A business that tracks its leads generates more leads, thus making more sales. Your dealership is no different, and if you know where every one of your customers is coming from, then you can shift your focus to attract more of them.
Let’s say your dealership is advertising on Facebook, Google, a few classifieds and has a billboard next to a busy highway. One of these channels costs more than the other, but may not necessarily be bringing you a significant number of leads.
If you’re tracking your leads effectively, then you’re able to know exactly which advertising channel is working best for your dealership, and which ones are just spending money with not much in return.
In this article, we’ll show you exactly how to track your dealership leads no matter where they’re coming from, to help you better understand which marketing channels are best for your dealership.
How To Track Your Dealership Leads
1. Use Google UTM Parameters
Simply put, UTM parameters are short codes you can add to the end of your links. These codes help you track the clicks and traffic that come to your website.
If you shared a link to a vehicle on Facebook, for example, you’d want to know how many people came to your website from that link.
Instead of posting this link: https://www.YourWebsite.com/vehicles/fordf150
You will post this link: https://www.YourWebsite.com/vehicles/fordf150?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialMedia&utm_campaign=f150
Notice that the code at the end of your link says:
?utm_source=facebook
&utm_medium=socialMedia
&utm_campaign=f150
Everything after the question ‘?’ is part of the utm.
UTM parameters are natively supported by Google Analytics, which is the next part of this article.
2. Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an application by Google that helps you analyze your website traffic.
To get started, you need to create a Google Analytics account and then add your website as a property to it. Google provides a clear explanation of how to do this here!
Once this is done, all you have to do is log in to your account, click on Reports => Acquisition => Traffic Acquisition.
Scroll down and you’ll see all the traffic your website’s been receiving divided by different Source, Medium and Campaign.
If this sounds like too much to you and you want to try out something simpler, that’s exactly what the next chapter is about.
3. Add A “How Did You Hear About Us?” Question To Your Forms
This is the simplest way to know where each one of your leads has come from.
One of the first things your prospects do when they show interest in your dealership is looking you up on Google.
These people will most likely land on your website and may fill in a lead form on it. You receive that form, but you don’t know how that person came across your website in the first place.
One very easy way to track your dealership leads, and know how they found you, is by adding a question at the end of the form asking them “How did you hear about us?”. Prospects will tell you whether they saw an ad on Facebook or Google, or if they’ve seen your billboard.
All the forms we have on our website include a field asking “where did you hear about us”. It’s a very easy but effective procedure and it tells us exactly where our leads come from.
4. Use Trackable Phone Numbers
Another way to ensure all of your leads are accounted for, no matter how they wish to contact your dealership, is by using trackable phone numbers.
For different campaigns, use different trackable phone numbers. Make sure all of these trackable phone numbers point to your dealership’s sales line.
Of course, trackable phone numbers help you know where a caller heard from you, but they can have more benefits than just that.
All the trackable phone numbers that Auto Dealers Digital provides its dealers come with an extra feature that allows them to record the calls that come in. This is especially helpful when prospects give you a lot of information on what they’re interested in.
If you can’t remember everything they said on the phone, all you have to do is log in to your ADD account and listen to all the incoming calls.
5. Use Auto Dealers Digital
As we mentioned earlier, using Auto Dealers Digital’s trackable phone numbers gives you a lot of different features.
One feature that our dealers love to use is using trackable links whenever we post their vehicles online.
Whether you’re running ads on Google or Facebook, or if you’re using our platform to automatically post your vehicles to Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or other classifieds, every link we post for you is trackable.
This way you’ll know exactly how many buyers are going to your website from all these different advertising channels.
These two reports easily tell you which cars, at which price range, your prospects are most interested in. In the future, you’ll know exactly which type of vehicles to look for when sourcing your inventory.
These are only some of the insights your ADD account provides, to learn more about how to track your dealership leads with Auto Dealers Digital, schedule a free strategy session or call us at (650) 264-7556.
