the increased importance of dealer sites in new-vehicle shopping

1 A Dealer e-Process Paper by Dennis Galbraith | (877) 551-2555 DealereProcess.com

The Increased Importance of Dealer Sites in New-Vehicle Shopping

The importance of dealership websites for new-vehicle shopping skyrocketed over the past 15 years,

with the biggest jump occurring over the last year. In aggregate, changes in consumer behavior are the

leading reason why dealership websites have grown in importance. However, dealers responding with

superior merchandising, advanced website solutions, and well executed digital marketing are obtaining

far more than their fair share of this explosive increase.

New car shoppers today are more than 3.5 times as likely to visit a dealer’s website compared to 15

years ago. The growth in dealer site popularity among consumers far exceeds that of independent sites

or manufacturer sites. The biggest leap occurred just recently when the percentage of Automotive

Internet Users (AIUs) visiting a dealer’s site shot up from 73% in 2012 to 83% in 2013. Last year was the

first time U.S. new-car buyers were more likely to visit dealer sites than independent sites (e.g.

Edmunds.com, kbb.com, Cars.com, Yahoo Autos, and AutoTrader.com). These independent sites remain

important, and continue to be visited by 80% of AIUs. Nonetheless, the growing emphasis going forward

will be dealership websites and their integration with manufacturer sites.

Shifts in consumer shopping caused by the rapid adoption of mobile devices are not the only source

stimulating the importance of dealer sites. Advances in digital marketing offer new, more efficient

methods of driving traffic directly to the Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs) of dealer sites. Dealers with the

best VDPs enjoy a growing competitive advantage.

Contents Methodology ................................................................................................................................................. 2

Influence of Dealer Sites and Independent Sites on Actual New-Vehicle Buyers ........................................ 3

The Relationship between Manufacturers and Dealer Sites ........................................................................ 4

Content and Navigation on Dealership Websites ......................................................................................... 5

Mobile ......................................................................................................................................................... 12

Driving Traffic to the Dealership Site .......................................................................................................... 13

Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 15

About Dealer e-Process............................................................................................................................... 15

About the Author ........................................................................................................................................ 16


Methodology Secondary data was used for this study. The

primary source was 15 consecutive years of the

J.D. Power and Associates New AutoShopper.com

Study. When looking at trending, it is important to

keep the methodology as consistent as possible.

Although the J.D. Power studies have always been

recognized as conservative measures of internet

use in the shopping process, they were the leading,

trusted measure in the early years of automotive

internet and remain an unbiased source.

The sample size used in the 1999 New

AutoShopper.com Study included surveys from

over 3,000 new-vehicle buyers. By 2001, that

sample increased to over 26,400 and has remained

robust ever since. Over the years, some variation

to the study occurred. However, no other study

matched this sample size or level of consistency

over the 15 year period. Inflection points in the

trending match expectations based on changing

events, including the most recent spike in the use

of dealer sites.

The leading criticism of the studies was the

conservative nature of the Automotive Internet

Use rate (AIU rate). Although this controversy has

no bearing on the finding regarding the rise in

dealership site visitation among AIUs, a detailed

explanation is offered in order to provide

maximum transparency.

Information was obtained from official J.D. Power

and Associates press releases and published

articles interviewing J.D. Power officials

responsible for the studies. It should be noted that

the author of this report ran the Automotive

Internet division of J.D. Power and Associates from

2003-2006 and was the lead person responsible for

the New AutoShopper.com studies for each of

those four years. All screen shots are from actual

dealer sites provided by Dealer e-Process.

AIU Rate Controversy

The J.D. Power studies produced an AIU rate that

was always considered conservative. Older shoppers

who purchase new vehicles are more likely to answer

surveys than are younger new-vehicle buyers. Since

older shoppers are less likely to use the internet in

the automotive shopping process and the sample

size was tilted somewhat toward older shoppers, the

outcome slightly understates the true importance of

the internet. However, this impact has been fairly

constant over the years, making the trending

reliable.

It should also be noted that many in the industry

have a misperception that virtually everyone uses

the internet in their automotive shopping process. A

leading influence on internet use rate is the number

of vehicles shopped. In 2007, it was discovered that

shoppers only considering one vehicle in their

shopping process are considerably less likely to use

the internet than those considering two or more

vehicles. Over half of non-AIUs fall into this category

of single-vehicle shoppers. This fact supports the

importance of the internet to dealers and

manufacturers, as the target consists of those

shoppers who can be influenced. It was long thought

that among the small minority of shoppers not using

the internet, many are set in their purchase decision.

