CARY, N.C. -

Traffic trends from online automotive marketplaces are seeing nice lifts.

Autotrader had close to 11 million visitors the week of April 6, up from less than 9 million a year ago, according to a Data Point report from parent company Cox Automotive. While visitor count fell between the weeks of March 2 and March 16 on Autotrader, levels for the week of April 6 were stronger than where they were in early March.

Autotrader’s Vehicle description page views approached 26 million that first week of April, up from less than 24 million a year ago. Again, while they fell between the weeks of March 2 and March 16, VDPs are now above where they were at the outset of March.

Then, there was a 14% week-over-week hike in visitor traffic the weekend of April 10-12, with VDP views climbing 17%. On April 12, visitor traffic and page views on Autotrader were at their strongest point in a year.

“We know that across the industry, sales are down, of course, but what we're measuring are the leading indicators here,” said Jessica Stafford, who is vice president and general manager for those online marketplaces at Cox Automotive, in a phone interview Tuesday. “(On) Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, our shopping activity is actually through the roof.

“On Autotrader, we're seeing over 20% increases in traffic year-over-year right now,” Stafford said. “So, big-time traffic numbers. Higher than what we saw pre-pandemic.”

At Cars.com, total visits were up 10.3% week-over-week during the ending April 12, with organic visits up 11.3%, according to this blog post from fellow CARS company Dealer Inspire. Interestingly enough, total leads were up 22.8% and organic leads were up 25.4%.

So, why would leads be climbing more than twice as fast visits?

“The intent of the shopper is much different. When someone's submitting a lead, I think they're pretty serious about purchasing — not that they weren't before,” said Dealer Inspire chief executive officer Joe Chura in a phone interview on Thursday.

“But you can just see in the numbers the percentage of close rates on leads is up substantially,” Chura said. “And that is because there is more work to do in some ways for a consumer to buy a vehicle.

“They have to either take delivery at their house (or) they can make an appointment at a dealership,” he said. “But it’s a pretty serious thing when you are submitting a lead and you are going to transact. It's not like you have the ability now to go and test drive vehicles and hop from dealer to dealer.”  

As such, Chura urges dealers not to take those leads for granted. Capitalize on the fact that they have high intent right now.

“Do not take for granted the leads that are coming in, because the intent of these customers is much greater, much different than it was 60 days ago or so,” he said. “There's less shopping dealer by dealer and there's more consumers that truly want to transact, therefore giving them the tools upfront to let them explore as much as possible, whether that be payments on a certain vehicle, their trade-in valuations, what they're total out-of-pocket expenses are, what their total amount financed is, what available lease offers there are, all of those are really important so make sure your website communicates those properly.” 

Dealers are also tapping into tools that can help facilitate smoother digital transactions.

In late March, Autotrader rolled out what it calls Dealer Home Services to give dealers an easier, healthier way to transact digitally amid the pandemic. This helps dealers facilitate “no contact” vehicle transactions through three new features: virtual walk-around, test drives from home and local vehicle delivery.

Autotrader is looking at how consumers are interacting with these tools to gauge whether or not they’re just browsing or making serious buying steps.

“And what we’re seeing is they're engaging with these three tools that now are part of that Dealer Home Services that we've put on the site. They're filtering and they're submitting leads to dealers, saying, ‘I want local home delivery; I want a virtual tour of the vehicle,” Stafford said. “And the best way we've been able to measure the difference there of the consumer engagement and, of course, the value back to the dealer is that dealers that have Dealer Home Services enabled are seeing 10% more leads than those that don't have it enabled. 

“These dealers that have turned on this suite of services are actually seeing lead levels the same as what it was pre-crisis," she said. “What that tells us is that overall, consumers are happy with the experience, but more so than that, they're engaging, they're looking for this content. They're asking for information about what dealers are doing for them right now.”

Citing data from a Cox Automotive study, which was released during the pandemic, Stafford said that more than two-thirds of consumers want to purchase vehicles entirely online, “and that they anticipate that (consumers demanding this experience) continuing after COVID.”

Jai Macker, who is senior vice president of product and engineering for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book and joined Stafford on the call, said it’s not just about the digital retail tools, but also vehicle comparison functions.

“Consumers in our study were two-thirds more likely to also utilize OEM sites, dealer sites and third-party sites to research online, and do comparisons,” Macker said. “Across the board, the expectation we have is that digital activity, all the way to purchase, will continue to increase.”