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Lead Tracking for auto dealers

A N e B O O K B Y

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INTRODUCTION

WHY LEAD TRACKING?How can you tell if a lead is truly interested in your product or

service? By arming yourself with the right data.

In this eBook, you’ll learn what lead tracking is and how you can

build a powerful lead tracking strategy, including:

• The benefits of connecting your CRM with lead tracking

software

• How lead tracking connects your marketing and sales teams

• Tips for using your CRM data to its full potential

• How to best use both historical and real-time data to qualify

new leads

Before you know it, you’ll be able to bring data from every corner

of your dealership together to help both your sales and your

marketing teams.

Let’s get started!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT IS LEAD TRACKING? 3

HOW LEAD TRACKING WORKS 5

COLLECTING CRM DATA 7

UNLOCKING CRM POTENTIAL 8

QUALIFYING LEADS 10

REPORTING RESULTS 10

HISTORICAL VS. REAL-TIME DATA 11

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WHAT IS LEAD TRACKING?

Lead tracking is the process of documenting and segmenting

prospective customers based on their online actions.

Successful lead tracking hinges on having the right data from your

customer relationship management (CRM) system and using it

strategically and responsibly alongside your marketing strategy.

Your auto dealership is likely using a CRM, but most CRMs don’t

offer many options for segmentation along with their limited lead

tracking capabilities. Often, a CRM’s tech updates are lacking, which

compromises the potential for using the data well.

That’s why the data generated from tracking leads needs to be

combined with marketing automation software. Those two tools

work hand in hand to give both your marketing and your sales

teams insight into your contact database.

Why do this? Because you don’t just want leads; you want

qualified leads who actually want to talk to your sales team.

And you want to know how to talk to them!

Lead tracking is the process of documenting and segmenting prospective customers based on their online actions.

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These days, people don’t flood the showroom or pick up the phone

to call a dealership.

Instead, they scour the Internet to research which vehicle they want

to purchase and where they want to buy it. Today, the average

buyer visits only 1.6 dealerships while shopping, compared to

five dealerships in the early 2000s.

Converting an Internet lead is no easy feat, and you should know

Internet leads don’t start with a form submission. Before shoppers

even see your form, they run into one of your dealership’s Google

or Facebook ads or a landing page on your website. They have

a whole context of experience before they even hit the “submit”

button. If your sales staff defines an Internet lead as a form

submission, you’re missing out on many prospective customers.

With lead curation constantly evolving, what does lead tracking look

like in today’s auto market?

It all starts with data.

With lead curation constantly evolving, what does lead tracking look like in today’s auto market?

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HOW LEAD TRACKING SOFTWARE WORKS

Lead tracking software, such as HubSpot or SharpSpring, is

where data comes into play.

When a prospective lead visits your website, he or she

receives a cookie: a piece of data sent from the website and

stored on the user’s web browser. The cookie allows the

website to identify a user as a return visitor.

But you’re not tracking contacts yet. Even with cookies stored

in their web browsers, users remain anonymous — until they

become trackable in your lead tracking software by either

filling out a form or clicking one of your emails.

Then, the website can identify a returning visitor in your

software’s database. Now, you can track all digital activity

of the contact on your website.

The software tracks and stores a chronological list of

interactions between your leads and your brand in one place.

This lead tracking gives you the ability to monitor a lead’s

behavior and score each lead for sales potential.

Lead tracking software summarizes important interactions

in the form of a lifecycle stage that will help your sales team

prioritize leads.

These lifecycle stages are vital because they allow for

productive interactions. This way, you aren’t contacting

someone with little or no interest in your brand — or, even

worse, completely ignoring people whose behavior indicates

they’re about ready to purchase a vehicle.

LEAD TRACKING IN ACTIONSo how do you put this information to use?

All data, both old and new, is stored in your CRM database.

While these databases, such as VinSolutions or DealerSocket,

have great features for lead management, they lack several

behavior tracking features found in many marketing

software databases.

To leverage the power of a CRM, our team at 9 Clouds imports

data from a CRM into our marketing software. Once the

contact is imported, we can track their behavior from several

different touch points — such as emails clicked, website visits,

social mentions, video views, and more.

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We use this marketing software hand in hand with your CRM,

so the rest of your dealership doesn’t have to worry about

making a big shift to a new platform.

By monitoring their behavior, we can then sort contacts into

lifecycle stages that trace their progress through the buyer’s

journey, including marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales

qualified leads (SQLs), or dormant contacts. When you track

a lead’s behavior in this way, you can engage them with an

email or a phone call when they are ready.