This line of thinking suggested shoppers using the

internet are far more capable of being influenced

and represent the prime target retailers and

manufacturers seek. The New Autoshopper studies

tend to support this notion. The actual number of

shoppers not using the internet in their shopping

process is surely less than the 21% reported in the

most recent J.D. Power study, but greater than the

near 0% so frequently claimed by internet

enthusiasts.


Influence of Dealer Sites and Independent Sites on Actual New-Vehicle

Buyers Since the early days of automotive internet, independent websites played a significant role in new-

vehicle shopping. As early as 2001, 60% of shoppers used the internet in their automotive shopping

process and 83% of those AIUs visited one or more independent sites. Today, the AIU rate is at 79% and

80% of those AIUs visit one or more independent sites. In other words, the growth in internet usage

accounts for 118% of the increase in independent site visitation by new-vehicle shoppers. That isn’t to

say visitation on independent sites has not grown over the years, but very little of that growth came

from people who actually buy new vehicles.

Strange as it seems today, Cars.com was strictly a used car sites back in 2001. Still, many new car buyers

visited the site during their shopping process. Some went to value their trade, but many were cross-

shopping new and used vehicles. The fact that these visitors can now obtain information on new

vehicles suggests the site must be more influential than before among the new-vehicle shoppers they

attract. However, auto dealers looking to sell new vehicles don’t benefit from the number of site visitors

searching new-vehicle inventory. They benefit from the number of buyers searching through inventory

in their market.

By comparison, the growth in visitation by new-vehicle buyers to dealer sites has been explosive. In

1999, a scant 31% of AIUs visited even one dealer site in their shopping process. Indeed, many dealer

sites offered little or no new information that could not have already been found on a manufacturer or

independent site. That rate shot up to 46% by 2001, then grew steadily to 73% in 2012. Just a year later,

the rate leaped to 83%. Rarely in social science does a participation rate already as high as 73% rise 10

percentage points in a single year, but that’s exactly what happened.

Much of the dramatic spike in visitation to dealer sites can be attributed to the rising importance of

mobile devices among new vehicle buyers. Over half of all adults own a smart phone (internet enabled).

However, there is a high correlation between income and smart phone ownership, and new-vehicle

buyers tend to be more affluent. Among new-vehicle buyers, smart phone ownership is estimated to be

roughly 66%.

Smart phones dramatically changed the use of the internet in the shopping process. Previously,

shoppers used the internet until they were ready to go to the store, and then shoppers were on their

own. Today, the majority of shoppers are walking into the store with the internet in their pocket or

purse. The importance of the internet as a whole has grown considerably. However, it stands to reason

the most official source of information within the store is the information on the store’s website.

Information on the dealer’s site is undeniably the claim of the dealership and must be honored by the

dealership. Little wonder why visitation to dealer sites increased when the consumer’s internet access

jumped the curb and entered the store itself.


The Relationship between Manufacturers and Dealer Sites Fully 98% of AIUs visit at least one manufacturer site before buying a new vehicle. Manufacturer sites

are essential to brand managers and the retail networks they support. The content on dealer sites must

complement the manufacturer’s information while providing even more information about the vehicle

and the store. There is no reason why franchised retailers should have less vehicle content on their sites

than manufacturers do on theirs. After all, it will be the retailer who sells the car and the retailer who

maintains it. Factory personnel remain nameless and faceless to the vast majority of shoppers buying

their vehicles. The focus is on getting shoppers to the dealership and/or the dealership’s website with a

preference for the make and/or model.

The dealership site is the primary information available to dealership personnel handling phone calls,

emails, chats, and texts. Whether the store uses a Business Development Center (BDC) or not, it can

better handle inquiries and set appointments when the front-line personnel are armed with relevant

information. Many of the consumers they are responding to have already heard the line, “just come in

and we’ll answer your questions.” This tactic generally does not work. The next competing website is

just 1 or 2 clicks away.

Many shoppers have experienced one or more salespeople who know less about the products they sell

than the shopper themselves. A website with more product information puts power and credibility in

the hands of the sales team on the floor. They can quickly get answers and demonstrate where they

came from. Automotive retail giant, Sonic Automotive, is in the process of putting tablet computers in

the hands of every frontline salesperson. Tablet computers are a sharable size and invite the shopper to

allow the salesperson to go online for them and obtain the answers directly.

Shoppers often arrive at a dealer site after spending time on the manufacturer’s site. Through vehicle

configuration tools (also known as Build Your Own tools) the shopper may acquire a preference for a

particular marketing package. The dealership website should provide an integrated experience, making

it easy for the shopper to recognize whether or not the vehicle they are looking at contains the desired

package.


Content and Navigation on Dealership Websites Of course, more relevant content helps bring more shoppers in contact with the store, as well as

improving performance within the store. Leading dealer sites include downloadable brochures and

owner’s manuals.

