By Steve White  

First, let me be clear in saying that Multi-Touch Sales Attribution is still the Holy Grail of marketing measurement for auto dealers. But for many dealers, no matter how attractive the benefits of Multi-Touch Attribution might be, using it might be like using a nail gun to hang a picture. Overkill. 

If you think about it on a spectrum, you’ve got last-click or first click on one end as the most basic type of attribution, and data-driven multi-touch attribution that fractionalizes credit across all of the touchpoints contributing to a sale on the other. While most dealer’s analytics efforts fall at the beginning of the spectrum with last and first-click attribution, they are beginning to recognize the value of multi-touch attribution at the other end. 

Based on my conversations with hundreds of dealers, I’d say that only about 20% of them have the budget, resources, and sophistication to really make good use of Multi-Touch Sales Attribution. The remaining 80% just want someone to tell them what channels are contributing to sales, especially in an environment where their leads are declining. Dealers, for the most part, don’t care about how credit is fractionalized across channels. Because, at the end of the day, they don’t have the resources or time to use that information. They just want to know “Is Vendor X contributing to our sales?” 

So, as an industry, maybe we should stop (at least for now) pushing the idea that every dealer should adopt what we feel is the Holy Grail (data-driven Multi-Touch Sales Attribution), and instead give them something that’s useable in the here and now. A tool that simply tells dealers if a vendor has contributed to a sale. 

I’m calling this new attribution model “Any Click.” It allows dealers to see all of the clicks and ad exposures that influenced a sale without the complexity of fractionalizing credit across influencing touchpoints - even if that customer never submitted a lead (something we call “Anonymous Attribution”). The fractionalization of credit is typically theoretical anyway, unless a data-driven approach is used. And believe me - if you want to see someone’s eyes glaze over - start discussing the intricacies behind the creation and use of data-driven attribution models. 

It’s my belief that once dealers start seeing which vendors are contributing to sales, they will then want to know “how much.” And that will lead them straight to Multi-Touch Sales Attribution - at a time that’s right for them! 

I’d really like to hear what you think! Email me with your thoughts at steve@clarivoy.com.

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?

Part 1 of a 2-part blog discussing the value and pros and cons of Traffic vs. Sales Attribution 

Historically, there have been few ways for dealers to accurately measure if their marketing spend is providing ROI – and really, truly trust the data.  Traffic Attribution has been, and remains, the primary KPI dealers use to measure the success of their marketing campaigns; and Google Analytics the primary tool.  

Relying on traffic as your primary measurement is troublesome if you use the results to help reallocate your marketing spend. If Google Analytics tells you that your display ads drive the most traffic at the lowest cost, while your Third Party Vendor drives the least - it stands to reason that you’d use this data from GA and spend more of your marketing budget on display ads and less with your Third Party Vendors. 

Web traffic alone only shows data indicating how many people visit the dealer’s website. What about accurately tracking all the referral sources for sales? It’s what web traffic doesn’t show that is most important, and that is missing if you use this as your primary KPI.  

Luckily, Sales Attribution techniques are becoming more common in the automotive industry and we’re seeing more dealers adopting new measurement approaches. In my next blog I’ll outline some of the surprising results dealers are seeing using Sales vs. Traffic Attribution. But in this blog I’d like to focus on Traffic Attribution because, while Sales Attribution is the Holy Grail, you can still extract valuable information from free out-of-the box web traffic measurement tools like Google Analytics.  

Let’s face it, Google, in itself, is a vendor in our industry. And, while claiming to be unbiased, its long-time attribution model is flawed. Not only is it flawed, but most dealers have it set up poorly, so have trouble getting accurate data. 

We recently conducted some in-depth research with a number of dealerships who rely on Google Analytics for web traffic measurement and found that many have it set up incorrectly. This makes it almost impossible to understand what’s going on, even from a last-click perspective -- let alone a multi-channel approach!  

Even those a little more technologically-inclined were forced to spend way too much time manually adding data to spreadsheets, attempting to decipher what’s working, and what is not. 

We were also shocked to discover that many dealers didn’t have the proper goals set up in their accounts. This is extremely important as the data will be flawed and inaccurate if Google Analytics is not set up properly. In fact, you will not be able to gain any valuable information. 

