Are you ever frustrated by the inaccurate sourcing of sales? I’m sure that most of you do everything in your power to track (as accurately as possible) the customer car buying journey from the beginning to the actual sale.

However, there are so many variables along the way that dealers often either get confused or simply give up and assign credit to the “auto mall” or “big giant gorilla,” (sarcasm intended). The sad fact is that, for the most part, the only way most dealers can measure what marketing sources are working, and which aren’t, is through the myriad of sometimes biased or incomplete reports provided by their vendors, which they must wade through; or the (incomplete) data contained within their CRM.

Well, help is on the horizon, as technology companies know about this pain point and have developed solutions that give marketers greater and more accurate insight into which marketing sources influence their consumers – and which do not.

Progressive dealers jumped on these solutions, along with the largest media company in the world – Google – who created a solution for dealers and other businesses. However, there is a BIG problem which is summed up in the phrase, “The largest media company in the world.” Do you really want the largest media company in the world telling you what is influencing your sales – can you be sure this data isn’t skewed in their favor? I bet you can’t guess who the main sales influencer will always be… GOOGLE!

Just as many dealers are cynical about the real results and credit each vendor and marketing source claims in their reports, they should also be cynical about Google. Why? Because Google takes more of your money than most other marketing solutions – whether that’s directly or indirectly through a marketing partner.

I find dealers who try solutions to help clarify what is and is not working in their marketing realm – and who pay attention and act on that data -- no more guessing, more knowing -- realize they can extend that same marketing budget and, with the right data, achieve even greater results – without spending a penny more!

But, and here’s the danger; when the magic wears off and that comfort-zone of “I FINALLY know now” slips in, sometimes marketers decide that, while the data was great, and accurate, because they have taken the necessary steps to optimize their marketing, they no longer need the solution providing the visibility/knowledge.

Wait -- That makes no sense.

That’s like deciding to stop measuring a salesperson’s performance, or the dealership’s sales numbers, or service department’s RO revenue, or upsells, or even the BDC’s appointment to show ratio; simply because you did it for a few months, it improved and then you decided you no longer need to measure it. Makes no sense, right?

The effectiveness of various marketing activities changes on a monthly, sometimes even weekly or daily basis. Something that’s performing this month may take a nosedive in days, weeks or a couple of months. Sitting on your laurels simply because you measured, analyzed and acted on data for a few months isn’t going to keep you going forward. In fact, it could easily start moving you in reverse.

Monitoring activity relative to marketing and sales is something that every business needs to do, including your dealership.

With margin compression in mind, failing to understand that measurement, analyzing data and taking action based on data insights are an ongoing, never-ending necessity can easily take a dealership back to the beginning. Resolving marketing mysteries requires a new standard. Your business performance depends on it.

Nowadays, the competition for consumer attention is fierce. Many dealers focus on attempting to do a better job than their competition when it comes to ads. But, the truth is, you aren’t only competing with other dealerships, but with every retail business which does digital marketing.

Think about it. Those consumers you send your messages to aren’t in an exclusive automotive targeted group. No, the fact is consumers all have varying interests; from their hobbies, to their online and offline purchasing habits, to any other activities that interest them; and these interests place them straight in the crosshairs of a boatload of retailers.

So, realizing that those consumers you are attempting to deliver your message to are also being targeted by every other retail sector, how do you increase the likelihood that they will notice your digital ad AND act on it?

Here are four factors to consider when creating an ad that should help increase engagement and conversion:

1.    Be Relevant – Start by knowing who will view your digital ad. “Spray and pray” techniques no longer cut it. Ensure your message is relevant to those who see it. Don’t try to make one cookie-cutter ad that appeals to your whole audience. It won’t work.

2.    Know Your Audience – Sometimes the group you think is your audience really isn’t. A classic example is a jewelry store that caters to female fashion. This jewelry store may think its targeted audience is females… and females could certainly be in there. But what about the males who so often gift jewelry to their spouses or significant others? They would also be a relevant audience.

