Passive vs Active Lead Scoring...What’s the Difference?

Before we get into the difference of active vs. passive lead scoring, it is important to set the stage of how lead scoring was born in the retail automotive industry. Five years ago, I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time when I participated in a RL Polk meeting with my previous dealer group. We had given a year’s worth of internet leads to them to bounce against their registration data. Our dealers knew what we had sold but now we wanted to see how many of these customers had bought from someone else. This exercise had been done before but this meeting would end with a different plan of action.

Like previous meetings, I saw that up to 40% of our total leads bought a car but in most cases, a typical dealership only sells 11-15% of them. That meant that more than double what we sold went to other dealers in our market area. This frustration got the best of me during the meeting when I blurted out “Why do we always have to look at old data to know we are failing? Why can’t we know if these customers are true buyers BEFORE they go somewhere else?”

Luckily for me, the right people from Polk were in this meeting. They shared that they were working on a lead scoring platform and were looking for a test partner. Taking hundreds of strands of data that included registration data, lifestyle info, household status, etc, Polk was betting that they could score a lead in near-real time and pass that score along to the dealers so they would react differently. It was suggested that a 10 was better than a 9 and a 9 was better than an 8 and so on. This was radical thinking at the time but it was a better idea than how salespeople had cherry-picked leads in their current process.

Sell More Cars Faster

As we started testing, the data proved that the higher scoring leads purchased more and faster than the lower scored leads. At least the registration data showed that. What we realized was if the salesperson changed his behavior for the higher scoring leads, we sold more cars. If they didn’t, the score didn't matter. We later named this active lead scoring. It took action on part of our dealership to drive a higher conversion.

As lead scoring was socialized in the automotive community, it was highly controversial. OEMs started scoring leads but chose not to pass this along to dealers for fear that they wouldn't know what to do. Dealers were afraid of scoring because it was something new and went against what every trainer had told them previously; handle all leads the same. As someone who helped co-architect and test the lead scoring platform, I found myself defending the practice ad noisome, even though the data showed it worked. Then, one day I woke up and the idea of passive lead scoring was born.

I decided to take the great data that Polk provided and create a new executable for our dealership teams. Instead of asking the internet salespeople to change their behavior, I thought it might be easier to change the behavior of the customer. We knew they were buying, they just weren't always buying from us. What if we scored the lead, didn't share it with the dealership, and created a reason for the customer to give us the opportunity over our competitors? That was the introduction of passive lead scoring.

Taking some of the great components of HookLogic‚s industry-leading Web to Show 1.0 tool and marrying it up with Polk‚s lead scoring, we created Lead to Show 2.0. When a customer submits a lead to a dealer, no matter if it comes from the website, an OEM, or a third party lead, the lead gets scored and based on the score, the customer is incented to come into your showroom instead of going to a competitor. All of this happened without changing any of the processes at the dealership level. It was like putting the chocolate in the peanut butter.

Once we turned this on behind the scenes for dealerships, we instantly saw an increase in show rate and closing ratio. Some dealerships experienced a closing ratio as high as 38% during the test. It only made sense. Drive the highest intent to buy into your showroom and your internet team will sell more cars...and your competition will have no idea what you are doing because it is behind the scenes. It quickly becomes a secret weapon.

Passive Lead Scoring is a much easier decision for a dealership to make. It allows an internet team to use great data to drive the highest quality at-bats into the showroom without changing the lead follow-up process at your dealership. Adding Lead to Show 2.0 allows you to motivate action while lead is still hot and stand out from the competition.

Why a Web Overlay is Better for SEO than Pop-Ups

Following the same protocol as who we are as an organization (We are NOT a lead provider. We’re a SHOW provider), I’m writing this post to provide clarity between a “pop-up” (which is so passé) and a “web overlay” – the new black of increasing foot traffic. Often times we hear our Web to Show product referred to as a “pop-up”. While it may appear to be a pop-up, it’s actually a web overlay. Semantics? Not really. I’ll explain.

The difference?

Pop up’s have a negative connotation as being intrusive, non-related and just plain annoying. A web overlay, on the other hand, is non-intrusive, is relevant to the visitor and is interesting.

Pop-ups create a new instance in a browser, recognized by Google as leaving the site and therefore hindering your SEO score and increasing your bounce rate.  A web overlay uses content from your site – similar to a photo - that’s brought forward via an iFrame (not a new instance of a browser). We are not popping a new window, we are simply inserting DHTML.  It just so happens to be floating, not inline, layout and doesn’t impact a user’s ability to navigate the page.  Because an overlay is embedded in your site, it supports your SEO score as it shows interaction with your website – Google likes this.

The purpose?

The purpose of our web overlay is to educate in-market shoppers and provide a reason to visit you for a test drive. They are on your website, most likely know which car they want to buy, they just need a reason to choose you. We are the ZMOT. When the notification is displayed, it serves this purpose: “Thank you for looking at our inventory and vehicles of interest. Stop in for a test drive and we’ll redeem your $25 gift card of choice. Let us know when you’ll be visiting and we’ll have your vehicle ready when you arrive.” And when minimized, it stays minimized with a tab like reminder in the bottom left corner of the screen. So when that person is ready to decide, it’s available.