Before all the data in Google Analytics makes any real sense, no matter which attribution model, vendor, or method your dealership uses to calculate results, you need to ensure you properly set up a complete set of goals in Google Analytics itself. What I suggest as a minimum is as follows 

• New SRP Views 
• New VDP Views 
• Used SRP Views 
• Used VDP Views 
• Certified SRP Views 
• Certified VDP Views 
• Finance Form Submissions 
• Lead Form Submissions 
• Service Form Submissions 
• Trade-In Form Submissions 
• Print Coupons 
• Visits to Hours and Directions Page 
• Views of Dealership Review Page 

In studying several dealers, when they correctly organized the data in Google Analytics, ensuring that each traffic source was assigned to the appropriate channel, while also assigning referral sources that were falling through the cracks (such as third-party ads), the data provide information that was much more valid. These dealers could finally trust this data to make better informed decisions. 

Relying solely on Google Analytics out of the box set up has some other pitfalls, including the fact that it does not allow you to see performance between brand and non-brand search and display. If you cannot break this out, you can only view the performance of paid search and display as a group. In addition, you cannot break out Tier 1 and Tier 2 marketing campaigns, or your own email campaigns. The inability to see granular level results such as these (and more), can easily lead to poor marketing decisions. 

In part two of this blog series, I will discuss the holy grail of attribution – Sales Attribution. I’ll explain the different types and why it’s so difficult to measure. So, stay tuned for more……….

Things have changed considerably with the state of marketing measurement and we wanted to know how dealers are adapting to new measurement tools like Multi-Touch Attribution. So, in April 2017, we decided to ask and surveyed approximately 120 dealers for our State of Automotive Attribution study.

In general, the survey found most dealers feel accurate measurement of their marketing campaigns is important. Most rely on in-house reporting (68%) and/or vendor reporting (64%). However, a key point in this survey is that only 30 percent of dealers report being satisfied with how they currently measure their data.

Out of the many reports dealers use, each puts emphasis on different metrics and different attribution models. This leads to a confusing mess of data forcing dealers to, in a way, compare apples to oranges.

In response to the question, “Which vendor categories need the most blind faith as to if they are working?” 40 percent of dealers stated display ads, followed by third-party listing sites at 38 percent.

The display ad answer is a little curious as, set up properly, they should be easy to measure. However, the third-party listing site answer is not that surprising. The actions a consumer takes following a visit to a third-party listing site and viewing a vehicle of interest can vary over an entire spectrum of possibilities: they could submit a lead on the third-party listing site; call a phone number; bounce to the dealership’s website and convert there; call the dealership; or simply show up. The effectiveness of a third-party listing site can be far from black and white in terms of measurement. And, more often than not, attribution depends on proper sourcing by the salesperson or last-click attribution models – both of which have huge gaps in accuracy.

As far as what dealers want from an attribution tool, 46 percent would like a multi-touch attribution solution. They believe last-click is unreliable for reporting accurate sources and what really influenced the sale.

When asked what their ideal attribution solution should include, 59 percent stated the ROI contribution of each marketing channel, 57 percent replied that they want analytics that deliver actionable insights; 48 percent want a transparent view of a customer’s full purchase path and 41 percent desire reporting accountability and accuracy.

When asked, “How knowledgeable are you about marketing attribution?” 30 percent think attribution and analytics are important, but don’t know where to begin, and 20 percent do not know anything about marketing attribution.

Overall, 68 percent of dealers aren’t effectively using, or are failing to use any type of marketing attribution to measure the results of their advertising. This is a glaring hole and effectively makes measuring marketing efforts and spending a guessing game.

First and last-click attribution is the most commonly used attribution model, used by a full 77 percent of respondents. This is largely due to the fact that these attribution models are used by most vendors, as well as Google Analytics. While widely used, these models give poor results and a skewed picture of what sources truly influence customers in their decision to buy at the dealership.

If dealers can’t – or aren’t – getting the data they need to make intelligent decisions, what are their biggest challenges? According to the survey, 57 percent replied proving ROI for marketing spend, followed by targeting marketing to the best audience, at 41 percent, and evaluating vendor performance, at 35 percent. These challenges, of course, lead full circle back to the same question asked since dealerships first came into existence “Did it sell cars and, if so, how many?”

The survey results show that dealers certainly know the importance of attribution. Vendors increasingly recognize that dealers need and want this data. So, slowly but surely, the back end of marketing is becoming more transparent as vendors are more open to new attribution models and are starting to integrate with attribution solutions. This is a great trend that will see dealers and vendors creating stronger partnerships while bringing confidence and true accountability to both.

