Dealers generally tell us they see a slow start at the beginning of the year when it comes to auto sales. Now is the perfect time for dealerships to adjust strategies and optimize their website to help generate auto sales leads for a successful year.

As consumers start to receive their tax refunds, those thinking about purchasing a vehicle will start their research soon, hopefully land on your website and become engaged.

Follow these 3 tips to help turn auto sales leads into customers.

1. Review your website ads

Most auto dealers offer incentives throughout their website, such as $2,500 cash allowance on new car purchases or zero percent financing. If you’re offering static deals but your competitor is offering similar deals, these ads may not be as attractive to the shopper.

To get better automotive leads, consider car dealer ads that are targeted toward the consumer and where they’re at in the buying phase. For example, you can use interactive software on your website to capture whether consumers are starting their research, narrowed down their vehicle options or if they’re ready to buy.

The details you capture from the software can help you determine what type of offer you want to serve up in each experience.

You can then make your offers more relevant and appealing to the buyer, and you can capture quality lead data helping you to create a buyer profile for each website visitor.

2. Make sure your dealership is mobile friendly

If you’ve ever landed on a website on your phone, you know just how frustrating it is when it’s not mobile responsive. Within a second, you’re already onto another website. Making sure you have a mobile friendly website will help keep potential buyers happy.

Your dealership’s website should include response designs. Be sure to check out how your website looks on phones and tablets, working with your website provider to make adjustments as necessary, whether that’s to CTAs, fonts or images or even the layout.

Data proves that people are using their phones now more than ever to start their vehicle research, compare dealership pricing and even make a purchase.

When a visitor comes to your website on their phone, interactive software that’s mobile friendly can also ask them how they prefer to be contacted. Some consumers only want to be contacted by text today, rather than by email or by a call, which helps the dealer tailor the buying experience to each shopper.

To personalize the experience even more, you can ask questions through interactive mobile software on your website that finds out that buyer’s next step, whether it’s to continue browsing on their own, arranging a deal, scheduling a test drive, or requesting to speak to someone at the dealership.

3. Nurture potential car buyers

You have a lot of potential buyers coming to your site. One segment might be looking for used vehicles, another might only be interested in new, while some are interested in specific inventory only. A visitor could be an existing lead in your system, while another is a new visitor or even a previous customer who purchased a vehicle from you in the past.

For each of those types of buyers, you can create a personalized experience with smart CTAs with interactive auto software that captures quality lead data.

For example, based on the data you capture, you may only show manufacturer promotions to only new car shoppers, instead of all visitors.

For visitors in the early stages of their buying journey, you may offer an email newsletter sign-up to help them in their car buying process. In the newsletter, your dealership could offer facts and figures such as safety ratings and new vehicle features, too.

An email newsletter allows you to begin building a relationship with the consumer, making you a trusted source of quality information and reinforces that your dealership cares about its customers.

By offering up more relevant CTAs, you’re giving the consumer a meaningful experience on your website, building their trust, engaging them in their online car shopping experience and hopefully turning that quality lead into a buyer.