Here are some interesting insights about remote employees vs. office employees. I know many positions within a dealership don't have the option of remote work, but I'm curious about those who do have the option to work from home. I personally feel I am more productive when I work from home, but there are often conflicting ideas of creating a fun office culture, working with teams and having in person meetings, etc. What are your thoughts?

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

Last month, the was our top blog. So we decided to interview Sales Humor creator Ken Kupchik to get learn more about his successful social media platforms, and laughter is the best medicine for us in the auto industry.

Yes Lifecycle Marketing recently released a study about gaps in email marketing. You can check out part 1 in my series here. The second gap in email marketing that we are going to evaluate is the gap between mobile and desktop clicks and CTO.

Data from Yes Lifecycle Marketing shows a consistent rise in mobile click-to-open rates, as well as the proportion of mobile clicks to desktop clicks since 2013.

Mobile clicks have rise 56% over three years, and 17% year-over-year. Mobile click-to-open is also steadily rising. Desktop click-to-open is conversely on the decline, and is now only about 4% higher than mobile CTO.  This means that the gap between desktop and mobile rates is shrinking rapidly over a variety of industries.

So how is this affecting auto specifically? Auto has just over a 1% difference between mobile and desktop click to open rates, with mobile just slightly behind. This indicates that the auto industry has one of the closest gaps between mobile and desktop, and the customers for auto are as inclined to use their phones as they are their computers to shop and check out dealerships.

The proportion of mobile to desktop clicks surpassed the 50 percent mark in 2016. In other words, more clicks occur on mobile devices than they do on desktops. This is yet another closed gap that illustrates consumers’ growing comfort with mobile. And again, that’s especially the case in the automotive ring.

Research also shows that consumers are incredibly likely to engage with email marketing on mobile phones, but few brands and industries have worked to make sure their email marketing is as efficient on mobile as it is on desktop.

How can you close this gap?

We recognize that many brands and dealerships have not yet adopted responsive design for all campaign. It would be smart to make it as easy as possible for subscribers to navigate and click through mobile marketing emails. Responsive design should be common knowledge, but many brands are still failing to use this extremely useful tactic. Consumers have come to expect it and are bothered by brands and stores that don’t make it easy for them to click through and convert. Make sure your email design and layout are optimal for a variety of screen sizes, and work to reduce the number of steps a user needs to take or form fields they need to fill out before proceeding.

Customer surveys are a great way to get feedback from people who are in your dealership. It’s important to be able to understand what they liked or didn’t like about their experience. This helps you be able to perform better in the future. But this isn’t the only option.

Online reviews are an incredibly valuable way for you to really understand what a customer is going through in your store. Surveys get answers to certain questions, but online reviews can get even more detailed information about a customer’s experience. This gives the customer a chance to use their own words and really voice how they feel about the product or service. This gets authentic and valuable information for your company.

These online reviews are often used by dealerships on websites to display how people feel about their products and services. This can be a great way to show that you are willing to take what people say and use it for the benefit of others.

Here’s a few things you need to know about making online reviews work for your company:

1. A waiting customer in the lounge is a perfect candidate to provide an online review


2. Incentivizing them to write a cars.com or Google review while they wait is twice as likely to happen than after they have left the dealership


3. Charj has found that giving a customer a platform to write reviews on can increase the total reviews content growth by 11%

So stop waiting and start working with waiting customers to get online reviews today!

Yes Lifecycle Marketing recently released a study about the gaps in email marketing. I took this research and have created a three part series on improving your email marketing by closing these different gaps. The first gap in email marketing is between subscriber RESPONSE and subscriber ENGAGEMENT.

Open rates have remained consistent over the past 3 years, but click rates and CTO rates are on a downward spiral. Unique click rate has gone down 15 percent year over year, and CTO rate has gone down 12 percent year over year. What do these numbers tell us? They say there’s a growing gap between response and engagement. Customers are opening emails as frequently as ever, but they’re not engaging and converting.

In the auto industry specifically, there is an 11.1% open rate, a 1.3% click rate, and a 8.7% click to open rate. The rates in the auto industry are better than in many other industries, but there still seems to be a major disconnect.

So how can you start improving? Brands often find success by using specific taglines many times in their marketing, so that when customers are ready for an oil change or for a new car, they’ll remember your consistent marketing.

Another easy way to work on your email marketing is by evaluating the day of the week that you send emails. Many studies show that Friday and Saturday are actually some of the best days for conversions, so that may be something to take into consideration.

I recommend always personalizing emails by name; consumers have come to expect this.

Studies also find that holiday and event emails give you a large advantage as they create a sense of urgency.

Trying these things and even being more aware of the disconnect between response and engagement can help you work on your email strategy, and drastically improve it.