These pain points for dealer marketing and decision-making prove that better and more accurate reporting and attribution models are necessary for dealers to maximize their marketing dollars and feel confident that they are not wasting money.

Knowing which sources lead the customer down the road to your dealership, and which are simply a waste of money, can empower you when making your marketing decisions. You no longer have to rely upon skewed metrics, follow different attribution models and then attempt to make sense of it all.

To download a copy of the State of Automotive Attribution study visit:http://content.clarivoy.com/auto-attribution-study.

Clarivoy’s 2017 Attribution Study Reveals What’s Really Going On With Auto Industry Marketing Measurement

Columbus, OH, August 2, 2017 -- Clarivoy, the auto industry’s most trusted source of truth for optimizing the performance of marketing campaigns, today announced the results of an industry-wide study to better understand the current state and usage of marketing measurement in the retail automotive industry.  

“Things have changed considerably with the state of marketing measurement and we wanted to know how dealers are adapting to new measurement tools like Multi-Touch Attribution. So, in April 2017, we decided to ask and surveyed approximately 120 dealers for our State of Automotive Attribution study,” said Steve White, Clarivoy CEO. 

In general, the survey found most dealers feel accurate measurement of their marketing campaigns is important. Most rely on in-house reporting (68%) and/or vendor reporting (64%). However, a key point in this survey is that only 30 percent of dealers report being satisfied with how they currently measure their data.  

“Out of the many reports dealers use, each puts emphasis on different metrics and different attribution models. This leads to a confusing mess of data forcing dealers to, in a way, compare apples to oranges,” said White. 

In response to the question, “Which vendor categories need the most blind faith as to if they are working?” 40 percent of dealers stated display ads, followed by third-party listing sites at 38 percent. 

“The display ad answer is a little curious as, set up properly, they should be easy to measure,” said White. “However, the third-party listing site answer is not that surprising. The actions a consumer takes following a visit to a third-party listing site and viewing a vehicle of interest can vary over an entire spectrum of possibilities: they could submit a lead on the third-party listing site; call a phone number; bounce to the dealership’s website and convert there; call the dealership; or simply show up. The effectiveness of a third-party listing site can be far from black and white in terms of measurement. And, more often than not, attribution depends on proper sourcing by the salesperson or last-click attribution models – both of which have huge gaps in accuracy,” White explained. 

As far as what dealers want from an attribution tool, 46 percent would like a multi-touch attribution solution. They believe last-click is unreliable for reporting accurate sources and what really influenced the sale.

When asked what their ideal attribution solution should include, 59 percent stated the ROI contribution of each marketing channel, 57 percent replied that they want analytics that deliver actionable insights; 48 percent want a transparent view of a customer’s full purchase path and 41 percent desire reporting accountability and accuracy.  

In response to the question, “How knowledgeable are you about marketing attribution?” 30 percent think attribution and analytics are important, but don’t know where to begin, and 20 percent do not know anything about marketing attribution. 

Overall, 68 percent of dealers aren’t effectively using, or are failing to use any type of marketing attribution to measure the results of their advertising. “This is a glaring hole and effectively makes measuring marketing efforts and spending a guessing game,” said White. 

First and last-click attribution is the most commonly used attribution model, used by a full 77 percent of respondents. This is largely due to the fact that these attribution models are used by most vendors, as well as Google Analytics. However, according to White, while widely used, these models give poor results and a skewed picture of what sources truly influence customers in their decision to buy at the dealership. 

If dealers can’t – or aren’t – getting the data they need to make intelligent decisions, what are their biggest challenges? According to the survey, 57 percent replied proving ROI for marketing spend, followed by targeting marketing to the best audience, at 41 percent, and evaluating vendor performance, at 35 percent. 

“These challenges, of course, lead full circle back to the same question asked since dealerships first came into existence ‘Did it sell cars and, if so, how many?’” said White. “The survey results show that dealers certainly know the importance of attribution. Vendors increasingly recognize that dealers need and want this data. So, slowly but surely, the back end of marketing is becoming more transparent as vendors are more open to new attribution models and are starting to integrate with attribution solutions. This is a great trend that will see dealers and vendors creating stronger partnerships while bringing confidence and true accountability to both,” White continued. 

For more information visit: http://www.clarivoy.com, or to view study results click here.  

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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.

Creating an Attribution Infrastructure 

I’ve talked a lot in the past about the importance of using a multi-touch attribution model with data weighted and reported by an unbiased third party. In this blog, I wanted to take this conversation to the next level by explaining the infrastructure you’ll need in order to accurately measure and track your customer’s journey towards a purchase so you can identify which of your vendors are performing – or underperforming. 

