROI is what you get for what you spend. Here is a simple formula:

(Gross Profit – Marketing Investment) / Marketing Investment = ROI

 This formula represents three steps.

 1)   Marketing investment should be simple to figure out as it is the total cost of a campaign. For instance, if you spend $1,000 per month on a Pay-Per-Click campaign, $1,000 per month on independent leads and $1,000 per month on a subscription site, then your total marketing spend on Internet leads that month is $3,000. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to suggest here that the cost of overhead, while included in some ROI measurements, should not be included when figuring out ROI for Internet leads, regardless of source. So in this formula, don’t worry about including labor costs (for staff), web site maintenance costs, etc.

 

2)   Gross profit is the next metric you’ll need to figure (my first GM used to say, “Volume is vanity. Gross is sanity.”). If you can pull the actual grosses on all Internet deals, that’s great. If not, take the number of sales and multiply it by your dealership’s average front and back combined gross profits. So if $3,000 in marketing spend delivers 10 sales at an average of $3000 combined gross, then your total Internet-related gross profit will be $30,000.

 

3)   Next, you need to subtract the initial marketing investment ($3,000) from your gross profit ($30,000) for a total of $27,000.

 

4)   Divide that number by your initial marketing investment ($27,000/$3,000) and in this scenario you end up with 9X ROI, an excellent result.

 

Why is it important to know your ROI? Any time you spend money on anything, whether on Internet leads or a marketing campaign, it is an investment. Like any investment, it should be measured, monitored and compared to other investments so you know where you should be spending your money.

 

Also, knowing the ROI for all your lead sources gives you leverage. How many Internet marketing budgets were slashed in 2009 and 2010? Perhaps some cuts were deserved, but do you know which ones? Cutting back on a lead source that returns a high ROI is only going to hurt the bottom line.

 

Of course, our question focused on the overall Internet marketing spend, not on the ROI of various lead sources. But applying this formula to your separate lead sources is highly recommended and gives a better measurement of success than just closing percentage or other metrics. After all, ROI is what goes to the bottom line.

 

I’d love to hear some feedback: how do you calculate your dealership’s ROI on your Internet leads spend? What do you consider a good ROI? In my next blog, I’m going to give some tips on how to drive your team to improve ROI.