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Actually, scratch that. 

This isn't just going to be about Bounce rate, but all of your dealer website's metrics in general. 

Starting with Bounce Rate.

First, you MUST understand what bounce rate is exactly.

Bounce rate is measured by the number of people that visit your website (or a specific page on your site) and leave without a second interaction.

An interaction is measured by how deep a visitor travels through your site. A click-through from a call-to-action button on one page to another is considered an interaction. So, if your site visitors are clicking from link to link on your site and viewing a lot of pages, your bounce rate will be LOW.

BUT, there are so many people out there trying to teach you how to lower websites bounce rate, arguing that doing so will somehow help you see an increase in leads, but I'm here to prove them wrong.

While I will agree that getting deep within a site provides more opportunity for the site visitor to complete an action, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will complete an action. Catch my drift?

If you really want to get your website producing quality traffic and leads, you need to consider two things.

1.) What's the overall objective of the site as a whole, and

2.) What's the objective of each individual page on the website

Without those two things clearly defined, it doesn't matter what your bounce rate, click-through-rate, behavior flow, time on site, visitors vs. unique visitors and the butt load of other metrics are. Your website will never perform the way you want it to.

Why? Because you won't even know for yourself what the definition of performance is.

So, do me a favor right now. Take some time to identify what the objectives of your website are.

Now back to bounce rate.

There are hundreds of high-traffic blogs out there that have near 100% bounce rates. 

Any idea why?

Because, even though they didn't create a second interaction, the page or blog post that the visitor landed on had the primary objective on the same page.

In other words, they completed the desired action on the first page that they landed on.

It might've been a lead submission form to download a free whitepaper or ebook, it might even just be a sign up form to stay connected via a newsletter.

What you MUST understand is that your website's bounce rate is directly proportionate to your objectives and the path you desire the visitor to take to get to those objectives. 

Understand that if your objective (the desired action) happens on the same page that the visitor lands on, your bounce rate will be higher. 

If you want the customer to click through a funnel of links before they get to the final desired action on your site, your bounce rate will be lower.

There's a reason that some website providers refuse to place your dealership's phone number on the homepage of your website. Because they are trying to force the user to create a second interaction to find it, causing them to click deeper into your website...

If your bounce rate is low, your provider get's to boast how effective they made your website perform, and so far, a ton of you are buying into it. 

STOP!

Here's the problem. Your website isn't performing the way it should or you wouldn't even be reading this.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

Before you worry about bounce rate and the plethora of other metrics to track on your website, focus on what the objective of your website is in the first place.

Identify what path you want the customer to follow that will lead them to your desired end result.

That path may be going deep on your site from page to page, or it may be on the same page they land on.

Once you know what you want the customer to accomplish, understand what normal bounce rates look like in those scenarios.

Have questions about tracking bounce rates properly? Hit me up in the comments below. 

This is the third in a series of blogs I’ve been writing on metrics: in my last blog we discussed the average percentage of sales in dealerships that can be attributed to Internet leads. This week, I’d like to talk about average front-end gross per vehicle.

In a recent survey we conducted, we asked dealerships representing all types of makes and models:

These were the two questions related to front-end gross in the survey:

1) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the showroom (floor sales) in your store?

2) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the Internet department in your store?

We wanted to first quantify the difference between gross from showroom sales and Internet sales, and we wanted to compare the averages of stores in different “performance brands.”

Here are the survey results:

• 29% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is > $1,300

• 15% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is > $1,300

At the same time:

• 9% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is < $800

• 21% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is < $800

It’s clear there’s quite a disparity between averages in the showroom and the Internet department. We consulted David Kain of Kain Automotive on this question, because he believes (and the survey results reflect this), that most Internet salespeople tend to discount too soon. This tendency leads to lower front-end gross averages in the Internet department.

Regardless of what your dealership’s average gross per vehicle (PVR) is, the goal is for the showroom and Internet department averages to be the same. Why is this important? The higher the gross per vehicle, the higher your ROI and profits are.

We compared answers from dealerships making seven times or more ROI on their Internet spend, to those making three times or less ROI on their Internet spend, regardless of make or model. The results were compelling:

So how can you increase your average front-end gross per vehicle, as well as get the Internet department gross in line with the showroom gross? Here are a few tips:

1)    Always provide the customer with choices and carefully review leads for model selection and trim levels. If you’re quoting your customer the loss leader or base model and they want the luxury model, then you’re setting them up for a price expectation way lower than is reasonable.

