By James Fabin and
Dave Hollander
2014 SUBURB SUV 4WD LE
DESCRIPTION • Red 4-wheel drive SUV • AM/FM CD & MP3 • Front & rear seat warmers • Power locks & mirrors
OVERVIEW STANDARD
The Science Behind Connecting
Customers to Cars
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Contents
Introduction
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Best Practice #3: Nobody Puts VINny in
a Corner!
Best Practice #4: Just My Type
Best Practice #5: Playing It Cool on Your VSRs
Best Practice #6: Know When To Be Exclusive
“Don’t Run Away from Your Feelings!”
About The Authors
Best Practice #2: Looks Matter
Best Practice #1: Color Matters
The VIN Connection
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HELLOmy name is
SUBURB
S.U.V.
Unless you were trapped under a full-size SUV in 2013, you’ve heard by now that your vehicle detail pages (VDPs) play a critical role along a customer’s path to purchase. The experience a visitor has on a VDP can go a long way toward making or breaking the potential connection a shopper feels with a vehicle, and in turn, your dealership.
So we set out to answer the question— What do shoppers want from your VDPs?
We studied real in-market car shoppers to determine how they engage with your inventory while researching their next purchase. We observed their shopping behavior and later asked what they expected to find while browsing your inventory. We poked, prodded, pestered and probed. All in the name of discovering what drives shopper engagement with your inventory.
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2014 SUBURB SUV 4WD LE
DESCRIPTION
OVERVIEW STANDARD
What we found was pretty surprising. So surprising that we quizzed dealers, asking them a series of questions similar to those we asked shoppers to see how compatible their answers were. Over 1,275 dealers took the quiz. Here’s what shoppers and dealers had to say about the inventory shopping experience.
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It turns out that shoppers browse your inventory in much the same way that singles tour an online dating site. Need some convincing? Let’s look at the parallels between online dating & vehicle merchandising.
Your vehicles each have a personal profile, or a vehicle details page. In much the same way that online dating profiles will often compete for attention alongside other similar profiles in a visitor’s search results, your vehicles might be grouped according to model, trim or features on a vehicle search results page (VSR).
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Each profile contains unique photos and descriptions designed to stand out from the crowd and attract and keep potential suitors. If they like what they see, car shoppers might request to set up a date. We call it a test drive. And in a fairy tale ending, customer and car meet, fall in love and drive off into the sunset together.
Still not buying it? Here are six reasons and ways to start optimizing your inventory for car singles looking to mingle. Or, dare I say… VINgle?
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Every single participant in our inventory shopping study made color a top priority. They wanted to see the actual color in the search results listings. They also wanted to search and filter by color. In fact, color was the key vehicle feature that consumers looked for FIRST when browsing inventory.
We then asked dealers in our quiz what they thought customers first looked for when shopping their dealership’s online inventory. 63% of the dealers who responded thought that PRICE was the feature that customers care most about. Only 26% of respondents predicted that color was a shopper’s first priority when drilling into inventory.
Best Practice #1:
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Yet 100% of the customers we surveyed chose to sort your vehicles by color before filtering by price, available rebates, transmission type or other features.
So be sure visitors to your VSRs can easily search, sort and filter your inventory based on color.
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Color wasn’t the only thing that our shoppers wanted to see. Participants reported that stock photos left them with the impression that those vehicles were “all the same.” Consequently (and not surprisingly), vehicles represented by stock photos on the vehicle search results page had a much lower clickthrough rate than those with actual photos of the vehicle. 70% of shoppers in our study did not click through from a VSR to a VDP on a vehicle listing with a stock photo.
Think about it—if you were online dating, would you click on a profile that used an avatar? Car shoppers can’t connect to canned imagery.
Best Practice #2:
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The profile pic plays a central role in building connections between cars and customers. And this just in… looks matter! They matter to online daters. And they certainly matter to online car shoppers.
If you’re an online dater, it’s hard coming back from a sloppy selfie taken in the mirror in your parent’s basement. If you’re a VIN, the first photo is just as critical. So it’s important to always include flattering photos of the actual vehicle sitting on your lot on each VDP and VSR listing.
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2014 SUBURB SUV 4WD LE
DESCRIPTION
OVERVIEW STANDARD
One of the most surprising findings to emerge from the study was this: Shoppers actually read the vehicle description on the vehicle details page! I know! Who reads anymore?!
It turns out that vehicle detail page visitors are invested in learning more about that vehicle, and they rely heavily on the vehicle description during their discovery process. But every participant in our usability test was confused when they had to read general information about the dealership within those vehicle descriptions.
Best Practice #3:
Nobody Puts VINny
in a Corner!
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Most participants reacted negatively to dealership information in the description field and were frustrated because it took up space that they felt should have been used to help them understand what sets that vehicle apart from others like it. While the shoppers who were surveyed were irritated by the presence of “why buy” messaging in vehicle descriptions, 38% of dealers we quizzed thought that their “why buy” was the most important information to include in the description field. Talk about sending all the wrong signals!