Most vehicles are not purchased by an individual. They are purchased by more than one decision maker

or a decision maker working with one or more influencers. Before the shoppers come to the store, they

must agree they are ready to take the step and agree on which store to approach. Brochures and


owner’s manuals provide credible information consumers can use to persuade one another. Here are a

few examples:

“Uncle Frank, I’m sure I can afford to own the vehicle. I’ve gone through the owner’s manual

and looked through the maintenance schedule. I’m prepared to take care of this vehicle. I just

need you to come with me as a co-signer.”

“Jack, sit down on the couch with me. Here is the brochure on the vehicle and this is the

configuration I want on page 10. It includes the cold weather package and four wheel drive, just

like we talked about.”

Vehicle content includes the awards won by the vehicle and all the vehicle features and options. This

kind of information enhances preferences for the vehicle and makes it easier for one decision maker or

influencer to persuade another.

Improved navigation allows shoppers to more quickly and easily find the vehicle information they are

looking for. Below is an example of a good menu approach to providing information about vehicle


features. A simple data dump with virtually no navigation aids can no longer be considered sufficient.

The same information must be available to shoppers on mobile devices, where menu navigation is even

more critical.

One of the great advancements executed by online retail giants like Amazon and Walmart.com is the

ability to search with text as well as menus. Shoppers are already familiar with this type of search; they

simply are not used to finding it on a dealer’s website. When searching for a vehicle, the site search

turns whatever page the shopper is on into a consideration set of vehicles with a drop down menu of

the most relevant results. The more detail the shopper types into the search bar, the more relevant the

results become. Searching for parts, service, financing, or other specific information brings up a list of

the most relevant pages for that search as well.


Dealership websites should enhance preference for the store as well as preference for the vehicle.

Providing information from credible third-party sources enhances the credibility of the dealership. Crash

test ratings from NHTSA and environmental scores from the EPA back dealership and manufacturer

claims with credible information directly from third parties. Today, this information is being

automatically fed onto the VDPs of dealer sites.


As seen in the above examples, testimonials also enhance credibility for the store. They can be delivered

in text and/or video. Testimonials relevant to the vehicle enhance preference for the store.

It is also important to introduce the shopper to other vehicles within the store that might meet their

needs. This demonstration of selection also enhances preference for the store.

Naturally, the traditional rules apply regarding photos, videos, and text descriptions provided by the

dealership. The vehicle should be professionally merchandised as quickly as possible. There has been a

great deal of research demonstrating the value of actual photos of new vehicles. There is a cost, but it

can be well worth it, particularly if the store doubles down by turning those still photos into a stitched

video. This work is done automatically and added to the merchandising feed that fulfills the website and

third-party listings.


Video is the only way to meet the information needs of the 25% of shoppers who are primarily auditory

learners. They need to hear it with their ears, not just with their inner voice as they read. Video allows

them to do this. Virtually everyone learns better when they can hear the message and see what is being

talked about at the same time, but auditory learners are particularly grateful.


Mobile All of the content on the desktop site must be available on the mobile site as well. Credibility is lost

when one version of the site displays content not found from a different device. Imagine a customer

shopping from the home or office, then finding some of the content absent when showing their spouse

over their mobile phone at a coffee shop or the salesperson in the store. Fully 37% of new-vehicle

buyers shop on multiple devices before coming to the store (from the study “Mobile Device Use at the

Dealership” by Cars.com and Placed, January 2014).

Just as damaging, search engines are penalizing sites without an exact database serving the same

content to every device. The solution is a site operating on a single database with appearance and

navigation that responds to the device. There are but two responsive solutions, Adaptive Web Design

(AWD) and Responsive Web Design (RWD). Of the two, only AWD allows the dealer to properly display

third-party plugins and utilize different tracking numbers for different devices. Many RWD solutions are

malfunctioning on dealer sites, resulting in greater problems than they were designed to solve. AWD has

emerged as the leading alternative for automotive retail.

Below are screen shots from a single VDP. The menu titles and icons are identical to the site from any

other device. Every bit of content available from any other device can also be found here under the

same headings.

The rising use of mobile is the driving force behind the increased visitation and importance of dealer

sites. Google estimates the majority of traffic to dealer sites will be from a mobile device by the end of

2015. It stands to reason; dealers should invest in the best mobile site possible.


Driving Traffic to the Dealership Site Fabulous developments are occurring in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and retargeting. Using

techniques that were popular just a few years ago can be less cost effective today because more dealers

are competing for those same key words. However, new methods have emerged bringing shoppers

directly to the right vehicle, or set of vehicles. These techniques are more efficient than anything before

them.

An increasing number of shoppers are conducting long-tail searches, or searches for specific vehicles.

