Digital Retailing

Expectations of an Online Shopper

Differing from an on-lot customer, a user who’s shopping for a car online is expecting a website that allows for:

The expectations of an online car shopper extend to both creative messaging and an educated sales staff.

Specifically, digital creative assets must explain why the online shopping experience meets the user’s primary needs in a personalized, branded manner. Without a sales staff that’s trained on what makes an online car shopper unique, a dealership runs the risk of missing out on a qualified buyer.

Differences in User Behavior Between SRP/VDP

All inventory pages are not created equal — at least when it comes to user behavior. SRPs and VDPs are often grouped together and referred to simply as “inventory pages.” When it comes to optimizing a site to match user behavior, however, SRPs and VDPs must be treated differently to maximize lead generation and click-through rate.

After testing the click-through rate of digital retailing CTAs vs. first-party CTAs on nearly 30 automotive websites over a two-month period, we found that:

VDPs are 27.4% more likely
than SRPs to produce a digital retailing CTA click.

With such a large discrepancy in click-through rates between VDPs and SRPs, we can deduce that there are distinct behavioral differences when a user visits these pages:

Mapping the Shopper’s Path

How exactly do we optimize our inventory pages to align with shopper intent?

To answer that question, it’s important to understand the on-site, SRP-to-VDP shopper’s path:

1. Search Results Page – Filtered to the model(s) of interest, the shopper compares pricing across trims/years all within a single SRP
2. Search Results Page – Shopper narrows their online shopping experience, down to the model of interest.
   • Possible Conversion Point: A user who’s ready to convert at this stage in the shopper’s path is interested in a high-level, pricing information and a form that requires minimal information and effort.
3. Vehicle Description Page – Buyer intent has spiked, shopper has focused their purchase behavior on a specific vehicle, and readiness to convert has peaked.
   • Possible Conversion Point: Further along in the shopper path, this user has opted into learning more about one specific vehicle and is more willing to provide additional personal information related to financing and/or vehicle trade-in.

CTA Verbiage and Buyer Intent

Knowing where users are likely to convert and what conversion process they’re willing to complete, we can now strategically align the CTA verbiage and required form information.

After testing the click-through rate of different CTA verbiage on nearly 30 automotive websites over a two-month period, we identified:

“Build My Payment” CTA language generated a VDP click
88.9% more frequently than all other CTA languages.

The click-through rate of “Build My Payment” indicates that a VDP user is ready to begin the buying process for one specific vehicle.

On the SRPs, “Build My Payment” was the most clicked CTA language, but it only had a CTR of 0.91%, which can be explained by SRPs containing too many redundant CTAs that confuse a user who’s more interested in general information than beginning the buying process.

Overall, “Build My Payment” is an ideal example of a VDP CTA that entices users by matching CTA language with the shopper’s stage in the buying funnel. In contrast, SRP CTAs must be simple and directly speak to the user’s shopping phase where general price information is most important.

Optimize Your Digital Retailing Process

In the ever-changing automotive industry, a successfully optimized digital retailing experience can allow a dealership to find qualified buyers, simplify the shopping process, and build lasting customer relationships. A truly customer-centric buying experience cannot exist without an integrated approach that includes a consistent creative identity and a sales staff that’s dedicated to connecting the online and on-lot buying process.