AutoHook, powered by Urban Science, recently partnered with Carfax where individuals shopping for used vehicles on Carfax.com will now receive extra incentives from select dealers to visit their showrooms for a test drive.
The partnership includes the integration of AutoHook’s incentive solutions into the vehicle details pages of Carfax Used Car Listings. The program is currently available to AutoHook customers that also are Carfax Advantage Dealers with Used Car Listings.
The companies pointed out this enhancement comes at no additional charge to mutually subscribing dealerships and there only is a simple form to complete.
Officials explained new dealer and OEM clients of AutoHook that are already Carfax Advantage Dealers on Carfax Used Car Listings will be added to the integration during the initial setup process. They also mentioned dealerships are only responsible for paying for redemptions (actual showroom visits) and AutoHook takes care of the entire incentive fulfillment process.
Following the September acquisition of AutoHook by Urban Science and the January launch of the all-new DriveAutoHook.com, AutoHook president David Metter highlighted the alliance came at a perfect time for customers.
Metter stressed that dealers will see additional benefits of working with the digital conversion experts as he contends the company is the only one in the space capable of attributing conversions to sales in near real-time.
“This industry has seen so many disruptions over the years, beginning with CRMs, then the Internet, and now with mobile,” Metter said. “I am honored to say AutoHook has successfully disrupted the trend of declining lead conversion rates facing automotive today.
“Adding Carfax into this mix opens doors for further increasing both conversions and showroom visits for dealers and OEMs, attributing those clicks all the way to a sale — and it will bring more value to consumers during their research process,” Metter went on to say.
AutoHook emphasized that it continues to show its multidimensional business model while leveraging Urban Science’s data resources.
By adding AutoHook’s technology into Carfax’s Used Car Listings, shoppers are incentivized to take the next step from viewing inventory online to connecting with the selling dealer and visiting their store for a test drive. The integration can help dealerships brand consistently across multiple platforms and ultimately increase conversions, leads, walk-ins and sales.
“Dealers choose to be on Carfax.com because it connects them with more qualified, down-funnel shoppers,” Carfax communications director Larry Gamache said.
“Combining the added incentive dealers can offer through AutoHook’s test drive solution with the many unique benefits people already get from shopping on Carfax.com further increases the likelihood of a sale,” Gamache added.
For qualified AutoHook dealerships that are already Carfax Advantage Dealers with Used Car Listings, there is a simple “opt-in” process, consisting of a quick form to get established in the program. This comes at no additional fee, according to the company
Dealers can opt in to the program here or contact AutoHook dealer support at [email protected].
Based on the pretense that Super Bowl ad aftermath may pose the first big test of the year for vehicle shopper satisfaction, an automaker’s website could leave their potential customers as elated as Peyton Manning or as sullen as Cam Newton.
According to the J.D. Power 2016 Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study — Winter, analysts determined website navigation problems due to rich content, especially on the individual model pages, can negatively impact customer satisfaction and perceptions of site speed.
The semiannual study examines four key measures (in order of importance) to determine usefulness of automotive manufacturer websites during the new-vehicle shopping process:
— Information and content
— Appearance
— Navigation
— Speed
Satisfaction is calculated on a 1,000-point scale. The study showed overall customer satisfaction with manufacturer websites came in at 808.
J.D. Power noticed that as the demand for interactive and illustrative information has increased, so has the number of navigation issues on automaker sites — especially on the model pages. That’s where the firm said vehicle details, videos and build tools are available.
The study mentioned a connection between navigation problems and the perception of site speed. The more steps needed to find information, view an image or play a video, the longer the process feels, which leads to a decline in satisfaction.
More than four in 10 shoppers — 42 percent to be exact — indicate experiencing a problem with speed in at least one area of the website, according to the study.
J.D. Power noted speed satisfaction is higher among shoppers who do not experience a speed issue than among those who do (838 versus 765, respectively). The combination of navigation and speed issues can be extremely detrimental to the shopping experience.
Analysts spotted a 232-point gap in satisfaction between shoppers who experience no speed or navigation issues (845) and those who experience three or more navigation issues and speed issues (613).
“Automakers just spent many millions of dollars on advertising during the Super Bowl to drive a massive amount of traffic to their respective digital showrooms; it's critical that those websites perform at a level consistent with the manufacturer's brand promise,” said Arianne Walker, senior director of marketing analytics at J.D. Power.
“Auto manufacturers need to find the right balance between offering rich content and a robust Web experience that engages shoppers enough to get them to the dealer to take that next step,” Walker continued.