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information about their dealership, and not about the vehicle. The vehicle description is not about your dealership. It’s about the vehicle. Don’t put your VINs in the proverbial corner! A VDP is your vehicle’s red carpet. You never see the agent on the red carpet. Just the star.
The dealership needs to take a backseat to the vehicle when it comes to your vehicle descriptions. Include the trim level information and key features that make THAT vehicle unique. In other words, make sure you use your vehicle descriptions to (cough, cough)… describe the vehicle.
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Best Practice #4:
Just My Type
Very few study participants knew the model names and trim levels of the vehicles they were interested in. Of all the participants looking for an SUV, only a few knew which model names were SUVs. And none of the shoppers surveyed knew trim levels.
48% of the dealers who responded to our quiz were operating under the impression that shoppers were identifying with vehicles by their model names. Help your category shoppers find the vehicle of their dreams by adding sorting functionality to your VSRs that enables visitors to filter your inventory by the different categories you sell.
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There’s no better way to blow a first impression than to come on too strong. Remember Fred’s pick-up lines in Hall Pass? They’re hilarious if you’re watching the movie. Not so much if you’re the women in the bar.
When it comes to merchandising your inventory, pushy, over-eager VSRs can doom your VINs to a life of loneliness, desperation and discount pricing.
Most of the participants in the study were confused that there were options to get a price quote, ask a question or complete a finance application on the vehicle search results page. None of them were ready to contact a dealer from this page.
Best Practice #5:
Playing It Cool on
Your VSRs
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If you think of matchmaking sites, their search results pages don’t have a Date Me Now button. Users need to first view the profile and learn more about their prospective match before winking, poking, pinging or engaging in any other suggestively labeled cyber-flirtation.
Can you say, “premature poking?”
So pump the brakes, Romeo. Don’t sell cars from the vehicle search results page.
The job of the VSR page is to allow shoppers to narrow down their search to a few vehicles and then drive them to view the vehicle details pages for those vehicles. Remove all of the unnecessary clutter, logos and calls to action that are not related to taking the shopper to the vehicle details page. This includes removing any excessive copy, buttons, links and images placed above the vehicle search results. These only serve to push the search results lower on the page and frustrate shoppers.
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Only essential info in bulleted lists
Only one call to action per vehicle to drive visitors to a vehicle’s VDP
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The vehicle details page is where the magic happens. It’s where shoppers go from casual to committed.
If you want your vehicle details pages to consummate the VIN connection, each individual VDP needs a singular focus. It needs to be solely devoted to one, unique VIN. It needs to show a shopper why that VIN is his VIN-in-a-million. His road mate.
Speed Dating
The spark between vehicle and visitor can ignite quickly, but can fizzle out just as fast. The majority of the participants in our study judged the vehicle within the first few seconds of seeing the VDP.
The study showed a spike in VDP bounce rates when anything other than a vehicle image was top of page. So make sure the first thing that greets a shopper when she lands on a VDP is a great-looking photo of the vehicle.
Best Practice #6:
Know When To Be
Exclusive
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copy, buttons, links and images placed above the vehicle information.
It’s important that everything the shopper sees on a VDP is something that helps connect them to that VIN. You’re selling a car, not racing one with NASCAR. So strip your VDPs of all the unnecessary graphics, icons and buttons. Shoppers have wandering eyes. And these extras can be distracting. They clutter the page and take the shopper’s attention away from the vehicle.
And yes, I’m talking about those big buttons you added to
Value Your Trade and Apply for Financing. Have you ever seen
a matchmaking site include a link to Evaluate Your Last Partner on a person’s profile?
Let your shoppers leave their luggage at the VDP door. The VDP is not about their last love. It’s all about their next true love.
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“Don’t Run Away
from Your Feelings!”
Chris Farley said it best in Tommy Boy. Even the most prudent and pragmatic shoppers can’t run away from their feelings during their car-shopping journeys. Purchasing a vehicle is a process driven by emotion. And the connection shoppers make with your vehicles is deeply emotional.
So, like it or not, selling cars is a lot like playing cupid. Follow these best practices for optimizing your VSRs and VDPs and you won’t just drive shopper engagement with your inventory. You’ll be the Chuck Woolery of car sales.
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About the Authors
James Fabin is a Sr. Product Marketing Manager for
Cobalt with a focus on the website platform and website best practices. For over 19 years, James has worked in the automotive industry with a passion for consumer behavior and marketing. James has hosted workshops at Automotive Boot Camp and AutoCon and enjoys working directly with DPs, GMs and ISMs to share his knowledge and gain first-hand feedback. James can be reached at [email protected].
Dave Hollander joined Cobalt’s Marketing &
Communications team in April 2012 and helped launch Cobalt’s video marketing. He now helps lead Cobalt’s content marketing initiatives and social media community management. As an Email Marketing Specialist at Cobalt, Dave was responsible for designing dealership email marketing strategies and campaigns, partnering with dealers to drive owner and in-market visibility, leads and sales within an integrated marketing strategy. Dave earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Colgate University and a M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University. He’d love to hear from you. Give him a shout at [email protected].
