Brian Pasch discusses the need for better ROI tracking tools and reports so that car dealers can get a true picture of the ROI of off-site SEO, social media, blogging, etc.

1. Internet Marketing ROI Tracking
By Brian Pasch
45 W River Rd
Rumson, NJ 07760
www.dealer-seo.com
732-450-8200

2. Internet Marketing ROI Tracking
As 2010 quickly approaches I would like to encourage automotive marketing professionals to carefully review their
spending and budgets for the upcoming year.
In the past few months I have received an increase in calls from car dealer Internet sales managers asking about how
they can wisely increase their online spending. I am getting a feeling that many dealers believe that the worst is over
and they want to have a strong Internet presence in 2010.
I agree that dealers who aggressively invest in Automotive SEO, Social Media and carefully designed PPC will have
a strategic advantage in 2010. This is not a self-serving statement; it’s where the action is.
2010 Internet Marketing Wish List
So I thought I would offer five items on my 2010 Wish List for Internet
Marketing ROI to start a conversation with car dealers.
I welcome the dealership community as well as automotive solutions
providers to submit their own suggestions to build a new, more complete
paper for companies who want to dominate their local PMA but also want to
track the ROI of their online spending.
I hope that one day soon dealers can have near perfect 100% tracking for online lead and sales costs.
Dealers will always have the problem with showroom sales being properly accounted for but that is not the
topic of this post.
Tracking Numbers – One Example
As I speak with Internet sales managers across the country, many still have not even implemented tracking numbers
across all of their advertising media. The automotive industry still has a great deal of education to work through at the
dealership level in regards to tracking Internet Marketing ROI.
Tracking phone numbers are NOT expensive. They actually reduce waste and identify customer service problems
but full implementation is far from being a reality.
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3. I. Tracking numbers for all online lead funnels.
If you are not using a call tracking service like “Call Source” or “Who’s Calling” sign
up immediately. Depending on the size of your dealership group, I suggest that each
brand that you sell has UNIQUE tracking numbers for various online marketing lead
funnels. It’s easy to do and they provide excellent back-end metrics helping you fully
analyze your ROI. These should include one unique tracking number each for:
a. Your Brand Specific Google Maps Listing
b. Review Websites (dealerrater.com, insiderpages.com, yelp.com, etc.)
c. Press Releases that you send out
d. Microsites
e. Blogs
f. Facebook
g. Third Party Lead Providers
h. Local Online Banner Ads / Google AdWords Campaigns
i. Customized Social Communities (ex: Ning.com, Vox)
j. Photos on free distributed inventory feeds
The goal is to track these different audio sources and to evaluate the call and sales volume that come in from each
source. The automotive community should also require these call tracking companies to create an industry
standardized specification for a set of categories for tracking these numbers, as follows:
• Press Releases
• Social Media
• Blogs
• Microsites
• 3rd Party Leads
• Local TV
• Local Newspaper
• Local Websites
You will see why this is important as you read further.
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4. II. Capture of the referring URL with all lead forms.
This gets a bit tricky so stay with me on this. If you have an integrated single vendor solution for your website and
CRM/ILM system then you have a shot at success in 2010.
You will want to demand a report of leads by all the sources listed above. It requires the website vendor to capture
the exact URL that referred the visitor to your website and strip that down to the base URL and create a tallied report
by source.
It would also be nice to require the website vendors to create a standardized set of categories for tracking these
leads, as follows:
• Press Releases
• Social Media
• Blogs
• Microsites
• 3rd Party Leads
• Local TV
• Local Newspaper
• Local Websites
Do you see the pattern? What happens when all leads and calls can be rolled up into one consolidated
report?
III. Resolve Ala-Carte Modules and the ADF Issue
If your website platform sends form leads to a third party CRM/ILM system you may have a problem. This is because
the data exchange is normally done using the ADF file format; an XML file.
The current ADF specification does not have a field for the referring URL so one platform cannot pass this information
to another without a special data exchange partnership. This is SO IMPORTANT and vital for a dealer’s success in
2010. The ADF specification needs to be revised so that dealers who are actively engaged in social media and
offsite SEO can capture the true source of the lead.
External XML File Your Website CRM/ILM
Lead Form Module
As long as the ADF XML file format does not include the referring URL, we lose valuable data which prevents true
ROI calculations for Off-site SEO, social media, etc.
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5. IV. Clear Reports that Show Bounce Rate and Conversion by Keyword
Dealers who are using Google Adwords to drive traffic to their websites do not have executive level reports that show
the waste in the PPC spending. Keywords that have high bounce rates can be an indications that:
1. The landing page is not in line with the value proposition / ad the visitor clicked through from
2. Your call to action is weak / diluted by too many other items on the page
3. You are attracting the wrong visitors
4. Other
Most website platforms don’t make it easy to see the keywords with the highest bounce rates and lowest conversion.
Dealers need tools to refine their SEM budgets in terms that a NON-PROGRAMMER can understand.
V. Clear reports that show the diversity of organic keyword traffic
If dealers took a look at their Google Analytics reports they will probably see the number one source of organic traffic
to their website is their brand name. But after that, how many high-value keywords are bringing real traffic to your
website?
If the list is very narrow, it is a good sign that your website is not broadly optimized for a larger set of keywords. A
broad set of keywords can indicate that your website is actively blogging and adding content on a variety of topics.
Keep in mind that service, parts and extended warranty sales have great profit margins and should not be ignored.
If your top referring keywords in Google Analytics do NOT include these phrases you are missing a great opportunity
for new revenue.
The Benefit
If all Leads submitted by forms could be tracked to a “category” of referring URL’s and if all calls were tracked, then
you might be able to get a much closer estimate of your online advertising spending. A simple report could look like
this:
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6. Looking Ahead
The Automotive SEO world is rapidly changing and dealerships need to quickly
adapt or perish. The newest topics to hit the news feed for SEM in 2010 are two-
fold from Google. First, an announcement of integrating Social Media into Live
search results and second, the implementation of Google Goggles for mobile
devices.
As social media has grown, so has Google’s ability to track it, and in 2010 we’ll
start to see Google’s attempt to simplify it all in a new, live search results, way.
Just how this will affect the current SEM model is yet to be seen but it one thing is
clear, Social Media marketing is here to stay and getting stronger.
Second, with the world of mobile-apps growing more integrated into our daily lives, Google “Goggles” will now start to
give devices with cameras an “eye” for search. “Goggles” is reported to have the ability to identify pictures taken by a
mobile phone and search throughout the web for price comparisons, reviews and more.
Do you have a FlickR account with pictures of your entire line of vehicles yet? If not, you need get moving, because
when customers start snapping, you better be on Google Page One!
If you have questions, post them here or call me at 732-450-8200 or you can email me at
brian@paschconsulting.com.
About The Author
Brian Pasch is the CEO of the Pasch Consulting Group and an active
writer for the automotive community.
You can also reach Brian in his New Jersey offices at 732-450-8200
or by visiting http://www.dealer-seo.com
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