However, you can’t have a single ad that will appeal to both demographics. The purchase motivation is very different between the two groups. The same goes for car buyers. An inexpensive economy car could have a ton of audiences, including those with modest incomes, young buyers, buyers looking for fuel economy and parents looking to buy a first car for their kids. Every one of these groups has different motivations and a boilerplate ad could never appeal to all of them. Vary your ad creative by audience and you’ll find your customer’s paying closer attention.

3.    Outside-the-Box Creativity – Most of us really don’t like seeing ads. That’s why we fast forward through commercials, toss mail in the trash without opening it and flip through magazines to the next article. Yet, there is one time per year that households huddle together in front of the television and, many times, watch simply to see the commercials – the Super Bowl! Super Bowl commercials are so appealing because they are made to be engaging, fun and entertaining. Brands bring in the big guns when it comes to creativity -- and, considering the cost of a Super Bowl ad, rightfully so.

Just because you’re not creating a Super Bowl ad doesn’t mean you can’t add some creativity into it. Don’t be afraid to be funny or outside-the-box. You’ll find that consumers respond better when your ad is different.

4.    Leverage Emotions – Engaging with your audience in a way that moves them emotionally is what can make your ad a smashing success. The basic human emotions often tapped by many of the great ad agencies are happiness, sadness, surprise and anger. Emotions are also exactly what motivates consumers to act. If you can make your audience FEEL, you have their attention, but also a better chance to earn their business. Make them laugh. Show them how your product can make them happy. Illustrate product features by tying them into real-life. People will relate, understand your message better and connect with your brand.

The key to making a digital ad that your customers love is centered around all these factors. If your message is relevant and delivered at the right time; the messaging and images targeted to the proper demographic; if it is creative and taps into your customer’s emotions; you may find that not only do they love THIS ad but start anticipating your future ones.

Marketing is an incredibly complicated and convoluted field which involves everything from direct marketing, to brand management, customer communications, social media, public relations and on and on. Whether you call the person responsible for your digital marketing efforts the “CMO,” or delegate these tasks to an Internet Manager at your dealership, the fact remains that many of you are setting them up to fail.

According to an article on CEOWorld.biz, the average lifespan of a CMO in a consumer-facing business has dropped to 3.6 years. Sadly, – at least for our industry – many probably think 3.6 years is actually pretty good.

The article’s theory is that a CMO’s job performance rating (and hence their priorities) are typically tied to a company’s growth, while their actual job responsibilities are tied mainly to marketing communications. This, then, poses two interesting possibilities: CMOs get tired of doing a set of tasks for which their performance is not judged. Or, their manager decides they are not doing a good job and lets them go.

While branding, figuring out the correct positioning for the company, and communications tasks are important to a dealership’s well-being, they tend to be extremely time consuming, leaving little room for your marketing team to focus on activities that directly drive sales.

If you're going to judge the performance of your marketing staff based on sales, make sure they have the time to focus on activities which directly drive sales. Some of these activities, such as analyzing campaign results and digging into data, may not be immediately visible to you, but are extremely important in optimizing your marketing mix to drive more sale

While most dealerships (with the exception of larger auto groups) don’t have actual CMOs, those same responsibilities still exist, as they do for any size company. In the automotive world those responsibilities often rest on an individual with a pay plan that is based on sales – which presents the same problems as above. For example, an Internet Manager tasked with many of these same marketing responsibilities, yet judged solely on their sales performance. They are sure to be chastised when these extra tasks aren’t adequately accomplished.

Take a look at your marketing and the staff to whom you have assigned various marketing responsibilities. Consider reevaluating if their pay plans are aligned with the priorities you’ve set for them.

This can help you achieve more effective marketing performance as well as increased employee engagement and performance. While the data you need to increase your marketing performance and grow your business may be there at your disposal, if nobody is focusing on it, the dealership will continuously be scrambling to keep up while losing revenue.

