Did You Bail On Craigslist Too Early?

As I have been looking at Google Analytics Multi Channel Sales Funnels, I have to ask dealers if they have misjudged the impact of Craigslist on their website traffic and lead generation?

How are consumers finding a dealer's used car inventory? Is it through Autotrader.com, Cars.com, or is it a combination of Craigslist as well?

Since we have the opportunity to work with hundreds of dealers across the US and Canada, we have tested setting goals on a number of different business objectives.

Get Consumers To View Used Car Inventory

In the case below, we set a goal to look at how consumers get to a dealer's USED CAR inventory search pages. Here is an example of how Craigslist is driving traffic to a DEALER'S used car inventory pages:

The LAST Referring Source Will Fool You 90% Of The Time

If you look at the LAST referring source, all but one of these LAST influencers to the dealer's USED CAR inventory pages would NOT be attributed to Craigslist, YET the STARTING influence is Craigslist.

Mmmmmm, do you finally see that the last REFERRING website is NOT the only source of influence!! I know lead form conversion is important but seeing what investments are influencing your inventory to be viewed by a consumer is also important because of the calls and walk-in traffic visitors generate.

What does this say? It says that you better start by getting Multi Channel Sales Funnels setup for your dealership. You need to start looking at your Analytics data in a new light.

If you don't know how to do this, join the three webinars starting on February 13th, which will show dealers how to setup and leverage this free tool from Google which shows consumer behavior in the last 30 days.

Join by visiting http://www.automotiveseostudy.com.

Richer Dataium?

You should also consider getting richer data by signing up with Dataium which shows contributing sources for much longer than 30 days. You can get more information on Dataium's data insights by visiting http://ww.dataium.com or calling Jason Ezell at 704-658-5277.

Do you want to learn more about Multi-Channel Sales Funnels in Google Analytics right away?

If you register for the 2012 DMSC Conference in Las Vegas, you will get first hand instruction on this new feature in Google Analytics. You can register by visiting: http://www.digitalmarketingstrategies.org or by calling Carrie Hemphill at 908-601-6475.

Refine your digital marketing strategy by using intelligent analytics in 2012!!

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

Tags: analytics, car, cars, craigslist, dealer, google, marketing, used

2 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of Internet Sales Managers Community to add comments!

Join Internet Sales Managers Community

Comment by Christopher Ofcky on January 26, 2012 at 1:54pm: Brian,

It's always nice to read your articles. It's important for all of us to remember that the majority of Craigslist postings can be done automated from the same people that host our inventory for $200-$400 a month. Some inventory companies include it for nothing as a package, but a dealer must request or activate it. With all of that said, is there any reason to not be there?

We have a tendency to ignore channels of leads or ROI metrics when people don't come right in with a printed ad or website page and say, "I came from here, now I want to buy this car". Dealers used to just assume things worked, now we just assume that things don't work. Study your analytics, they're your lifeblood.

Comment by Brian Pasch on January 13, 2012 at 9:23pm: It is under Conversions, Multi-Channel Funnels

Comment by Spoonjab on January 13, 2012 at 5:34pm: How did you get the flow chart in the post? Was it GA? if so, how do I see that?

Comment by Mike Warwick on January 10, 2012 at 9:05am: Liquid Motors offers a Craig's List tool that will also show every time a customer clicks on one of your vehicles. This feature sits in your tool tray and lights up with the specific vehicle a customer clicks on. It is incredible how many people are looking at cars on Craig's List. If your goal is "eyeballs" on your vehicles, there is no more cost effective place to list your inventory. The number of VDP's is 2-3 times that of Autotrader and Cars.com.