Looking for a healthy marketing strategy? Try eating data for breakfast.

We know how difficult it is for dealerships to step off their 30-day treadmill of OEM incentives, and find a long-term focus that will truly make a difference in digital marketing performance. The solution starts with your most important meal, er—meeting, of the month.

I’m sitting at a table in a room full of dealership management. To my left, there are three GMs representing different rooftops of the same dealer group.

“Do you guys actually read your Google Analytics reports?” one GM sheepishly whispered to his colleagues. The question was met with hesitant nods and bashful grimaces.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

This particular moment happened in Ottawa. I was an attendee (and brand new sponsor) of the spring’s Auto Dealers’ Innovation Series hosted by the TADA. Ian Cruickshank was on-stage, reviewing the KPIs you should and shouldn’t be tracking when it comes to outbound campaign performance.

Their muttered conversation wasn’t surprising or new, but it was timely. I regularly hear of management’s frustrations with their personal competency regarding data analysis. Not just at conference tables, but during casual lunches with industry peers; or in the whispers of conversations over one-too-many drinks at happy hour.

It was the conversations like these that fuelled my talk at last month's Dealer Huddle event at Google Canada’s Toronto headquarters. While on-stage, I walked through a number of live poll questions, to a crowd of nearly 100:

1. How often does your management team meet to strategize marketing efforts?
2. How is your in-house marketing team structured?
3. How long does it take to update incentives on your website each month?
4. How comfortable are you in Google Analytics?

Don’t worry. I’ll be diving into each of these questions (and their shocking results!) over the next few months. Today I want to talk about number 4. Data: how it’s right at our fingertips, and it’s about time we use it properly.

The results:

Take a moment and reflect. Which bucket do you fall into?

Aside from those show-offs in bucket D, let’s look at some incremental steps you can take today, to push yourself in the right direction.

A) I'm sure we have log‐in access somewhere. (27% of respondents)

It’s time to hunt those credentials down, that data is invaluable and it belongs to you.

While you may not understand the scope of value that it brings, there are certain steps you must do now to help your future team should someone take the leap into analytics enlightenment. As a baseline, you need to have an active asynchronous Google Tracking Code on every website you own, with “Manage Users” access to their affiliated Google Analytics accounts.​​​​

Next, log in and ensure that you have enabled Demographic Reports. Because more data is always better, and it takes two clicks of your time.​​​​​

I’m throwing Search Console’s integration on this to-do list, too. It’s free, but you’ve got to enable it to start tracking it.​​​​

B) I try using it occasionally, but get easily overwhelmed. (30% of respondents)

Much like health regimes, the first step is the hardest. Here are two legitimate reasons that data is worth the pain. In the case of Google Analytics Academy, it's free.

Better news—the entire academy interface and content experienced a refresh in March 2017. So you can choose between Beginners and Advanced.

If your marketing efforts are currently driven by gut decisions and OEM-mandated initiatives, turn to GA to better understand your visitors' interests and behaviours. This will save you a bundle of money when it comes to future content development and ad targeting.

So how to get started? By dedicating a single hour of every weekday, you can be fully-certified within three months. Whether you’re trading in your lunch hour surfing social channels, or making time at the breakfast table—you will not regret the investment of your time. The ability to read and interpret data from Google is an evergreen skill that you can leverage every day, with every job you have while working in the digital space.

C) I’m pretty proficient! It does what I need it to. (27% of respondents)

Great news! But how often are you using this skill? In the case of this nameless dealership, the majority of relevant ‘Silverado’ queries are focused on the ‘True North’ trim-line.​​​​​​

Should they increase their production of written and video content around this model to increase click-through-rate (CTR)? Yes. Unless their inventory is telling a different story. This data could also be the warning sign, that they need to focus on content that promotes in-stock trim-lines, like the LT or LTZ. Maybe it’s time for a video of your sales team outlining each model’s unique features and what the buyer gains by walking up to the next level?

Google only provides half of the picture. How it applies to your store, your goals and your unique selection of products & services, is how you'll capture the whole story.

Who needs to be school’d

That depends on who is making your business decisions. If there’s a marketing manager advising your dealership’s leadership team on a monthly basis—this person needs to live and breathe your website, inventory and sales data. That is non-negotiable.

Using the number of sold new or pre-owned units as a litmus test isn’t enough. Your website data, in conjunction with inventory health, is the tangible proof you need to plan for success and pivot after failure.

Need help strategizing for today? I’ve got an excellent listening ear and a voracious skill for data sleuthing. Shoot me an email and we'll set up a time to chat. Totally free, but I will accept coffee as a suitable trade offering—if you insist.