We’ve discussed why consumer generated content is so valuable to dealerships, but many people still may not be convinced. Some believe that consumer generated content is looked at and produced by the younger generations only.  But Bazaarvoice research shows that it’s not just the 20-year old group that’s heading online to read and write reviews.

Take a look at the age groups and percentages of each age group who said that online reviews significantly impact their purchasing decisions.

18 – 24 years old: 35%

25 – 34 years old: 36%

35 – 44 years old: 32%

45 – 54 years old: 24%

55 – 64 years old: 19%

65+ years old: 17%

So we can see that a healthy percentage of every age group are significantly influenced by consumer reviews or social content when it comes to purchasing a car. 

Why is this valuable? This information changes the way that your dealership should use consumer-generated content to help others. By recognizing that it’s not just one specific age group that uses this content to make decisions, your dealership can evaluate how you display and utilize this type of content. You could try something like displaying reviews on your site, asking customers to leave reviews once they leave your dealership, interact more on social media to show that your company has real people behind it, etc.

The age factor should be considered when it comes to consumer-generated content, but for different reasons than many people think. It’s about the fact that all ages read reviews and use social media as part of their decision making process, and it’s important to realize this as you integrate this marketing strategy into your dealership.

Las Vegas, January 3rd, 2017 – Excelfore announced that the company will be demonstrating smart mobility networking solutions for in-vehicle and vehicle to cloud networks during the Consumer Electronics Show, CES2017, in Las Vegas.  Excelfore demonstrations will include an in-vehicle network architecture with 1Gbit Ethernet backbone, multiple 100Mbit star clusters, headunit, smart antenna, sensors, CAN ECUs, USB ports for smartphones, all with OTA update capability and end-to-end security.

Excelfore demonstrations during CES are by appointment only.  Interested parties are invited to inquire at:  www.excelfore/ces2017.

Eco-System Partnerships
Shrikant Acharya, Chief Technology Officer at Excelfore said, “Creating scalable and secure end-to-end connectivity is not just a question of technologies, but of behaviors and discipline. A system level architectural approach is needed, which takes into account networks and hardware in the vehicle, services in the cloud, and mechanisms of rolling out updates to vehicles. No one company can do it all. It requires cooperation among many participants, an approach that can be seen in the results we are showcasing with our partners during CES.” 

The Excelfore demonstrations bring together multiple network technologies such as CAN, Ethernet, Audi-Video Bridging / Time-Sensitive Networking (AVB/TSN), USB, WiFi and cellular.  Multiple operating systems including Linux, GENIVI Linux, Mentor Connected OS Linux, QNX, Integrity and AutoSAR are also showcased.  Acharya continued, adding, “We can all agree that we don’t want to re-invent the wheel. But it’s not just wheels.  The automotive industry has a great deal of legacy technology. The best way to navigate the transition to smart mobility is a systematic approach to bring those technologies together, not re-inventing them.”

About Excelfore

Excelfore Corporation, located in Silicon Valley, enables smart mobility networks with a scalable and secure unified middleware framework. Excelfore products include the eAVB™ protocol stack for in-vehicle Ethernet time-sensitive networking, as well as cloud-to-vehicle eSync™ software update management, eDiagnostics™ smart diagnostics, and eMatics™ fleet prognostics and fleet learning.   www.excelfore.com

Originally Published By Automotive News

$14.7 billion

Volkswagen AG's settlement with regulators and owners of 450,000 polluting diesel vehicles, approved by a judge in October.

$1.87

The U.S. average per-gallon cost of gasoline in February 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That was the lowest gasoline price since January 2009, when a gallon cost $1.84, and the lowest price for last year.

18

The number of trophies the 2016 Volvo XC90 was awarded from U.S. media outlets and press associations, marking a resurgence for the brand.

300

How many years' worth of time Google's Waymo prototype self-driving cars have spent driving around and learning how to behave like a human driver.

41

In months, how long FCA's sales streak lasted before ending in September 2013. The company restated sales in July 2016, admitting its 75-month U.S. sales streak was not actually a thing.

531

The number of Cadillac ELRs sold through November. Cadillac said in February it would discontinue the slow-selling plug-in hybrid, which execs admitted was overpriced at its 2013 launch at $75,995, including shipping. Cadillac slashed the price by about $10,000 for the 2016 model year.

46 million

Number of recalled Takata airbag inflators in 29 million vehicles across 19 brands in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expanded the recall in May.

6 seconds

How long a test drive of a Mercedes GLE350 lasted before the customer flipped the crossover on its side, just feet from the dealership's showroom.

75th

Anniversary that Jeep celebrated on July 16, 2016, which marked the day in 1941 when Willys-Overland Motor Co. in Toledo, Ohio, received its first contract to produce the Willys MB for use by the American military.

30

How many cars noted designer J Mays drew for Disney's Zootopia movie, including a convertible made to accommodate a moose's antlers and a tall, articulated car big enough to fit a giraffe.