The Digital AMMP team at Dealer e-Process developed a method of modifying the landing page based

on the relevance between the dealer’s inventory and the search.

If the dealer has one vehicle matching the search, that vehicle’s VDP becomes the landing page.

If the dealer has multiple vehicles matching the search, those vehicles are displayed in a Search

Results Page as the landing page.

If the dealer does not have a matching vehicle in inventory the ad does not appear to that

shopper.

While sites like AutoTrader.com compete for generic terms, they are generally not going after long tail

searches. When done properly, the competition for these terms is lower and the conversion rates are

higher.

There is little point in spending advertising dollars to drive traffic to a poor dealership site lacking in

content. The site must be up to the task. Today, this is true even if the dealership does not use SEM or

retargeting to drive traffic to the site.

Increasing organic traffic can be a great approach, but it must be earned. Most of the traffic coming to

dealer sites organically is from shoppers aware of the dealership and searching for it. To build on this

core source of traffic the site must rank for relevant search terms. Generally speaking, there are three

elements to achieving this:

The right website site system with the proper URL structure and tagging

A white-hat site link solution

Content

Obtaining the right system must be addressed with the selection of the website provider. No one can

efficiently fix the problems created by a website design spitting out poorly structured URLs.

Utilizing link farms will harm the site’s ranking. If a vendor cannot demonstrate that their link strategy is

above board and admit it will take time to develop results, then it is probably not worth taking the

chance.

Simple content generation tools can cause more harm than good. When other dealers have the exact

same content, search engines quickly pick up on this fact and negatively respond with poorer results.

Content must be relevant and sufficiently unique. Advanced content generation can produce tens of


thousands of unique pages within Google’s “Hummingbird” guidelines. These guidelines will continue to

change over time. The one failsafe method is 100% unique content built by hand. This is where the

backend or dashboard tools of the website are so critical. It must be as easy to modify content or create

totally new pages for the website as it would be to create them on a basic word processor, like

Microsoft Word.

Listings sites, like Cars.com and AutoTrader.com, traditionally linked from VDP pages on their site to the

home page of the dealer’s website. Services like Carfax and Lotlinx are now directing the shopper from

the listings site to the appropriate VDP on the dealer’s website. This is a fantastic advancement for

dealers with a proper website. The expectation is that more and more listings services will direct traffic

to the VDP of the dealer’s site. This will cause another increase in relevant traffic and further increase

the value of these services for dealers, but dealers must have all the right content and navigation on the

Vehicle Details Pages of their website.


Summary The data is clear; dealer sites are growing in visitation and growing in importance. Mobile devices allow

internet shoppers to jump the curb, bringing the internet with them into the store. The dealer’s site is

the supreme authority on each piece of inventory and every dealership policy. It must have the same

content available on smart phones as it provides on desktop, laptop, and tablet computers.

The increased traffic coming to dealer sites makes it more important than ever to have the right site.

Having the right site can attract even more traffic through organic results. A superior site also allows the

dealer to generate additional traffic with greater efficiency using modern SEM solutions.

Consumers are relying on dealer sites in their online shopping more than ever before. Dealers must step

up to the challenge or risk losing sales to those who do.

About Dealer e-Process Dealer e-Process was the first website provider to offer dealers an Adaptive or Responsive Website

Design. Today, hundreds of dealers benefit from our superior platform with the same website content in

the right format regardless of the shopper’s device.

The ultimate test for any website provider is conversion, how well does it turn site visitors into leads.

Toyota dealers using Dealer e-Process websites convert unique visitors into leads at a rate 2.6 times as

high as the average Toyota dealer.

Operating across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, Dealer e-Process offers an integrated suite of

products with each product and service designed to be best in class. They need to be, because Dealer e-

Process rejects the walled-garden approach and integrates with virtually every provider, partners and

competitors. Products include everything from SEM and chat to specialty websites, an assisted service

scheduler, and an assisted pre-approval system.

Online presentations can be scheduled by calling (877) 551-2555.


About the Author Dennis Galbraith is the Chief Marketing Officer at Dealer e-Process. He is the author of two books, Sales

Integration and Online Vehicle Merchandising, and is working on a third to be released in January 2015.

Dennis built and sold two companies serving auto dealers, ran the Automotive Internet division of J.D.

Power, was a Vice President for Cars.com, and helped start internet 20 groups in the U.S. and Canada

while the Head of Business Intelligence for Dealers at DrivingSales. He enjoys presenting to dealer

groups and 20 groups across North America. Dennis is a former marketing instructor for NADA

University and a former graduate level marketing instructor for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Dennis can be reached at [email protected].

Special thanks to Betsey Lupole of Dealer e-Process for her editing and contribution.

the increased importance of dealer sites in new-vehicle shopping

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