The techy side ala Google: “Google’s natural search rankings DO NOT penalize ranking of a site which displays promotional (or other) content to a site visitor via an overlay. Google only penalizes search rankings for sites which try to use hidden overlays and popups which try to boost the search ranking by presenting different content to the searchbot than to the site visitor. Google defines the popup as an instance of a new window which hinders a visitor’s ability to leave the site.” Our overlay does not.

It's February 7, 2012...Now What?

It’s February 7, 2012…Now what?

Imagine it’s the day after NADA…the flurry of NADA activities, meetings, demo’s, and appreciation events are now behind you. All the planning before-hand has left you overwhelmed with action items. As you sit at your desk, you pull up your conference notes and after a quick glance say to yourself, “Where do I begin?”.

If you’re like me, the reasons you attend a conference is to learn, connect and apply. And, how do you organize all those presentation notes, business cards, marketing brochures, meeting notes and follow up action items? In follow-up to an article I read that Eric Miltsch posted on DrivingSales, I started thinking about “after” NADA. As you plan and schedule now, keep these three things in mind for AFTER:

As I sit at my desk AFTER NADA:

1) Create a summary of key learnings (all those highlights and notes you made) to forward to your leadership team (if they were there, keep it for yourself). This will serve as your working document and easy to decipher notes for use in strategy. If you had to write it now, what would you include?

2) With your goals outlined from "Before NADA" (which should align with the dealership strategy), list two action items for each of those listed in "before".

3) Expand on each with "how" each will be accomplished.

NOTE: Keep these three things in mind as you attend each event which will help organize actions into buckets along the way making the "after" easier "now".

An example check list to consider:

3 "must visit" companies:

1) Company A will help accomplish X 2) Company B will help facilitate X 3) Company C is new and I want to learn X so I can do X (personal development)

3 "must connect with" peeps and why each is important:

1) Peep #1 2) Peep #2 3) Peep #3

3 impacts I want to make in my dealership/s when I return:

1) Impact #1 (immediate application, high impact effecting goal X) 2) Impact #2 (<short term> action item, high impact effecting goal X) 3) Impact #3 (<long term> action item, high impact effecting goal X)

"Lead the Way" when you return and  have a short, concise action plan detailing 2-3 deliverables for each goal, get the right people at your dealership on board (buy-in, involved), set realistic deadlines and ensure follow-up with each new connection.

Close the loop on your conference experience.

Check out this article where Todd Smith of ActivEngage is mentioned with his 2012 marketing trends that will have the biggest impact. How do your goals relate to these top 3?

Using the Coupon Redemption Process to Build Rapport

When a prospective customer comes in to your store, you know that you have more than a 50-50 chance of penning a deal before he or she walks out, a show-to-close ratio that is almost unheard of in other businesses. Despite the already high chances of making a sale, there are always little things we can and should be doing to help increase those chances. The AutoHook coupon redemption process, as simple as it is, gives you an opportunity to increase those chances. When a customer visits your dealership website and fills out the web overlay form to receive a $25 reward card when she comes in to your dealership, this person is making a conscious decision to give you her contact information, which is something that should not be taken lightly, especially in this day in age where privacy protection and control are of increasing importance.

During the redemption process where you enter the customer's coupon code into the AutoHook redemption tool, entering the person's shipping information offers a perfect opportunity to build on your rapport with the customer who is now one step closer towards buying a vehicle from your dealership. Even though this process can be made optional by your AutoHook admin, which should only be done on rare special occasions that we can't think of good examples for, spending the 30 to 45 seconds it takes to enter the info will prove to be a far better use of everyone's time than not doing so.

Here is why...

If no address is input by your team at the time of redemption, an email is automatically sent by the AutoHook system to the customer that contains a link for him or her to click on and submit her shipping information. This is set up this way as a measure to make sure a shipping address is supplied. After all, with no shipping address, no reward card can be shipped.

The problem with this is that now you are putting responsibility back onto the customer who already a.) gave you her contact info and b.) came in to your dealership with her coupon code. If you put the responsibility back onto the customer then you run the risk of her not receiving her reward card.

Think about this from the customer's perspective. It could ruin every bit of rapport you built with that person, all because you did not want to be inconvenienced with entering a street address, city, state, and zip code. IT'S NOT WORTH IT. ENTER THE INFO.

Use the Redemption Process to Build Rapport

The redemption process truly is a terrific way for your personnel to build rapport with walk-ins. If a staff member finds this to be a nuisance, we want to encourage him to think about it differently.

You are literally giving someone a $25 reward card for coming in to meet with you. We all know what a great feeling it is to give people something like this, and sales associates can use the redemption process as an opportunity to make someone happy BEFORE going into the selling process. It takes less than a minute to do this the right way up front and it is time very well spent because it minimizes if not eliminates the potential for hassle, headache, and upset customers that do not receive their card.

Always Redeem the Coupon

On a similar note, failing to enter redemption codes is the #1 reason for your AutoHook numbers to appear lower in your reports than they actually are. We see it all the time. Sales associates find ways around redeeming peoples’ reward cards for coming in and while you might still be selling more cars as a result, the reports can show a lower lead-to-show ratio as a result, which misrepresents the true picture.

Be sure to enforce the process of redeeming all coupon codes that are brought in, and be sure your staff members are also entering the shipping information. This 30- to 45-second process will go a long way for your dealership when you are consistent with this.

Advanced Tips and Best Practices

For more tips like this and to keep abreast with our best practices, register for our Advanced AutoHook Users Webinar Series which runs on the 18th of every month at 11:30am EST.