Columbus, OH – Clarivoy today announced that with its Multi-Touch Sales Attribution solution, Apple Autos has been able to identify $2.2 million of previously unattributable monthly sales (117 vehicles) for their Ford store, providing a much more transparent view of which ads really contributed to sales, helping the dealership increase market share in a down market.

Apple Autos sells 450-500 vehicles per month at its flagship Ford store and spends about $90,000 monthly on marketing, 85 percent of which is digital.

Getting a complete picture of the exact marketing tactic that lead to the sale is a huge pain point for many auto dealers. Alan Krutsch, Director of Marketing with the Minnesota-based Apple Autos Group, became interested in Clarivoy while searching for a multi-touch attribution solution. He started using Clarivoy nine months ago at his Ford store and it has helped increase market share in a tough market by allowing him to finally see exactly where his sales are coming from and better target his marketing spend. He has since added the solution to all the stores throughout the group.

“Many dealers do not know what is actually driving their sales. To be completely dialed in and have full knowledge of that is priceless. Most of the available solutions from advertising vendors or software suppliers were either first touch or last touch models. We wanted to get a more complete picture of the path that customers take from shopping to purchase,” said Krutsch. “As dealers we spend a lot of money on marketing tactics and not enough energy and money on analysis and insight. We were looking for the combination of advertising tactics that most efficiently lead customers to purchase. Clarivoy’s multi-touch attribution solution provides us with a more sophisticated view of the purchase journey,” Krutsch added.

CarSoup, a dominant regional third party automotive site, and Apple Autos’ most prominent local classified site, was the first to accept Clarivoy tagging. As a result Krutsch discovered that view-though traffic from CarSoup to the dealer’s sites was in fact 12 times that of direct referral links. This was an eye-opening discovery for the dealership.

According to Krutsch, third party classified sites have long frustrated dealers. On the one hand they fear being absent when competitor’s vehicles are on a site and theirs are not. On the other, vendor metrics that focus on VDP views, and not leads or sales, make the significant investments that these sites require harder and harder to justify.

“Because of this data we are able to see that CarSoup has more influence on our new vehicle sales than any other site. In a meaningful number of cases, shoppers view a vehicle on CarSoup and then come to Apple Auto’s site to shop. We are also able to attribute sales directly to shoppers who visited CarSoup. However, this site does not do as well on used sales. This is invaluable data and we were able to make changes to our marketing accordingly, which will have quite an impact,” said Krutsch.

Paid search plays a significant role in helping shoppers find what they are looking for when searching for a vehicle. Apple Autos recently switched its paid search and landing page supplier to Dealer Teamwork (DT) and wanted to get a better picture of the effectiveness of its strategy.

Dealer Teamwork and Krutsch take full advantage of Clarivoy’s recent native integration of its Multi-Touch Sales Attribution solution into Google AdWords. The integration includes its proprietary Anonymous Attribution technology, which identifies the online and offline purchase paths of buyers who choose to remain anonymous, ensuring a large percentage of all sales are properly attributed to specific keyword, YouTube and display campaigns. This allows Krutsch to optimize AdWords campaigns based on actual sales data - not vanity metrics.

“Clarivoy’s native integration into Google AdWords allows us to see the keywords that are most often associated with a sale. We can do that for various models and also geographically. Now paid search is much more targeted and we don’t waste money on those terms that don’t work and have the courage to spend heavily on those that do,” Krutsch commented.

Because Dealer Teamwork accepts Clarivoy’s third party tagging, Krutsch can view how DT landing pages and specials work to convert shoppers to leads, as well as how important they have become as part of the purchase path. The new integration into Google AdWords collects and pairs all AdWords clicks and calls to the appropriate vehicle buyer while fractionalizing the credit within AdWords, ensuring no over-attribution to any one keyword, campaign or ad group.

The results have been impressive, including $2.2 million of previously unattributable monthly sales, $1.8 million of which came from branded search terms. “We looked at branded search with much suspicion, like any dealer, thinking that if we have good organic optimization we will get the customer anyway. But these branded terms are very important as the customer is lower in the funnel and closer to pulling the trigger. We rely on these ads to help them make the choice to shop at our store. Now we have the confidence to invest in branded terms and can really see sales directly attributable to those type of searches. In a down market, the ability to identify what is working and what is not, and adjusting our marketing spend accordingly, has at the very least prevented us from going down with it,” Krutsch said.

Other third party classified sites and vendors are now also installing Clarivoy tags. “It makes it so much easier to manage our budgets and hold our vendors accountable. It’s not just acting on hunches any more. We are able to make hard decisions with confidence. Many times if you see a competitor using a certain tactic you think ‘jeez I don’t want to be absent!’ This gives us the courage to make a right turn when everyone else makes a left – and it helps prove our decisions are correct. If more third party classified sites embrace collaborating with attribution providers, retailers will be in a much better position to justify their investment,” Krutsch added.

Using a robust attribution model allows Krutsch to perform experiments and measure the results by their effect on sales, not just clicks and visits. “By using a single platform from a neutral supplier to measure all marketing activities we receive more objective data rather than relying on vendor data which may or may not be biased. Creating a winning marketing strategy is like making soup. Sometimes adding a small amount of the right ingredient at the right time can make a significant difference. By using reliable multi-touch attribution modeling, we can adjust the ‘recipe’ and see the effect on sales,” Krutsch said.

For more information, or to sign up for a product demonstration, visit: http://www.clarivoy.com, or drop by booth # 3475, at NADA 100, January 27-29 in New Orleans, LA.

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About Clarivoy  

Clarivoy is the auto industry’s leading provider of multi-touch sales attribution and advanced digital targeting tools. Their solutions reveal more about their clients’ customers, their advertising and their path to success so they can drive more sales.  Clarivoy’s proprietary technology grants marketers incomparable visibility into their customers and campaigns – across all channels, all devices – online and offline.  Armed with this new information, marketers can stop guessing and start knowing what is working and what is not. http://www.clarivoy.com