iVendi highlights growing importance of tracking dealer lead quality

Automotive retailers are increasingly turning to tracking technology to assess the quality of online sales leads, with new insights revealing significant differences in the effectiveness of digital advertising channels, according to iVendi.

The automotive retail e-commerce specialist said growing numbers of dealers are using lead tracking tools to distinguish genuine prospective buyers from online activity that is unlikely to result in a vehicle sale.

“Lead tracking has been available across our products for some time but we have seen interest in its capabilities rising over recent months, partially in response to a perception among some dealers that a growing proportion of their leads are junk,” he said.

Using iVendi’s tag manager, dealers can monitor the online journey of prospective customers from their initial interaction with an advertisement through to a potential purchase, identifying where customers abandon the process.

The technology also enables dealers to compare the effectiveness of different advertising sources, providing greater insight into which campaigns generate meaningful enquiries and ultimately result in sales.

“The key insight delivered by tracking is the ability to compare leads from different sources. We are seeing increasingly that the quality varies massively, and some ads produce a lot of leads which prove to be little more than noise,” Tew explained.

He added that integration with website providers and marketing agencies allows customers using iVendi APIs or widgets to be tracked back to their original marketing campaigns, helping dealers assess the creditworthiness of prospective buyers.

According to iVendi, traditional measures of advertising effectiveness, such as cost per lead and total enquiry volumes, can be misleading if they do not translate into completed transactions.

“A good lead is someone in the market for a vehicle who has the means to buy one, and is potentially interested in your stock. Today, delivering leads that meet those criteria is often among the more expensive options, we are finding,” Tew said.

He warned that lower-cost leads can sometimes generate significant online activity without producing genuine sales opportunities, potentially increasing the time and resources dealers spend on customers who are unlikely to complete a purchase.

The findings highlight the growing importance of understanding customer behaviour and affordability throughout the digital vehicle purchasing journey, rather than relying solely on initial engagement metrics.

“Tagging click-throughs enables you to take a much more informed view of what is working and what isn’t. It is probably the best available route to maximising the effectiveness of your ad spend,” Tew concluded.