In the digital marketing world, only a couple of things are important – deliverability and tracking. Deliverability is simple: if the customer cannot see your display ad, it’s useless. Tracking, perhaps not quite so simple, is a cookie placed on the online shopper’s computer whenever they visit a website, enabling advertisers to retarget them with ads based on their browsing history.

We’ve all enjoyed this functionality -- but is it coming to an end?

Recent actions by a couple of companies that pretty much control the Internet have raised concerns that the all-important deliverability and tracking of consumers may be in peril. If an advertiser can no longer effectively deliver relevant ads to a targeted audience, income will be dramatically reduced. In fact, digital marketing will become the casualty of war. And believe me, there is a war going on.

On one side of the battlefield is Google.  Earlier this year it announced the upcoming native introduction of ad-blockers into the Chrome browser – the most popular browser in the world. Advertisers freaked out. However, as more details emerged, advertisers calmed down and began to support the initiative.

It turns out that Google wasn’t targeting advertisers as a whole, it was simply attempting to make the Internet less annoying to consumers by reducing the types of intrusive ads users were complaining about – namely pop-ups, auto-play videos with sound, and large sticky ads consumers couldn’t close.

Of course, these annoying ads led to high-bounce rates but, at the same time, provided websites with incredible income. With over 59 percent of market-share for browser use, advertisers had a right to be nervous.

The other side of the battlefield is manned by Google’s sworn enemy, Apple. Apple and Google don’t play well. They never have. But how is Apple even a threat when Google has almost 60 percent market share? The answer is simple, the iPhone. In fact, it is so popular, that over 50 percent of cell-phone users own an iPhone. When you consider the fact that over 52 percent of web pages are visited via a mobile device, the threat becomes clear: what web browser does the iPhone use? Apple’s own Safari!

But why is that important?

Google tracks everything everyone does online. Period. They may not share it with everyone, but that doesn’t erase the fact that it happens. Apple decided to throw a wrench in their operations by implementing what it has named, “Intelligent Tracking Prevention.” In a nutshell, it prevents advertisers from using third-party cookies to track clients past the 24-hour mark. This effectively handicaps effective digital marketing retargeting and measurement strategies. All in the name of consumer privacy.

With all this going on, how can you, as a digital marketer, avoid becoming a casualty of war?

First, it is important to understand the difference between first-party cookies, which are those from your own website, and third-party cookies, those from a marketing partner’s site.

When it comes to Apple, it doesn’t limit first-party cookies – those embedded on your own website – to the 24-hour time limit (they limit to 30 days). This allows you to continue your successful retargeting and attribution strategies.

However, in dealing with Google, be sure to abide by its advice on what types of ads are intrusive and which are not, for example, pop-ups, auto-play videos with sound, and large sticky ads. According to Google, these detract from the consumer’s web browsing experience.

Check that your digital marketing partners aren’t using third-party cookies, ensure that your site follows these new rules, and you shouldn’t have a problem. If you don’t, Google will warn you and, after a period of non-compliance, will simply block all your ads. Bad thing.

My advice? Have conversations with your digital marketing vendors and analyze your own website for ads that could raise red flags with Google. In addition, ask your vendors if they use first or third-party cookies.

Bottom line: Because the vast majority of the retargeting display advertising ecosystem utilizes third-party cookies, your results will be inaccurate unless you augment tracking with a first-party cookie tracking solution.

As I have mentioned in past blogs, few customers complete lead forms, making it very difficult for dealers to track the source of their sales. Without this information, it’s virtually impossible to make educated decisions about how to spend your marketing dollars. It’s time to build a better mousetrap so that dealers get insight into the behavior of online shoppers, even those who never fill out a lead form, ultimately increasing conversions.

The first thing we need to know to build a better solution is why consumers aren’t filling out lead forms. I think some of the reasons include:

1.   Information Availability – There is more information available online than ever before. Consumers can gather this information 24 hours a day and obtain instant results. They don’t need to fill out a form and wait for a response to get what they need when most of it is at their fingertips.