“If the site has difficult navigation and perceived speed issues, shoppers may opt for another brand of interest,” she went on to say.
3 other findings
J.D. Power highlighted a trio of other key findings stemming from the 2016 winter study, as listed below:
— Manufacturer website becomes conduit to test drive: Among new-vehicle shoppers who say they are “delighted” with their experience on a manufacturer brand website (overall satisfaction scores of 901 or higher), 59 percent indicate they are more likely to test drive a vehicle after visiting the site, compared with only 18 percent of those who say they are “disappointed” (scores of 500 or below).
—Build and price tools weigh down site performance: The content with which shoppers most often experience slow speed issues includes the build and price tool, videos and interior/exterior 360-degree images.
—Site navigation leaves room for improvement: Among the four study measures, navigation and information/content are the least satisfying for shoppers (800 each).
Website study rankings
J.D. Power found Ram (838) ranked highest in overall manufacturer website satisfaction, followed by Porsche (836) and Mercedes-Benz (828).
Here is the complete rundown:
Ram: 838
Porsche: 836
Mercedes-Benz: 828
Lexus: 821
Mini: 820
Audi: 818
BMW: 818
Jaguar: 818
Jeep: 818
Volkswagen: 818
Infiniti: 816
Acura: 815
smart: 815
Land Rover: 814
Cadillac: 813
Hyundai: 810
Fiat: 808
Industry average: 808
Dodge: 807
Mazda: 806
Subaru: 805
Lincoln: 804
Chrysler: 802
Nissan: 802
Volvo: 799
Honda: 798
Buick: 794
Chevrolet: 794
GMC: 794
Scion: 794
Kia: 785
Ford: 783
Mitsubishi: 783
Toyota: 781
Along with hiring an executive for a personnel role, CarGurus released a study this week identifying where consumers report the best vehicle-shopping experiences as measured by customer ratings of dealerships submitted to the site.
Topping the list where shoppers gave the highest percentage of perfect five-star reviews when rating their dealership buying experiences was Nashville, Tenn., coming in at 57.5 percent.
Just 0.1 percent point off of the Music City’s pace was San Diego at 56.9 percent. Here is the rundown of the top 10:
1. Nashville, Tenn.: 57.5 percent
2. San Diego: 56.9 percent
3. Austin, Texas: 56.1 percent
4. Memphis, Tenn.: 55.8 percent
5. Birmingham, Ala.: 55.2 percent
6. Tampa, Fla.: 55.1 percent
7. Kansas City, Kan.: 54.8 percent
8. Charlotte, N.C.: 54.7 percent
9. St. Louis: 54.5 percent
10. New Orleans: 54.5 percent
On the other extreme, the site noticed shoppers in New York City was least likely among the nation’s largest markets to give five-star reviews as just 45 percent of reviews included five stars. Meanwhile, CarGurus noticed that shoppers in the Big Apple were more likely than in other cities to give one-star reviews as 20 percent of reviews originating in the market included just one star.
Baltimore, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Okla., and Miami also ranked in the bottom five cities with the lowest proportion of perfect reviews.
While the study reveals regional differences in consumer shopping experiences at local dealerships, analysts at CarGurus note that on average stores across the nation get high marks from customers.
The average star rating for all dealers reviewed — on the scale of five stars (great) to one star (terrible) — was 3.8.
In addition, the site pointed out 70 percent of dealer reviews analyzed were rated with four or five stars while only 20 percent were rated with one or two stars.
According to a CarGurus poll of its users, 65 percent say they always consult dealership reviews before contacting a dealer.
“Consumers often approach the car-shopping process with trepidation, but our data shows that in fact most shoppers end up having a pretty good experience at the dealership,” said Amy Mueller, director of public relations for CarGurus.
“Still, where you shop matters, and consulting dealership reviews from other shoppers can go a long way to ensuring a great shopping outcome,” Mueller continued. “This is why CarGurus factors dealer ratings in addition to price analysis when we rank search results — we want to help shoppers find the best deals from the best dealers as easily as possible.”
For this study, CarGurus examined more than 100,000 recent dealer reviews from the top 51 metro areas in the contiguous U.S. The site’s most satisfied vehicle shopping city rankings were determined by comparing the percentage of five-star reviews among total submitted reviews for dealers in each city. Cities with the highest proportion of five-star reviews ranked highest.
