As an extension to my blog from October 6th I wanted to dive deeper into Google Analytics and the acquisition part of the metrics.

In google analytics you can see where a session or visit actually comes from.  The acquisition overview not only provides insight into how visitors find your site but their behavior and conversion details as well.  There are several ways to measure the different sources and Google categorizes them as Organic, Paid Search, Direct, Referral, Social and Other for custom campaign tracking.  You can click on each channel to drill down to get a more detailed view.

Understanding acquisition of visit and its relationship to lead volume and sales can provide many insights into your business.  The process from attaining a customer to selling a car can be very complicated.  There are so many more steps these days.  Make sure the online price is competitive, merchandising, SEO, Paid Search, Direct Mail, Sales People pay plans, Lead Handlers, etc.  Acquisition and understanding it can be used to pinpoint why a month was good or why a month was bad.

Over many years of building websites and handling BDCs here are some insights I have learned about acquisition. 

1. SEO is the cheapest and best way to attain a visitor. 
   1. Visits that are attained organically have a higher percentage of turning into a lead and a higher percentage of turning into a sale.  We also did a snapshot and learned that we were able to gross slightly better as well, although I recognize that a majority of that is influenced by the floor. 
   2. Organic leads also were easier for BDCs to contact because their phone numbers were more likely to be legitimate.
   3. Leads and sales are obviously key but we also can gain other insights into analyzing our SEO.  For example, if our rankings are strong and our organic visits don’t increase that could be an indication that either the market is flat or down or that 1st 2nd 3rd teir marketing isn’t generating interest and therefore demand.
   4. You will probably also see that more organic visits typically means a healthier web site interms of conversion, TOS, bounce rate, etc.
2. Referral are visits that come from other places.  Basically you are paying to be on another website and hoping they do your job to send visits your way.  These visits are:
   1.  typically a much smaller part of the pie
   2. Convert to a lead at a much lower rate
   3. Are a less of a quality lead
   4. Higher in the buying funnel
   5. Much more expensive to attain
3. Paid Search are visits that are generated from Google ads.  These visits will typically:
   1. Increase your bounce rate
   2. Are less quality
   3. They are the hardest to convert to a lead

For Paid search it is all about targeting and balancing your budgets.  The more fine tuned your campaigns are the more effective and cost efficient your efforts will be.  Paid Search is a great way to boost the leads but a lot of leads do not mean more sales.  More of the right kind of leads mean more sales.  Click here to see more about Paid Search Strategies that we like to recommend to car dealers.

4. Direct visits refer to people that enter in your name into google or type your url straight into the address bar.  Like SEO these are typically very successful visits featuring a low bounce rate and a higher conversion to leads.  You can also use these visits to see when advertising effort are effective and when they are not.

5. The last is social.  Social advertising is deceptively cheap.  The clicks and exposure are great and the targeting opportunity is also wonderful, however tie it back to sales.  In some markets you will see great results but in some not so great. 

The better you are at setting up your analytics the more accountable you can be to your digital marketing efforts.  Marketing is a moving target.  Find the best and most efficient way for you to spend your money.