2)    Just like when you’re face-to-face with a customer, focus on building value in the vehicles. Customers want to know what they’re buying is worth the money, and you have the opportunity to explain why the price is what the price is

3)    Don’t be tempted to immediately give a discount, and be wary of programs that send inventory selections to customers with quotes designed to beat your competition or that are loss leaders. Big discount quotes make the customer believe all vehicles can be significantly discounted.

4)    Mystery shop your competition from time to time on key vehicles to ensure you’re pricing your vehicles to market.

5)    Consider location. If a customer is close to you, then price in the convenience of shopping with you. If the customer lives 20 miles away and has to drive past multiple competitors in order to get to your store, you may be more aggressive in your pricing.

6)    Set the rules in the Internet department based on what vehicles are selling for in the showroom. If they know the ‘floor’ price, you’re less likely to have a significant discrepancy between the showroom and the Internet gross.

What other tips do you have to raise the average front-end gross per vehicle, and more importantly, to increase the averages in the Internet departments to be more in line with showroom averages?

As a follow up to my recent blog on Internet Lead ROI, I would like to discuss another important metric for dealerships to track: the percentage of a store’s sales that can be attributed to Internet leads. Just like Internet lead ROI is not a simple formula that everyone can agree on, the percentage of sales that can be attributed to the Internet is not easy to measure.

In a recent survey we asked 184 dealership personnel this question: What percentage of your store’s overall sales is generated by the Internet department? Fully half (50%) of the respondents reported they were in the 20-40% range. Only 15% of respondents reported less than 20%, while 35% of respondents reported their dealerships attributed more than 40% of their sales to Internet leads.

Why such a disparity? I’m guessing that not every dealership answers the following question in the same way:

How do you define an Internet customer?

Since roughly 90% of your customers use the Internet before coming into the dealership, you could argue that 90% of sales are coming from the Internet, and that many of those customers don’t e-mail beforehand—they just call or walk in. But the opposite can also be true. One dealer group I know of, Homer Skelton dealerships in Tennessee, recently created a promotion for their new Payment Pro^SM feature on their website. The dealer group ran a radio campaign and produced a television commercial promoting that customers could pre-qualify for “real payments” without giving their social security number or date of birth. When the traditional ads ran, Homer Skelton saw a huge spike in visits to their website, which then turned into pre-qualified website leads. So are these Internet leads, or should they be attributed to the traditional ad campaign?

Although it may be difficult to arrive at an industry standard for what the definition of an Internet sale is, your dealership should have its own definition. Just as important as a standard measurement is tracking the performance over time so you can identify growth opportunities.

Best Practices for Improving Closing Percentages

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The most effective way to increase the percentage of sales attributed to Internet leads is to improve the closing percentages of your current Internet lead volume.

From the same survey I mentioned above, we filtered responses from the highest-performing dealerships based on the metrics they shared. The most successful Internet departments claimed the following best practices were critical in order to make an Internet department successful:

1)    Quality & Speed of Lead Response (72%)

2)    Website search visibility (66%)

3)    Management Buy-In and Support (61%) and Staff Training & Accountability (61%) tied for third.

Other choices and responses included: quality of leads (58%); quality of staff (42%); tracking & measurement of leads and ROI (33%); online reputation (33%); quality of online merchandising (33%); written policies and procedures that are closely adhered to (22%); lead mix (17%); social media involvement (14%); and number of leads per person (14%).

Dealers continue to stress how critical it is to have a process in place to prevent salespeople from closing out their own leads. It’s too easy for them to say “this lead is bad,” or “that lead isn’t valid,” and simply close out those leads, which results in a higher reported closing percentage—albeit a false one. It’s no different than if 100 customers walk through the door and 10% of those customers are lot drops, and then you calculate the closing percentage of 90 customers instead of 100.

At most dealerships, a valid lead is one that comes in with good contact information; but I have heard some salespeople say a valid lead is one that returns their attempt to contact within three days. How many customers return a single call or e-mail? Most of the time, it takes repeated attempts to get through to a customer.

So I bring up many questions here, and I’m looking forward to everybody’s responses. I think it’s important to discuss metrics so that eventually, an industry standard or benchmarks can be established, to which all dealerships can compare themselves.