CarGurus solicits dealership reviews by inviting CarGurus shoppers who engaged with a dealership to review it. This program is strictly monitored to ensure the authenticity and integrity of reviews.
To see the full ranked list of cities, go to this website.
Kenny joins CarGurus as VP of people and talent
In other site news, CarGurus announced that Kristen Kenny has joined the company as vice president of people and talent, a new position. Kenny, formerly director of people operations at HubSpot, will be responsible for leading CarGurus' global human resources organization, including recruiting, company culture and employee development operations.
“Kristen brings tremendous relevant experience leading rapid corporate growth and global expansion, and we are thrilled to have her on board as CarGurus continues to grow in the U.S. and beyond,” CarGurus chief financial officer Jason Trevisan said.
“Our success hinges on our ability to support and inspire our people, and Kristen will help to foster the unique culture we have built here and continue to attract the best and brightest talent to our team,” Trevisan continued.
In the past year, CarGurus highlighted that it has doubled its staff and plans to add more than 100 new employees in 2016 in the U.S. and abroad. Executive claim the website is now the second most trafficked vehicle-shopping website in the U.S. and has recently launched sites in Canada and the United Kingdom, with further global expansion scheduled for 2016.
“I am fortunate to be building on a strong foundation of success at CarGurus alongside such a smart, passionate and fun group of people,” Kenny said.
“We have big plans for growth, and with that, great opportunity for new gurus to join in helping us radically change the way people shop for cars,” she went on to say.
Prior to joining CarGurus, Kenny was director of people operations at HubSpot where she was the company's first in-house HR hire, responsible for building the human resource and recruiting function and scaling these to support the company's rapid international expansion.
Before working at HubSpot, Kenny was director and HR business partner at Endeca Technologies where she helped expand the company into seven countries.
Throughout her career, she's specialized in building custom infrastructure around HR operations and international expansions at startup companies.
Connected-car service provider Airbiquity released its 2016 industry predictions on Wednesday.
Scott Frank, the company’s vice president of marketing, says we can expect the rapid pace of technology development related to connected vehicles to continue.
"Automotive continues to face significant challenges—and opportunities—for connected car technologies and programs. The industry has only begun to scratch the surface of what is yet to come," Frank said. "A decade ago, no one could have predicted the rate of technology evolution or level of competition the industry is experiencing today. One thing we know for sure is the pace isn't going to let up; in fact it's going to accelerate."
Here are a few of Airbiquity’s predictions for 2016, provided by the company:
- Increased recognition of automotive leadership threats by non-traditional technology players: Well-known and highly capitalized Silicon Valley technology companies like Google, Apple, Tesla, Uber and Lyft are declaring their ambitions to be automotive industry disruptors and leaders – and consumers are receptive to the idea based on the dominance of their brands, products, and track records of vision and innovation. To counter this threat, traditional automakers will fast-track internal transformations to adopt new technologies, embrace new ecosystem partners, and change outdated processes and procurement policies that are hindering progress. The good news is automakers are increasingly aware of the stakes and taking action. The bad news is a daunting task lies ahead that will test automaker management teams top-to-bottom, as well as the rank and file that must get on board to make it happen.
- Tighter integration of connected vehicle programs with product and customer life cycles: In addition to providing consumers with in-vehicle infotainment content, connected cars are unique in the ability to receive remote software updates to fix recalls and enhance features, as well as provide data about vehicle operations and driving history. This ability presents tremendous cost savings and consumer engagement opportunities for automakers such as reducing recall expense, enabling real-time part and system evaluation, optimizing back-office operations and supply chain, and introducing new driving centric services and monetization. But seizing these opportunities will require automakers to better integrate the strategy and operations of connected vehicle service functions with long standing areas like design and engineering, customer experience and support, brand and marketing, and dealer channels. In 2015, Airbiquity saw an increased maturity of automaker connected vehicle service organizations, and we expect this trend to continue through 2016 given the significant brand stakes and increasingly attractive return-on-investment.
- Increased focus on developing and deploying electrification and autonomous technologies: Automakers will increase investments for the development of technologies to improve electric vehicle performance and expand autonomous driving features. Regarding electrification, oil prices and consumer demand for electric vehicles may be low today, but increasing global warming concerns and efficiency mandates will press automakers to improve fleet efficiencies. Gas prices will eventually increase followed by consumer demand for more efficient vehicles across all price ranges. In response, automakers must ensure they have the right product at the right time to remain competitive. As far as autonomous goes, the future is clear: It's going to happen. If automakers want a slice of the autonomous pie they have to develop and equip vehicles with enabling technologies. The road to fully autonomous vehicles will be a long one (Airbiquity predicts 2030-35) and there will be bumps along the way. To succeed automakers need to put their stakes in the ground now.