You can determine everything from whom to target with an

email to whom your dealership should contact personally

by phone. For example, if your lead tracking software tells

you a lead opened your last email and then visited five

similar vehicle description pages (VDPs) on your website, the

software can push that SQL into your CRM so your team

knows to reach out to them. (If you need help with this, ask us

about our Connector tool.)

BEST PRACTICES FOR LEAD TRACKINGIt’s important to keep your lists current for the best results.

We regularly pull data from our clients’ CRMs and import it

into our lead tracking software in order to provide the most

up-to-date and relevant lead information.

We don’t want our clients wasting their valuable time barking

up the wrong tree. That’s why we constantly refresh our lists,

remove dead leads, and — once a lead meets the client’s

criteria — send only the best SQLs to their sales team through

an automated process. If these steps aren’t part of your lead

tracking process, now is the time to make some changes.

Here’s an example of tracking contacts’ online behavior in a “hot leads” smart list.

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COLLECTING DATA IN YOUR CRM

You can pull data from a number of places in your CRM. Each

contact will have a unique source and place in the buyer’s journey.

NEW DATA: Most new lead contact information is collected from

third-party sites, such as Cars.com, Edmunds, Autotrader, or

Carsforsale.com, with a small percentage coming directly from your

own website or showroom.

PREVIOUS DATA: While current lead data is important, collecting

historic lead data is also crucial. Today’s customer will enter the

sales cycle again in the next two years or so. If your store provided

a positive sales experience for a customer and collected all their

contact info, you could easily be at the top of their list (and their

inbox) the next time they look for a vehicle.

CLEAN UP YOUR DATAEach year, about 25% of a customer database decays, meaning

those contacts are no longer worth your marketing efforts.

Behavior tracking allows you to keep your contact list fresh and

save you time by communicating only with qualified leads.

It’s important to collect both new and previous data from your CRM to import into your marketing software.

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UNLOCKING THE FULL POTENTIAL OF YOUR CRM

As we mentioned before, your CRM is just a piece of the lead

tracking service puzzle. It becomes a full-on marketing tool when

you combine it with marketing automation software.

The lead tracking 9 Clouds provides often generates too many leads

for a sales rep to actually manage. When that happens, 9 Clouds

provides personalized follow-up for the individual lead using the

marketing software’s workflow functionality.

As opposed to a generic follow-up, we can contact leads by emailing

them with a message that actually speaks to their position in the

buyer’s journey. Because of the data collected from the CRM that

we’ve imported into our marketing software, we know what they’re

looking for and how to address their needs.

You can also run social media ads targeting people who already

own or are interested in your brand in a specific location. It seems

complicated, but with the combined power of lead tracking and

marketing automation software, it’s easier than ever. (And, with

tools such as Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences, you can further

leverage your data to reach even more potential customers.)

With a marketing software’s workflow functionality, you can automatically send a relevant email in response to a lead’s behavior on your site.

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Here’s an example of an email 9 Clouds sends to alert a sales team about a hot lead.

These follow-up workflow messages have two clear goals:

1. Get the lead to visit your website.

2. Alert the sales rep about the lead the moment they visit your

website.

Getting a lead on the phone can be a challenge. People are often

tied up in meetings or away from their phones.

However, if a sales rep knows the second someone is looking at a

vehicle, they can call that lead immediately, knowing that they are

already browsing inventory on their computer or phone.

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QUALIFYING LEADS

Distinguishing between a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and a

sales qualified lead (SQL) will save you time and money.

An MQL could be someone just browsing your showroom in

July, waiting for the winter specials. You want to keep sending

this lead emails, but you don’t want to waste time calling them.

On the other hand, an SQL could be someone who clicked on

two brand-specific emails and then explored five pages on your

website, all within the past 45 days. This person isn’t just

casually browsing your inventory.

Opening an email is good, but clicking an email is great. Clicking

two model-specific emails within 45 days? That’s gold. They are

certainly worth calling since they are actively pursuing a vehicle.

However you decide to qualify leads, just make sure those

qualifications are relayed to the sales rep. They may never

trust the “leads” list again if, in the past, they only received the

names of those who opened an email or filled out a form three

months ago. If you provide them with quality leads, be sure to

let them know the criteria for those leads.

REPORTING RESULTS

Last but not least, you need to bring the lead full circle and track

their progress. Did the sales rep make a follow-up call? Did they

visit the store or make a purchase? This info is important to

everyone involved with the lead, from the person who created

the email to whoever assigned the lead to a sales rep.

What’s the point of handing out quality leads if no one follows

up with them? Lead lists should never have a “set it and

forget it” strategy. Each lead needs to be nurtured, and results

need to be reported.