2.   Trust factor - This information is not only convenient, but they also trust that it’s accurate.

Frequently, consumers report that a dealer they contacted online is unresponsive, doesn’t answer their questions, or simply invites them for a test drive without helping them first.

3.   Time investment – In general, consumers don’t like the traditional car buying process. The perception is that buying a car is an all-day task and they simply don’t have the time to invest. Filling out a lead form, in their mind, is the first step of a time-consuming process they may not be ready to start.

Obviously, if you can increase the number of lead-form submissions, you would have access to more accurate information about your consumer’s behavior. Today it’s crucial to know which sites influence the consumers’ decisions and which ones don’t. Knowing the answer to that question can easily give your dealership a competitive digital advantage.

But while there are lots of tools on the market today that give you access to some of this data, not many can help you fill in the activity of those anonymous buyers. If you’re only relying on the straight line between a click and a conversion for someone that filled out a lead form, there’s no way to know what’s really influencing consumers and producing ROI. You need to know all the influencers for all your customers.

You can’t build a better mousetrap if you don’t know how that mouse will react to different stimuli -- a little cheese here and a little cheese there can easily motivate the mouse to follow the path that you want it to.

Without taking all the mouse’s behavior into account, however, you’ll never know which things are moving it closer to the desired destination and which are moving it farther away. Remove cheese at this place and perhaps the mouse takes a different path… put some cheese in this spot and perhaps they make a beeline to the destination.

Don’t make your marketing decisions solely based on where the mouse was when he ate the cheese. Rather, figure out what led the mouse from the entrance to that point.

A massive amount of data is now available on every potential car buyer, with a multitude of ways to use it. And, when it comes to targeting your audience, most ad platforms try to make it easier for you. The thought process is usually something along the lines of, the more detailed you are in your targeting, the more likely that your ads, messages, video, etc., will be shown to the right people – or at least for the most part.

But what about what you don’t know?

I recently read an interesting article on Business2Community which had me thinking about this very point. According to the article, there are four types of data: Facts we know, information we don’t have but know how to find, gut feeling, and things we don’t know we don’t know.

I love the last one because it makes sense and made me start to wonder how exactly DO we get information that we aren’t even looking for? Maybe we simply don’t know to look for it because nobody ever has. Perhaps we don’t look for it because, on the surface, it appears irrelevant. The trick, however, is this: all your competitors are attempting to target people utilizing the first two types of data – things we know (demographics, location, etc.) and information we don’t have but know how to find (such as targeting through AdWords, Facebook, etc.)

If everyone else is doing the same thing, targeting in similar ways and then sitting back in their chairs high-fiving themselves, what does that mean for the customer? It means that, while everyone is congratulating themselves about how great their marketing is, the customer is bombarded with noise from all these sources. While the intent of these sources may be to be relevant, when bombarded and over-saturated with messages, the customer reacts to everyone’s message as if it is irrelevant and just more noise.

Think about it, what would happen if you visited a website and each ad was for the same product or service, the only difference being that each ad was from different companies? You’d quickly ignore them all. Even if they’re relevant.

Perhaps then, a better strategy would be to stop focusing on the data that everyone else has and try to find insights using the two other types of data: gut feeling and things we don’t know we don’t know. According to the article, this can help you discover things about your audience that your competitor doesn’t know. Then you gain an advantage both in ad delivery and marketing spend. Why? Because if you use your gut or dig deep through your data to find trends and commonalities that you aren’t used to looking for, you’d be able to bid less for display and paid search, simply because there will be less people bidding against you.

So how do you find these insights? Using data, you probably aren’t tracking right now. For example, let’s simplify it to data gathered from a website. The article suggests utilizing tools such as heat-mapping and text tracking widgets to really understand that the customer visited this or that page on your website and what they actually looked at, read or engaged with. Having this information can provide valuable insight and the opportunity to learn things about your customers that you never did before.

Start thinking outside-the-box and analyze data you may never have deemed important before. You could find yourself with a competitive marketing advantage and, at the end of the day, have more money left in the bank.