Airbiquity is perhaps best known for Choreo, its cloud-based service delivery platform. The company says it has over 7 million vehicles subscribed to Choreo, which facilitates hundreds of millions of connected car transactions per month in the more than 60 countries and 30 languages that the solution is offered.
For more information about Airbiquity, visit its site here.
You post a fun picture of you and the family from the holidays, and what happens? Dozens of likes, comments and maybe even a new friend request or two.
Big news breaks, and one of your friends posts an article with an interesting angle to that story, so you click to learn more.
Point is, people are engaged on Facebook.
And many are using it during the car shopping process.
According to statistics shared by PureCars chief executive officer Jeremy Anspach in a news release, 84 percent of car shoppers have Facebook, with close to a quarter of those folks using it a car research tool.
“When Jeremy started the company, it was built on this idea of relevancy and making sure we’re serving the most relevant content to consumers to have them engaged,” PureCars director of marketing Nancy Lim told Auto Remarketing.
“And not only is Facebook a platform where consumers are most engaged just generally speaking, but it’s true when they’re shopping for cars as well,” Lim continued. “We’re serving broad awareness ads as well as the VIN-level retargeting ads, and both just performed incredibly well with the relevancy that’s tied to them. they’re vehicles that the shoppers have already viewed and have already showed interest in. And we’re able to show it in an environment where they’re spending 30 percent of their time.”
Lim is referring to the SmartAdvertising Social retargeting feature the company announced Thursday. She and Anspach talked Auto Remarketing by phone Monday about the new product and why Facebook, in particular, has become such an important resource for dealers.
“I think the way the industry has addressed social to date seems to be pretty hit and miss, in the sense you get dealerships who either don’t participate much at all, or they have a firm or someone in the dealership doing posting, more from a branding perspective,” Anspach said. “And there has not been much of a social play on how do you leverage the social media platform, adding market specific vehicles.”
That’s the puzzle PureCars aims to solve with its new solution, which is an extension of the SmartAdvertising platform.
According to a news release on the product, it takes live inventory from dealers and using real-time targeting technology, it delivers vehicle-specific, VIN-level ads into the news feeds of Facebook users. SmartAdvertising Social uses car buyers’ browsing history and integrates PureCars technology with Facebook.
“The social feature is really leveraging some amazing things in the sense that now that we can market specific inventory to an audience on social, we can hit about 84 percent of car shoppers,” Anspach said. “And that’s a huge percentage. So what dealerships have been asking us for is, how do you generate more quality traffic? How do you generate more opportunities for us? And that’s what put us on to social.”
Lim added: “I think that dealers also recognize that social is a huge opportunity. And when it first came out, I think they understood that there was a huge audience there but didn’t quite know how to use it. So to Jeremy’s point, they were really just doing branding, posting things and not really thinking strategically about how to leverage it. And what we’re able to do with this new social product is serve these VIN-level ads using inventory feeds.”
Where else is Facebook handy?
There's a quote from Anspach in the news release that provides a good look at the power of Facebook in autos: “Eighty-four percent of car shoppers are on Facebook and nearly a quarter of these shoppers use the social channel as a resource during their research stage.
“Whether it’s reading reviews or getting feedback from their own networks, Facebook can impact the final purchase decision. This is why we are excited to offer social as part of our SmartAdvertising solution,” he added.
During the conversation, Lim also talked about other potential areas where Facebook can be used for dealers and automakers.
“What’s really great about Facebook is you can reach a consumer at all the different phases of the shopping process: top funnel, middle and lower funnel,” she said.
As for the dealers PureCars works with, it’s all about creating a “full-rounded strategy,” Lim said.
“They’re capturing that search traffic from people who are actively searching for whatever car they’re shopping for. And then they’re also supplementing that with display, and leveraging our display network to kind of follow that user through their online journey. I think it’s safe to say the majority of people’s online journey will eventually up on Facebook, with them spending so much time on it, that it creates that full-rounded strategy for online advertising. So, there are tons of opportunities there for dealers outside of just the branding.”
In a separate Auto Remarketing story earlier this month, we connected with Bryan Honda of Fayetteville, N.C., which used Facebook for a completely different opportunity: selling cars.