You can easily report those results within your lead tracking

software system. You should set up a connection between your

marketing software and your CRM. This seamless integration

gives you real-time results about your leads and their

interactions with your dealership. This certainly takes more

effort to set up, but it is a great investment.

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Both your historical data (past customers) and your real-time data (potential customers actively browsing) are crucial for successful lead tracking.

HISTORICAL VS. REAL-TIME DATA

Connecting your marketing automation software with your CRM

gives you access to real-time data. This is something to which a lot

of dealerships don’t pay attention.

Don’t let your dealership make the same mistake. It will hurt your

business in the long run.

We’re not saying you should ignore historical data altogether,

either. It really takes a combination of historical and real-time data

to fully track leads for your dealership.

HISTORICAL DATAA lot of auto dealers get wrapped up in the historical data: the static

information their store has on a customer. This includes things like

previous purchases, past service ROs, and calls or leads submitted.

For many years, these were the only statistics a dealership could

gather about a customer. And, yes, these are things you still want to

record and recognize.

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You might get a CRM alert for each customer who needs a service

appointment after three months. Or maybe you’ll receive a

notification to start talking about trading in to someone who hasn’t

purchased in a couple years.

These tactics are great starting points and useful email

communications to have with your customers. But at the end of the

day, the information isn’t up to date.

REAL-TIME DATAReal-time data is the best measurement of who is ready to buy. This

information includes the web pages people are visiting, the emails

they are clicking, the ads with which they’re interacting, and the

likelihood that they are ready to purchase.

Using lead tracking software, your dealership can discover which

customers are ready to buy and which ones are not showing

interest. These predictive analytics help focus your sales

representatives’ time on the highest-value leads. Real-time data

online allows you to more productively focus your marketing and

sales efforts.

Here’s an example of a list featuring valuable real-time data.

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Lead tracking is a balance of both marketing and sales tactics, and your teams must work together to be successful.

PUT IT TO WORKYou can start using real-time data by adding marketing automation

software to your website. This will help you get the most out of your

digital marketing.

Then, you can add your historical customer data from your CRM

or dealership management system (DMS) into your marketing

automation software. This combines the best of both worlds,

putting all of the valuable information in one place.

Like we’ve said before, lead tracking is really a balance of

marketing and sales tactics. If your teams aren’t working

together, you won’t have any success trying to put these new

concepts to work for your dealership.

You also won’t see any progress if you don’t pay attention to both

real-time and historical data. Using the historical data gives you a

starting point — a place to build your digital marketing plans. Then,

the real-time data will bring your dealership into the twenty-first

century, ensuring your marketing matches the demands of your

customers.

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Once this is all set up, you can employ the two main types of

lead tracking:

• Lead qualification: With lead qualification, you can

view all information about a contact from a single online

dashboard in your software. You can even create custom

properties to store any kind of data you want. Then, you

can use that data to segment your contacts, send them

targeted emails, personalize content according to their

stage in the buyer’s journey — you name it!

• CRM integration: Lead tracking truly comes full circle with

something like our Connector tool, which sends the

sales-ready leads we generate straight into your CRM. Once

we decide on your ideal criteria for warm and hot leads,

we’ll get them to automatically feed into your CRM, so your

salespeople are alerted the second someone indicates they

might be ready for follow-up.

To give you a good idea of what successful lead tracking looks

like, check out the results we’ve achieved for our clients by

reading our lead tracking case studies.

READY TO GET STARTED WITH LEAD TRACKING?If you’re not sure where to begin with finding and implementing

marketing automation software, or if you’re interested in

learning more about CRM integration with our Connector, we’d

be happy to chat with you.

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THANKS FOR READING! Looking for digital success? That’s why we

made this resource.

Most dealers have a heap of useful data, too

many digital vendors and software platforms,

a few social media accounts, and hundreds

of special sales or service offers that are not

reaching their potential.

At 9 Clouds, we take your data from all of the

software you are using and put it in one place.

You have access to unified, understandable

data. Your customer’s complete digital profile

is quickly accessible. We use this information

to tell your sales reps who is ready to buy

before they fill out a form.

We can also send marketing material to

customers based on their individual data.

The person looking at the red truck gets an

email about the red truck. The person who has

serviced their car five times this year gets an

email with a trade-in offer. This personalized

marketing increases leads and sales (just

check out our case studies for proof).

So why are we just giving away our automotive

marketing secrets? Because we’re nice, and

because we believe in digital karma.

When your dealership is ready to move to the

next level of digital marketing, get in touch

with us!

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