Don’t misunderstand me. This takes a lot of work. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it already. With that being said, here are 12 key things you need to set-up and the data points you need to truly get accurate multi-touch attribution results. If you are missing any of these, your multi-touch attribution model is flawed.  

1. Advanced Tracking Code beyond Google Analytics – If you want to be able to attribute to sales, you need to use a third-party provider that has their own proprietary tracking code that can de-anonymize website traffic and link to sales. 

2. Call Tracking Logs – It’s imperative to have your call tracking set-up properly so that you can really know what generated that phone call, not just have it labeled “website.” The tracking logs should be able to tell you whether that phone call was generated from paid search, a click from Facebook, or another specific source. This weighs heavily since many consumers call in rather than convert.  

3. Dynamic Call Tracking – This level of call tracking enables you to further drill down on the influences that triggered that phone call. Rather than simply knowing that the phone call was generated through paid search, dynamic call tracking tells you that it came from a specific keyword which triggered the ad, allowing you to attribute and monitor specific campaign results.   

4. CRM – CRM data is important as one of your data sources for obvious reasons, but mainly for the ability to do what we call leads-based attribution.  

5. DMS – DMS data is also key for the sales data it contains, which is necessary to then credit vendors with weighted sales numbers. Then you are able to measure actual ROI in dollar figures against actual sales and profit. If you only rely on leads, you’ll be missing a large piece of your marketing ecosystem in terms of what’s working and what’s not.   

6. AdWords & Bing – The most important thing is that you have admin access to your account and data. This will enable ingestion of important data that you can’t get any other way. 

7. View-Based Tracking – View-based tracking is one of the most important pieces of data to capture as roughly 90% of consumers don’t click, call or chat from a third-party site -- they simply come in and buy a vehicle. In addition, you must take into account all of the display ads and retargeting campaigns that consumers are exposed to. The consumer may see the ads, not click through at that moment – or ever – but still buy a vehicle. If you’re evaluating your display ad vendors based on clicks, you’re missing a big gap in their true performance.  

8. Third-Party Auto – As I mentioned above, in order to measure the full impact with third party auto sites, it is imperative to work with a provider that can place tracking code on third party websites across all your dealer pages on the site. This will enable you to effectively measure VDPs where no action was taken immediately, or directly, by the consumer who ends up purchasing a vehicle from you after viewing your VDPs on third party auto sites.  

9. Chat – Of course chat logs are important for several reasons – not only can you track the data that initiated the chat, but oftentimes consumers will reveal the source within the chat.   

10. E-Mail – Don’t simply rely on attributing a sale to an email campaign just because the email was sent. Install tracking pixels within the e-mail campaigns so that you know whether a particular person opened the email, was exposed to it and you can then attribute it back to that view or click. 

11. Direct Mail – Direct mail requires a little more scientific measurement, but you need to make sure that you’re not simply matching to whom a direct mail piece was sent against which of those people bought a car. Utilizing more advanced approaches like tracking numbers or trackable URLs in your direct mail should be used at a minimum. There are some more advanced approaches but I will save that for another blog post. 

12. TV Spot Logs – If you want to measure TV, it’s imperative to get the TV spot logs so you can overlay that data with spikes in website traffic. However, it’s more than just comparing the two pieces of data as there may be cases where you have overlapping TV spots. There needs to be a way to fractionalize that influence between overlapping TV spots. 

13. Anonymous Attribution -- According to a Polk Automotive Influence Study, approximately 2 out of 3 car buyers do not contact a dealership via form submission or a phone call prior to their first visit. This data gap leaves a huge blind spot in a marketer’s ability to accurately attribute sales to sources like paid search and third party sites. Identifying anonymous shoppers requires the development of proprietary identification and tracking technology.  

14. Data Scientist -- Once you have connected all of the marketing touchpoint data, you need to figure out a way to assign credit to each of those touch points. You can leverage rules-based attribution models or data driven models (click here to watch a video blog that outlines the different types of attribution models). You’ll also need the expertise to visualize and analyze the data in order to for it to be really useful.  

That’s it! Easy…. right?? Developing a comprehensive multi-touch attribution model, having the ability to access the data needed and making sense of it all is complicated. A lot of it relies on the cooperation of your vendor partners.  