The store decided to sell vehicles in real-time directly within the Facebook platform and beta tested it on Cyber Monday. The result? Traffic was so strong, it actually overloaded the Stripe.com sales platform being used, said Bryan Honda e-commerce director Rico Glover.
“Our theory is, you put the product out first, and then you fix it. I threw the product out there, and it broke, which is good,” Glover said.
In the first hour, Glover said roughly 500 to 600 people tried to use the Stripe.com platform. But just because the system was overloaded didn’t mean these leads went to waste.
“The good thing about it is, though, I’m a trained lead provider,” said Glover. “So I have all of those contacts in my database. By the end of the day, I had over 1,000 interactions on the product. What that did is gave me proof of sale and interest, and a working model to actually launch the Facebook program in full.”
Additional Facebook insight
Beyond the PureCars news, Auto Remarketing got some additional insight on Facebook engagement levels within the auto space.
“With Facebook being a “pay-to-play” channel, brands definitely get more engagement (especially from their own pages) when they put money towards their posts and campaigns,” Heather Smith, the marketing communications manager at DriveTime, said in an email.
Smith oversees all social media for DriveTime.
“While we have a Facebook brand page, complete with local pages for each of our dealerships, with a community size of almost 28,000 fans, we’re lucky if we hit 1 percent of fan engagement without putting some money behind a campaign or post,” she added. “With Facebook’s targeting options and different ad types, we’ve definitely seen an influx in fans and engagement (clicks to website, comments/likes on a post), but it’s heavily dependent on the type of ad and how well we’re targeting the right audience for our content.”
Brandon Hoffman is the director of Internet marketing at KEA Advertising Inc., an advertising agency based in Valley Cottage, N.Y. His company does work in auto, and he said that engagement there is “extremely” strong.
“We've actually had some of our best performing campaigns using Facebook Ads as a lead generation medium,” Hoffman said via email. “As far as retargeting goes the audience is definitely very engaged and an advantage to Facebook Retargeting versus regular display retargeting through ad networks is two-fold.”
First, he said, there are the impressions and clicks you can generate, not to mention things like check-ins at the dealership, page and post likes, comments and so forth.
“So you get real social engagement in conjunction with the clicks and impressions,” Hoffman said.
Second, is the uptick in click-throughs.
“The click through rates tend to be higher, especially at the beginning of the campaign. I see around 0.5 percent click through rate on Facebook ads versus 0.2-0.3 percent on display retargeting,” he noted. “Overall the cost-per click is typically around the same as display retargeting but the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) rate tends to be higher.”
When you’re driving down the road, how many of the cars in motion around you are being physically driven by fellow humans? More often than not, all of them.
Thinking of an answer to this question, today, may seem quite silly. By the time our millennial readers are old and gray, however, it won’t be.
It’s well known that a variety of auto manufacturers and outside technology companies are preparing for the day that autonomous driving becomes mainstream.
In fact, a small percentage (8 percent) of the 175 automotive executives in 21 countries that IBM surveyed in its Automotive 2025: Industry without borders study think autonomous vehicles will be in mainstream use as soon as in the next 10 years. A much larger percentage (38 percent) think they will at least be in limited use in the mainstream market.
“But how does that affect my dealership today?” you may ask.
Well, there are plenty of autonomous features that are currently hitting the mainstream — and consumers want them. The technologies may not be driving the cars for us yet, but with lane-departure warnings, autonomous braking, and guided cruise control, it’s safe to say we’re perhaps not that far from it.
Autotrader recently presented the findings of its 2016 In-Vehicle Technology Shopper Influence Study at the 2016 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and a not-so-surprising percentage of consumers would like more autonomous features in their vehicles.
After surveying a panel of over 1,000 vehicle owners online last year, Autotrader found that 70 percent of the consumers surveyed are more likely to consider a vehicle with autonomous features, such as parking assistance, collision avoidance and automatic braking.
One interesting finding, fleshed out by Autotrader’s associate research manager Rachelle Petusky, is that these in-car technologies are changing what many consumers perceive to be a luxury vehicle.
“When we ask consumers about what defines a luxury vehicle, traditionally in the past consumers have broken it out by automakers that play in the luxury space, such as Audi or BMW,” Petusky said. “But technology’s really changing the game, and non-luxury vehicles are starting to be viewed as a luxury vehicle because of the technologies offered in the car. Things like Wi-Fi, lane change assistance, collision avoidance are helping consumers perceive non-luxury cars as luxuries.”