If you backtrack through the history of advertising and marketing, you’ll find it’s always been about pushing the message to the consumer. In the old days radio and television were the dominant media and consumers had little choice but to watch and listen.

Then, as increasing numbers commuted to work, marketers took their messages to the roads in the form of billboards. Fast forward, and, as consumers ventured online, banner ads and popups vied for their attention; and as video game popularity increased, advertisers started putting ads inside the games themselves.

But then consumers rebelled.

Along came the DVR which has invaded just about every household, allowing consumers to skip commercials altogether. At first there was massive pushback against this by television stations and advertisers. In fact, the first DVRs didn’t allow you to skip commercials.

As technology continues its forward march, consumers can now stream music or listen to ad-free satellite radio. They have their iPods in the car, or Apple CarPlay playing their music, avoiding radio ads.

In addition, ad blockers prevent websites from serving ads. And, due to new technology, those same ads have largely become invisible for many consumers. The question is, where will consumer’s eyeballs be next, and how can advertisers take advantage of it?

Well, automaker Renault seems to think the future of marketing is with the captive audience in autonomous vehicles. According to an article on Bloomberg.com, Renault just purchased 40 percent of the Challenges magazine group, publisher of a weekly economic magazine and four monthly science and history journals.

It looks like Renault believes future revenue will come from this deal because, as stated by Renault in the article, “users will have more time to spend on other activities while in the car.” And that means there will be more opportunities for marketers to once again push messages to consumers who, in a very real sense, will be a captive audience. When the vehicle is driving, it’s not like the consumer can jump out. And, since they don’t control the vehicle, who’s to say what functionality will be available.

It’s not inconceivable that consumers could watch movies, television, or play video games while traveling. Some vehicles already have this technology, although the driver isn’t participating -- or at least shouldn’t be.

What future possibilities will exist for manufacturers, advertisers and marketers to find even more creative ways to deliver marketing messages to consumers?

By current estimates, a society with 100% autonomous vehicles is decades away. While many challenges exist in implementing this transformation, the one thing that’s certain is that people sitting in a vehicle that does everything for them are going to get bored and will search for ways to entertain themselves. This, in turn, provides new opportunities for marketers.

It’s hard to believe that people will be able to turn the car off to avoid marketing -- and almost a certainty that autonomous vehicles won’t even belong to the passenger.

Could Renault be onto something here? Will they show the automotive world exactly where the future monetization of the automotive industry lies -- in a world of autonomous vehicles?

Written by Steve White and David Metter

One of the hottest topics for dealers today is attribution – and it’s been a long time coming! Technology now exists which finally allows dealers to get a true picture of how their marketing influences consumers along their car buying journey. For eons dealers have been forced to rely on last-click attribution, simply because that’s all they had. 

It is very easy to see a lead pop into the CRM and trace it to a sale. However, dealers doing this are missing the other marketing efforts which contributed to that conversion. And that data is important to know. 

While AutoHook and Clarivoy solve attribution problems from two different perspectives, we are in complete agreement that the dealer’s perspective is what matters most. Dealers are not, nor should they ever be expected to be data analysts or mathematicians. It should never be a dealer’s responsibility to scrutinize the 20 different vendor reports received in a typical month and find trends that point to sales and marketing success or failure. Nor should it be the dealer’s job to assign fractionalized credit to the multiple touchpoints that led to a sale. 

Too often, dealerships are debilitated by the excessive amount of vendor reports that flood their inbox every month. What good is all that data if you can’t understand it and basically need an instruction manual to sift through and try to pinpoint exactly what’s working and what’s not? 

If you use outdated attribution models, you’re essentially making marketing decisions based on 10% of what is happening. Did you know that only 10% of consumers self-identify? Therefore, decisions are made without knowing what most consumers are doing, and/or which marketing efforts are influencing them. That is a HUGE marketing blind spot that leads to tens of thousands of dollars wasted on sources that don’t convert. 

