R.L. Polk & Co. and Hook — a company that provides incentive programs to help increase traffic for various lead-driven businesses, including auto dealerships — recently conducted a pilot program for a test-drive incentive at MileOne dealerships.

Officials said results were quite positive. In fact, dealers who participated saw their closing rates climb 20 percent and their vehicle sales climb about 40 percent on an incremental basis.

The pilot program blended Polk’s capabilities in spotting high-quality target consumers and HookLogic’s targeted lead incentive delivery and management, they noted. 

“We worked hand-in-hand with Polk to provide an automated, integrated solution designed to reach the best prospects for MileOne and drive them to its dealerships quickly,” stated Jonathan Opdyke, CEO of HookLogic.”

“The incentive — a $25 gift card — motivated recipients to visit MileOne dealerships first, before visiting other dealers,” he added.

The e-mail open-and-click rate for the incentive program was 23 percent, two times what MileOne normally gets. What’s more, almost three out of every 10 consumers clicking through (29 percent) ended up going to the dealership to get the card.

Explaining the lead-marketing process used in the program, Polk’s predictive models gave a specific score to every online lead, officials explained. These were determined by such criteria as lead source, in-market timing, past buying behaviors and household demographic data.

After Polk gave out scores, the leads went through HookLogic’s incentive management platform. HookLogic sent each of the leads that had scores of 8, 9 or 10 an e-mail including the $25 gift card.

“MileOne sold more vehicles at a low incremental cost of less than $200 per vehicle and generated $60,000 more in gross revenue over dealerships that were not included in the trial,” officials claimed.

 Because the pilot was so successful, all MileOne stores provide high-scoring leads with walk-in incentives.

David Metter, MileOne’s chief marketing officer of MileOne, had been utilizing the services of both companies, but found that integration of the services could bear more fruit, officials explained.

“David brought us together, and we realized that Polk’s best-in-class lead analytics and HookLogic’s industry leading incentive software are a natural fit,” stated Michael Spadafore, who heads up consumer and commercial marketing at Polk. “It has been proven time and again that incentives impact consumers, and by integrating the Polk Score, a dealer can keep their costs in line and still increase sales significantly.”

Metter added: “Through working with Polk, we already had a scientific process to identify the online leads with the highest purchase intent. We’d seen great results from HookLogic’s incentive management solution, so the two organizations working together gave us a way to get our best prospects into the dealership and turn them into buyers.”