Since this is the second year that Autotrader has conducted this study, Auto Remarketing asked Petusky what the biggest change Autotrader has seen seen in consumer expectations over the last year.
Petusky pointed to the 77 percent that want a car with all of the technology features they want regardless of car color.
“Probably the biggest change that we saw was the fact that technology is becoming even more important than car color,” Petusky said. “Car color, I think, has been a part of a huge conversation. It still is very relevant in the purchase decision, but technology is definitely going to have more of an impact now than it did last year.”
While Autotrader finds that the majority (60 percent) of the consumers surveyed think self-driving vehicles are a dangerous idea, there are plenty that are more than willing to pay extra for the new technologies that are out today.
Forty four percent of those surveyed said they would pay up to $1,499, which Petusky says is a bit of a “magic number” in the technology package pricing game, for an in-vehicle concierge service. And 65 percent said they would switch brands to get the features they want.
On that note of branding, while Petusky says that in the immediate term it isn’t that cost effective to upgrade used vehicles with some of the new features that are coming out, the used cars that are most popular in the future will be heavily dependent on who adapts what technologies in their new vehicles now.
“But I think as automakers and technology companies figure out how to make it more cost-effective, it is going to start shifting consideration,” she said. “We’re already seeing some consumers that are shopping for new cars that are going to switch brands if the technology that they want isn’t in the car that they want.
“So I think even as people are looking at used cars, it may change which used car they’re considering depending upon which manufacturer is earlier to the game to introducing new technologies in their cars.”
These new technologies are also expected to not only change how automakers certify used vehicles in the future, but also impact the value that used cars retain.
“I think there’s definitely certain things that they’re going to have to check to make sure they’re functioning properly,” Petusky said. “Our sister company, Kelley Blue Book, is actually seeing that vehicle technology is impacting the valuation price of used inventory.
“I think that vehicles that are in good or excellent condition that have that additional technology in the car, it’s just going to be a way that they can ask for a higher price point and that inventory is going to move faster compared to certified inventory that doesn’t.”
Petusky also thinks that dealers and aftermarket companies that can add some of the more affordable new technologies, especially backup cameras, to older vehicles, can reap the benefits.
“That’ll really be a way to differentiate themselves from other dealers,” she said.
There is one feature that customers don’t necessarily care for their vehicle to have completely integrated: navigation. Fifty seven percent said they would rather manufacturers focus on better integration with their smartphones, while 39 percent said they would prefer the navigation system on a smartphone rather than one built into the vehicle.
“We definitely see it continuing to swing toward people wanting to just use the navigation system that’s in their phone,” Petusky said. “But they are wanting that to easily integrate into the dash. Some of the other apps and functions that people are doing on their smart phones now they are willing to surrender to the dash.”
CarStory released its monthly Used Vehicle Deal Alert on Wednesday, highlighting the best deals it’s seeing for its customers across the country.
On the reverse side, however, is something particularly useful for dealers: the top five most popular used vehicles searched for on CarStory's site.
Here’s the list, based on online searches by make and model, according to CarStory:
CarStory's Top Five Most-Popular Used Vehicles
- Ford F-150
- Jeep Wrangler
- Ford Mustang
- Cadillac Escalade
- Audi A4
The report from CarStory outlines the best used-vehicle deals it can find around the country that are listed on its site, saying that the average savings across the country comes in at $3,039, or 17 percent per vehicle. The top three were on the Toyota Prius (in Los Angeles), the BMW 5 Series (in Phoenix) and the Mercedes-Benz C-class (also in Los Angeles).
“With so much information out there, finding the best deals on used cars can be challenging for consumers,” said Chad Bockius, the company’s chief marketing officer. “Our CarStory Deal Alerts analyze millions of pieces of pricing data to help consumers cut through the digital noise and save dollars this holiday season, while also giving them a snapshot of what other consumers are searching for.”
After L.A., Philadelphia has the second-highest average discount on used vehicles listed on CarStory.
Brand-by-brand, Mercedes-Benz vehicles are discounted in the most cities (13) according to CarStory, followed by Jeep (11), Nissan (6), Chevrolet (4) and Lexus (4).
For more information on CarStory, visit its site here.
When Bryan Honda of Fayetteville, N.C. decided to sell vehicles in real-time directly within the Facebook platform the dealership team wanted to see if the traffic would come — would people actually be interested?
And this Cyber Monday, when the social sales tool was beta tested, the dealership got its answer.
In the words of Rico Glover, e-commerce director at Bryan Honda, “Our theory is, you put the product out first, and then you fix it. I threw the product out there, and it broke, which is good.”