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if you could simply get a clear view of your sales and defection trends, all in one place? Or quickly identify deficiencies in both your internal and external processes so that you can more efficiently assign responsibilities to your staff? And, what if you could get more ROI out of your third-party lead or traffic drivers? 

Most dealers have been lacking a complete, 360° view of their sales operations, along with a view of any sales lost to their biggest competitors. How can you improve the way you sell cars if you are unaware of the leads in your CRM that have already purchased elsewhere? There is a reason for every lost sale, and that reason is exactly what you should use to act and reclaim lost opportunities. 

Without accurate data, you cannot make marketing decisions which can be relied upon. You need data you can trust to provide the correct insights into the buying habits of your consumers and the performance of your marketing partners. 

Technology has brought us more current attribution models which show the big picture of your marketing performance. It can enlighten you and help make decisions that improve performance and stimulate sales without necessarily having to increase budgets. You can define the sources responsible for your greatest opportunities and losses, down to an individual salesperson, lead traffic source, competing brand or dealer, and more. 

Make the decision to take control of your marketing by leveraging technology. Stop trying to make sense of 20 different vendor reports with 20 different attribution models. By adopting more current attribution models, you’ll be able to spend less time guessing and more time knowing. And that’s most of the battle. 

80% of a Dealership’s Sales cannot be linked back to a Lead 

 New Tools for Marketing Vendors Solve this Problem  

Columbus, OH, October 17, 2017-- Clarivoy, the auto industry’s most trusted source of truth for optimizing the performance of marketing campaigns, today announced the launch of its Measurement NetworkTM. Designed specifically for marketing vendors to help them “prove their results,” vendors who join Clarivoy’s Measurement Network can now demonstrate to their clients a commitment to supplying accurate, unbiased attribution results, independently verified by the auto industry’s leading marketing attribution provider. Clarivoy provides these results to Network members by utilizing its Anonymous Attribution customer identification tools and unbiased Multi-Touch Attribution algorithms, delivered through API’s that integrate data directly into vendor dashboards. 

As the automotive industry’s recognized leader at helping auto dealers “discover what works,” Clarivoy is now helping marketing vendors “prove what works” to their customers. Dealer Inspire, an award-winning website developer, digital marketing strategy and implementation company that creates sustainable platforms to enhance and promote the sales process and customer experience, is the first marketing vendor to join Clarivoy’s Measurement Network and integrate Clarivoy’s Attribution APITM solution. Their dealers now have ROI insight for sales from verified website leads, as well as the missing piece: anonymous online shoppers.  

“This is truly an exciting announcement as two of the industry's most progressive analytics companies have created a partnership to push the envelope even further,” said Dealer Inspire CEO, Joe Chura. “We built Roxanne℠, our proprietary, patent-pending event tracking technology, to bring dealers true ROI for their website and marketing efforts. Partnering with Clarivoy takes that insight to the next level by connecting sales to anonymous shoppers. Filling in these gaps from customers who didn’t submit a website lead will give our dealer partners unprecedented visibility into how their digital marketing is generating sales,” Chura continued. 

According to Google, only 20% of a dealership’s sales can be linked back to a lead. But what happens to the other 80%?  Auto dealers utilizing  ‘Roxanne’ to attribute sales back to leads on a website now have Clarivoy’s attribution technology which provides visibility into the 80% of customers who chose to remain anonymous online. 

“As form submissions become increasingly rare, ‘walk-in’ traffic has mysteriously increased because so many customers choose to shop anonymously and withhold their information.  Up until now, dealers lacked visibility into these anonymous shoppers,” said Clarivoy CEO Steve White. “Clarivoy solves this problem by tagging a vendor’s website, ingesting their sales data and ‘converting cookies into customers.’ Once we are 100 percent sure we have a match, the data is rolled up and displayed in the vendor’s dashboard,” White added. 

Dealer Inspire is looking for a limited number of innovative dealers to pilot this new capability. Go to http://clarivoy.com/dealerinspire to sign-up. 

Marketing Vendors interested in joining Clarivoy’s Measurement Network should contact Ben Hadley, VP of Strategy at ben@clarivoy.com. 

