Automotive dealers and OEMs are obsessed with widely inaccurate CRM metrics that focus on traditional email and phone leads. There is a growing movement from leading OEMs and dealers to focus on what drives outcomes – the sales of new, used, and CPO vehicles and services. As consumers use a few key sources to decide what, where, and from whom to buy, it is critical for dealers to advance beyond single source CRM email and phone leads – or be left behind by OEMs and advertisers who are rapidly evolving with consumers. 

Cars.com recently surveyed hundreds of recent and prospective car buyers to understand how they interact with dealers throughout the purchase journey.[1] We carefully screened these shoppers from a large national research panel to ensure that we were getting responses from in-market shoppers. We found that quality leads – people who are serious about making a purchase – fall into three buckets:

• Phone. About 22 percent of shoppers call the dealership to set up an appointment.
• Internet. About 28 percent use their mobile phones or desktops to contact dealers online – through email, text, a lead form, or some other digital contact.
• Walk-in. A whopping 50 percent do not contact the dealer or submit a lead before visiting a dealership. Instead, they research on their own and then go directly to the lot.

To convert quality leads to sales (outcomes), dealers need to tailor their approach to identifying, nurturing, and closing leads for each channel. It is critically important they optimize their approach for the largest of these buckets – walk-in traffic. 

According to research we completed in June, 52 percent of walk-in shoppers purchase a car within one day of their visit, and 67 percent buy a car within 72 hours.[2] To succeed with walk-in shoppers, dealers should train sales staff to understand how a consumer’s motivations and behaviors may vary depending on where they are in the shopping journey.

While our research indicates that consumers visit less than 2 dealerships before purchasing a new, used, or CPO vehicle, we’ve also uncovered three different categories of walk-in traffic:

Early shopper: Early in their car search, walk-in shoppers are more likely to visit a dealership to experience vehicles firsthand. They will often show up without a specific model in mind – just to learn about car features and attributes that will be important in their search. An exploratory visit may help them to begin the process of narrowing possible options.

Mid Funnel: Later in the car search, walk-in shoppers will visit a dealership with the goal of finding a specific make and model, test driving it, and vetting it as a possible option. The goal is to ensure that a car is the right one for their specific needs.

Low Funnel: Near the end of the car shopping process, walk-in shoppers go to the dealership with a purchase in mind. They begin to feel out the dealership on their real price and start the negotiation and purchase processes. Their goal is to get the right car at the best possible price.

It is critical that local automotive sales people appreciate that walk-in shoppers are heavy online researchers. Best practices include having the local retailer acknowledge how digital research drives walk-in traffic and asking the consumer which sites they visited. Just as your best automotive sales people know the features of their product and how it stacks against the competition, successful sales people also appreciate and know the differences between core third-party sites and OEM sites. They know that connecting and speaking to the consumer wherever they are looking is critical to driving greater retail outcomes (sales). 

As mentioned previously, 50 percent of car buyers are walk-in visitors that have not submitted traditional leads before they visit a dealership. Walk-in shoppers are arriving on dealers’ lots confident that they don’t need to engage with a dealer ahead of time. They don’t hesitate to use their mobile phones to research your competitors before and during a visit to your lot. In fact, 64 percent of walk-in shoppers use smart phones to compare vehicle prices, 41 percent use their devices to read reviews, and about half to compare vehicle makes and models.[3]

In assessing the ROI of your advertising mediums, challenge your advertiser to review how much walk-in traffic they influence.  For more insight into quality leads, check out the newly published The Cars.com Guide to Converting Leads to Sales in the Digital Era.