What Glover means by “broke” is the sales platform, run by Stripe.com, was so overloaded by users, it couldn’t handle the traffic.
In the first hour, Glover said roughly 500 to 600 people tried to use the Stripe.com platform. But just because the system was overloaded didn’t mean these leads went to waste.
“The good thing about it is, though, I’m a trained lead provider,” said Glover. “So I have all of those contacts in my database. By the end of the day, I had over 1,000 interactions on the product. What that did is gave me proof of sale and interest, and a working model to actually launch the Facebook program in full.”
And that might not be too hard, as software companies looking to partner with the dealership on further beta testing are now contacting the store directly in an effort to be involved.
As for those customers that tried to use the Facebook platform and were drawn to the dealership through social engagement on Cyber Monday? Many of those leads were converted, as well.
“Instead of going through the process completely online, we still connected with them and sent them information or brought them into the dealership,” Glover said.
And this social surge of customers spelled a large increase in both Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for the store.
Glover explained the dealership “went real hot and heavy” on social media for both the Black Friday holiday and Cyber Monday, using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to drive leads.
And the work paid off. This past Black Friday, the store did 29 sales, compared to 19 sales in 2014. And on Cyber Monday, the dealership sold 19 vehicles, compared to just seven during the 2014 holiday.
A ‘social focus’
So, why the focus on social media?
Glover said when he was working in auto sales about seven or eight years ago, he noticed everything was trending toward online. Think Google and growing online sales platforms.
And then another shift occurred.
“Google got expensive. If you wanted to have paid advertising on Google, it got pricey. So, I started looking at the social side of things,” Glover said.
He shared the words of one of his mentors that lead him to start doing more with social media and Facebook, in particular.
“One of my mentors said, ‘Facebook is the most accurate and intelligent survey ever created in the history of the world. It allows you to get any message in front of any person at any time anywhere in the world.’ And that has stuck with me ever since,” Glover said.
And Facebook also gives dealerships a platform to “listen” to their customers, which is key to things that come down the road such as social selling, Glover said.
“Most dealerships try to use social media and they go straight to social selling, which is really the last level when you are trying to sell anything online,” Glover said. “The first thing you have to do is listen. What Facebook does in the best way possible is they listen to what people are saying, and then you can actually target and tailor your product or service to users.”
To Glover, it’s a no-brainer decision to focus on Facebook.
“In front of you, you have a system that will tell you when someone is looking for a vehicle, when they have purchased a vehicle, when they might be looking to get another vehicle, and if you know how to do it correctly by listening, you’ll sell more vehicles,” he shared.
Glover credits Bryan Honda general manager Tim Roussel, who he called “a forward-thinking manager,” with giving him the opportunity to really dig in on the social side of things.
And it’s paying off.
“We were doing maybe 200 cars a month, and now we are in the 300-350 range some months,” Glover said.
And with social comes a focus on the demographic who uses it the most: millennials.
“According to reports, Cyber Monday was the biggest online sales day on record with $3 billion in sales, and millennials are driving a lot of that,” Glover said.
That was certainly true for Bryan Honda.
For the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online impressions for the store were dominated by the 25-35 age group, with the 35-44 age group in second place.
And as far as leads go, the No. 1 source for the holiday week was social engagement, from Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
The dealership is making a concerted effort to reach these social shoppers and actually employs a social relationship management (SRM) team, whose members are taught how to talk directly to consumers through social, “because that’s where they want to be met,” says Glover.
Changing the game to serve millennials
Glover says it’s important to realize that millennials aren’t anti-social, growing up in the age of instant messaging and texts, “it’s just the fact that they talk different.”
For example, they might not want to walk through a meet and greet and 12-step sales process.
“They grew up in the Google age where they ask a question, and they want it answered first, and they want to know that you have listened to them before they go on to the sale,” Glover said.
One way Bryan Honda does this is employing what Glover calls a “sales vortex” rather than a traditional “sales funnel.”
To create this vortex, Bryan Honda pulls leads from all the social sites, as well as street teams, which Glover explained as a group of salespeople in Bryan Honda vehicles touting a logo that says, “Bryan Honda Street Team,” that go out into the community and engage potential customers.
“What a funnel does is you take people or leads, and you push them down and gravity has to work to push them from the beginning out the bottom to make a sale. A vortex works in a completely different way,” Glover said. “It works with a spinning motion and gravitates and pulls, and instead of gravity working, with the simple force of being able to relate and engage with these people, they will drop out on their own, and you will get so many more sales.”