 If who want to truly measure the real influence your marketing sources are having on sales, you can start by partnering with attribution-friendly vendors. Without their assistance, you will find that properly building your attribution infrastructure is frustrating, inaccurate and, ultimately, near impossible.

Columbus, OH (July 11, 2017) – Auto dealers using Google Analytics are now able to accurately attribute the value of third-party sites such as Cars.com, according to the initial findings from a trial use of Clarivoy’s Multi-Touch Attribution solution.   

In an April trial with Cars.com, more than 100 Cars.com dealer customers upgraded their Google Analytics platform with Clarivoy’s Multi-Touch Attribution solution. The Clarivoy solution is designed to help dealers understand how all their digital marketing investment efforts -- not just the last click or interaction -- influence the car buying journey. 

The initial use of Clarivoy’s solution revealed that Google Analytics misses the cost-effective conversion value of sites such as Cars.com. For instance, on average, dealers who implemented the multi-touch attribution solution saw conversions on their sites attributed to Cars.com increase by 37 percent with a 20 percent decrease in cost after two months in the trial.    

The results were even more dramatic when dealers considered the conversions that occurred directly on Cars.com. The addition of Cars.com data -- Cars.com leads, vehicle description pages (VDPs), and trackable walk-ins -- to this multi-touch attribution model allowed one dealer to identify 11,390 conversion events that happened on the Cars.com site in addition to the original 103 reported by Google Analytics.  

According to Clarivoy CEO Steve White, auto dealers typically rely on Google Analytics to help them understand the impact of their advertising. However, the true value of a third party auto site doesn’t show up in Google Analytics as it is by default set up to give all of the credit to the last click.  

“Typically, what we see is a lot of third-party websites do not get the credit they deserve because in most cases the last engagement that occurs with the dealer’s website is either branded search, organic or direct traffic,” said White. “As a result, sites such as Cars.com become invisible to Google Analytics when trying to evaluate performance. Dealers needed a solution that helps them see the actual impact a partner like Cars.com really brings and the ability to compare that to their other marketing channels in one dashboard.” 

“Time and time again, we see dealer customers overspending on paid search, because they are only measuring marketing impact based on the last click,” said John Clavadetscher, Chief Revenue Officer, Cars.com. “By understanding the full customer journey leading up to the last click, dealers are able to better understand the influence that Cars.com has on the path to purchase and make more informed decisions about how to allocate their marketing spend.” 

When shopping online, many customers view a dealer’s VDPs or submit an inquiry right on the Cars.com website, and this data is never reflected in Google Analytics. Clarivoy’s native integration offers several benefits including: 

• Clarivoy’s Attribution Channels classify data more logically and accurately specifically for auto dealers 

• Dealers can apply cost data from all digital marketing investments to evaluate the true cost per engagement and cost per lead using Clarivoy's proprietary multi-touch attribution model 

• Insight into Cars.com conversion activity including VDPs, lead submissions and Lot Insights data 

“The biggest differentiator of our solution for dealers is our independent, unbiased approach for analyzing and reporting data. We don’t have a stake in the game,” White commented.  

Clarivoy’s Multi-Touch Sales Attribution platform focuses on user-level attribution, allowing dealers to transparently view a consumer’s full purchase path, sorting and ranking the influence of each channel’s contribution – paid search, display ads, TV, email, third party websites, organic search, social, and brand website -- to understand what is really driving sales. 

For a copy of the Clarivoy/Cars.com case study click here: http://content.clarivoy.com/carscasestudy 

For more information, or to sign up for a product demonstration, visit: http://www.clarivoy.com 

About Cars.com 

Cars.com (NYSE: CARS) is a leading online destination that helps car shoppers and owners navigate every turn of car ownership. A pioneer in automotive classified, the company has evolved into one of the largest digital automotive platforms, connecting consumers with local dealers across the country anytime, anywhere. Through trusted expert content, on-the-lot mobile app features, millions of new and used vehicle listings, a comprehensive set of research tools and the largest database of consumer reviews in the industry, Cars.com helps shoppers buy, sell and service their vehicles. Cars.com companies include DealerRater®, Auto.com, PickupTrucks.com™ and NewCars.com®.  The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Chicago. For more information, visit www.Cars.com. 

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 

Cutting Measurement Clutter: An Interview with Cars.com's Brian Archey from Clarivoy on Vimeo.

Clarivoy's CEO & Founder Steve White sits down with Brian Archey, Sr. Director of Data Strategy at Cars.com to discuss how dealers can cut through clutter when it comes to making their marketing spend go further.