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About Dealer Inspire  

Dealer Inspire is an innovative and award-winning website development SAAS company specializing in the automotive retail industry. Founded in 2012, Dealer Inspire is focused on creating more than websites, but rather sustainable platforms to enhance and promote the sales process and customer experience. The Dealer Inspire products are comprised of a next gen website platform, AI powered messaging/chat software, digital retailing and dynamic advertising software. 

Dealer Inspire has been selected as the certified website and digital advertising provider for their retailers by 17 of the world's leading automotive brands and works with thousands of clients across U.S., Canada and Mexico. 

About Clarivoy: 

Clarivoy is the auto industry’s most trusted source of truth for optimizing the performance of marketing campaigns. Their Multi-Touch Attribution solutions reveal more about their clients’ customers, their advertising and their path to success so they can drive more sales. The company’s proprietary TV Analytics solution was named the winner of the 2016 DrivingSales Innovation Cup Award for the Most Innovative Dealership Solution of 2016. 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.

Part 2: Sales Attribution   

In part 1 of this series, I discussed Web Traffic Attribution, how that works and why most dealers are using it as their primary measurement tool when making marketing spend decisions. While web traffic is certainly important, the ultimate reason the measurement of web traffic is so prevalent is because it’s what is available and what most vendors provide in their monthly reports to dealers. Stands to reason that, as a dealer, you would want to compare apples to apples. 

But relying on Web Traffic as your main KPI can lead to some incorrect decisions because it only tells you what channels were most effective at driving traffic to your website - but not sales in your dealership. This is where Sales Attribution comes in.  Sales Attribution helps vendors correctly attribute sales and thus provide dealers with data they can trust. So, what exactly can Sales Attribution tell you? 

In a nutshell, Sales Attribution can show you which vendors are actually converting into sales. Ultimately, that’s what any dealer and vendor wants to know. Sales Attribution can take your sales data, combine it with your web traffic data and, using a Multi-Touch Attribution model, show you how productive a given vendor is, with data you can TRUST. 

A great example of this is a General Manager we recently worked with who had a suspicion that his email vendor was not as effective in driving sales as reported. The vendor’s report was all traffic-based and neither the vendor, nor the dealer, had any way to match that traffic to sales. The conquest email campaign was run via the vendor’s proprietary list, so it was very difficult for the dealer to measure, since he had no access to whom those emails were sent. 

We helped the dealer apply Sales Attribution tracking to determine how many of the customers that clicked on the vendor’s emails actually made a purchase. Using Multi-Touch Attribution the dealer was able to see how many customers actually had email clicks in their purchase path -- and there were many. The GM learned his suspicion was unfounded and that the email vendor was not only driving a lot of traffic, but that traffic was also converting. 

The results won’t always be this rosy. However, with the right attribution infrastructure in place, both dealers and vendors can better see and trust their results. 

I am sure there have been many times when you had to scratch your head and had no clue what data to trust when it comes to other forms of attribution. Consider those vendors who use last-click attribution and take all the credit for a sale. It’s a well-known fact that consumers simply don’t take just one action in their purchase journey. It would be silly to think that the only thing a consumer did was go straight to your pop-up and convert. 

In summary, while Traffic Attribution is easier to measure than Sales Attribution, I like to refer to Sales Attribution as the Holy Grail because it ultimately allows you to identify which of your vendor marketing investments are actually leading to sales, not just driving traffic. 

The fact is, a combination of both is what works. Web Traffic Attribution and Sales Attribution can provide you with more accurate data, enabling you to make more informed marketing investment decisions while holding your vendors accountable. This will lead to an increase in ROI simply because you no longer have to guess or rely on inaccurate or erroneous data. You can then reallocate money to those channels or vendors that are producing, and eliminate those that aren’t. 

Stop guessing and start knowing. Take full advantage of Web Traffic and Sales Traffic Attribution tools that exist and start maximizing your marketing investments. 

Don’t you want to know for sure what’s working and what isn’t?