Analytics company CarStory has notched a patent for its CarStory Market Reports’ technology.
CarStory parent company Vast.com Inc. has been awarded U.S. Letters Patent no. 9,104,718, titled, Systems, Methods and Devices for Measuring Similarity of and Generating Recommendations for Unique Items.
The newly patented technology works to automatically compute similar alternative choices from a pool of unique items, in this case used vehicles, based on available inventory and user search behavior, the company explained.
“Although this patent is not limited to the automotive industry, given the multiple variables shoppers contend with when searching for a used vehicle, its application to automotive — helping consumers make relevant and speedier decisions and dealers offer a more informed and better purchasing experience — has been incredibly successful, with over 6,000 dealers already having adopted CarStory Market Reports,” said Chad Bockius, chief marketing officer of CarStory.
CarStory Market Reports — which are available free of charge to all US auto dealers — help consumers understand, and sellers tell, a vehicle’s whole “story.”
CarStory Market Reports work to embed vehicle research directly into the VDP, working to keep shoppers engaged on dealership websites rather than finding information on third-party research sites.
The information in the Reports is based on insights and analysis generated from from a combination of real-time used vehicle listings and data from over 8 million used-car searches each week.
The newly patented similarities function works to find consumers alternative options in case the car they were interested in had already sold. Normally, that shoppers might have to start over in their search, but the technology automatically generates an alternative vehicle list based on their previous searches.
“By ‘crowdsourcing’ the notion that if a consumer likes ‘A,’ then he/she might also like ‘B,’ we are able to expedite the shopping process,” said David Franke chief data scientist at Vast.com and co-inventor of the patent. “We do this by learning from high information users to inform low information users.
“In other words, what we learn from people who know a lot about the car market can help people who don’t know so much. All of which can power a far more informed, relevant and positive experience for both shopper and seller.”
Digital marketing intelligence company Netsertive highlighted on Wednesday that it raised an additional $9 million to complete its $24 million Series C financing.
This announcement comes on the heels of the company’s recognition by Deloitte Fast 500 as one of North America’s fastest-growing companies, with 668 percent growth over the past three years.
“We are increasingly seeing clients go from early testing to true investments where the return on their co-op marketing spend really matters,” Netsertive chief executive officer and co-founder Brendan Morrissey said.
“Additionally, as brands evaluate potential long-term partners, they are looking at the financial strength, long-term vision and capabilities of those partners,” Morrissey continued.
“Putting this level of capital into our company helps solidify Netsertive as the strong choice for brands who want the best technology and the best long-term partner that can grow with them,” he went on to say.
Led by River Cities Capital Funds with participation from Babson Capital Management and Netsertive’s existing investors, the funding will support accelerated investments in the company’s innovative platform, which can help brands and local businesses drive shared local digital marketing success.
Netsertive contends that it is poised to continue its disruption of the market and expects to undertake some key partnerships and potential strategic acquisitions as part of its strategy to position itself as the best long-term partner for brands investing in their channel partners.
“The importance of co-op programs means we need a solution to activate hundreds of our local retailers with a simple, push-button solution to deploy fully compliant digital campaigns into local markets,” said Marty Melcher, Group vice president of sales at Serta.
“For example, as we enter the critical end of year shopping season, our retailers can quickly ramp up time-sensitive promotions centered on holiday dates,” Melcher continued. “With Netsertive’s platform, we are seamlessly activating programs like this to several hundred local retailers instantly.”
With a growing number of household name clients, including Serta, FCA Chrysler, Kia, Xerox, Epson and others, Netsertive went on to mention the financing will enable the company to extend its reach in the burgeoning brand-to-local market, which is estimated at more than $36 billion for co-op marketing spending.
“We’re very excited to close out our Series C with a strong new capital partner to accelerate the capabilities of our digital marketing platform and enable brands and local businesses to seamlessly co-market at a local level,” said Morrissey.
Rik Vandevenne, director at River Cities who has recently joined Netsertive’s board of directors, added, “It’s a massive opportunity that is only just beginning to be realized by these brand networks, and Netsertive is positioned perfectly to take advantage of the huge growth in demand.”
The company’s proprietary platform enables clients to harness the collective learnings of thousands of campaigns to empower local digital marketing success for brands and local affiliates. For more information regarding Netsertive’s digital marketing intelligence solutions, visit http://www.netsertive.com.
