Background

This year, we analyzed Foureyes data from December 2020 - November 2021, which covers more than:

• 375 million dealer website visits
• 28 million unique pieces of inventory
• 21,500 automotive dealership websites (including group sites)

Foureyes tracks activity occurring on dealership websites, which was aggregated to provide the data in this report. To provide clear benchmarks, this report filters out website activity from bots, solicitors, job seekers, service customers, and other non-sales leads that dealers nationwide received. The insights below can be used to guide sales and marketing strategies and further boost your dealership’s competitive advantage.

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Lead Experience

For this section, we’ve categorized the dealership web lead funnel stages as:

• Visitors to your website who may or may not have completed a lead action
• Leads who converted from a dealership’s website via phone call, form, or chat
• Qualified Leads who are confirmed to be in the market to purchase a vehicle, with service and other non-sales leads filtered out. These are a subset of the aforementioned “Leads”
• Sold Leads who originated from a dealer’s website and later completed the sales process and purchased a vehicle. These are a subset of “Qualified Leads”

Inventory shortage or not, there are leads dealers can’t sell to at any given point in time, and thus, essentially have to turn away. These leads ebb and flow seasonally or due to other market and economic conditions. What’s important for dealers to keep in mind is simply this: Don’t forget about them. Each lead remains a possible future sale.

Altogether, 41.2% of the average dealership’s Qualified Leads are “mishandled,” meaning calls were missed, follow-up was delayed, or lead inquiries weren’t logged to the CRM.

Here’s the breakdown of each event that accounts for the 41.2% of Qualified Leads:

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Consider this: the above data of “mishandled” leads essentially shows that dealer websites are capturing more leads than you’re accounting for, or even aware of. This can impact broader decision-making KPIs such as close rates.

Lead Engagement

Speaking of leads, do you know where yours are actually coming from? Making decisions on strategies, processes, tools, and overall budget is easier when backed by data.

For this section, we define “lead action” as when a lead calls, chats, or fills out a form via the dealership website.

Website Funnel Metrics

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Returning Leads

On average, about half (51.9%) of the Qualified Leads that are active on dealers’ websites at any given time are returning visitors – i.e. they previously called, chatted, or filled out a form via the website.

By lead type:

• 40.9% of call Qualified Leads are returning visitors, while 59.1% are first-time visitors
• 54.1% of form Qualified Leads are returning, while 45.9% are new
• 50.0% of chat Qualified Leads are returning, while the other 50.0% are new

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Days to Close

Among the Qualified Leads that buy, a majority (61%+) of them do so within three days of their first qualified lead action.

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By lead type:

• 65.9% of Sold Leads from calls are closed within three days
• 60.3% of Sold Leads from form fills are closed within three days
• 58.1% of Sold Leads from chat are closed within three days

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Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) Views

Leads tend to view more VDPs the further along they get in their sales cycle. Here’s a look at the average number of VDP views per stage:

• Leads: 4.2
• Qualified Leads: 7.7
• Sold Leads: 10.3

We can also look across the lead’s buying cycle to better understand how they view New vs Used VDPs:

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Takeaway 1: More leads were likely to visit just a New or just a Used VDP than they were to visit both.

Takeaway 2: Not reflected above, however, there were slightly more “No VDP Views” at each stage of the funnel this past year (December 2020 - November 2021) compared to the year prior (December 2019 - November 2020). In other words, fewer people viewed VDPs this past year compared to the previous year. The biggest difference is observed at the Lead stage, which saw “No VDP Views” increase from 37.9% to 45.2%, while the smallest change is at the Visitor stage (57.6% vs 59.4%).

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Lead Attribution

By Lead Type

This breakdown gives dealerships a much clearer picture of which lead actions are most valuable. For instance, at first glance, it appears phone calls seem to be your best lead source (55.7%). However, when you look at Qualified Leads (which filter out bots, wrong numbers, service inquiries and other non-sales leads) it’s actually form fills that account for the majority of Qualified Leads and Sold Leads.

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By Channel

Organic and paid advertising tend to draw in the majority of Leads. And while organic traffic remains the top-attributed channel for Qualified Leads and Sold Leads, there’s a decrease in Paid and an increase in Direct as the lead moves through the sales cycle.

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Inventory Management

The inventory section of this report often uses the median to report on trends and key performance indicators for the automotive industry.

More specifically, dealership inventory data is reported primarily from one of two different points in time, including:

• December 2020: This represents the “peak” month of inventory for this report’s timeframe (December 2020 - November 2021). Meaning that since then, inventory levels steadily declined.
• November 2021: This is the last full month before data for the report was captured and analyzed, presenting the most current snapshot of inventory insights.

Throughout the rest of this section, the report looks at dealership inventory levels by brand, geography, condition, and price strategy.

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Inventory Size

Across all dealers, the median of new and used inventory on a dealer website, per each time period decreased.

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New vehicle inventory at new franchise auto dealerships shrunk much more significantly over the past 12 months compared to used vehicle inventory.

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The median daily new inventory saw a decrease across all brands, but some more than others.

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Inventory by State

Median New Vehicles Listed on a Dealer’s Website Each Month by State

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Median Used Vehicles Listed on a Dealer’s Website Each Month by State

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Vehicles Added & Removed Across All Dealerships

The median number of vehicles that auto dealers added and removed from their online inventory in November 2021 includes 33 new vehicles and 68 used vehicles.

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Dealership Price Adjustments

The median number of online price adjustments in November 2021 made by dealerships was 16 for new vehicles and 90 for used vehicles. Here’s what this data point looks like across different brands:

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New Inventory Price Transparency

When it comes to price, only 22% of dealers list price or conditional price for all online new inventory. 49% list price for at least half of new inventory, while 30% don’t list price online for any inventory.

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Conclusion

The 12 months of data presented in this report posed new, but also familiar trends and challenges for dealerships as it pertains to the effects of the inventory shortage.

Inventory will return, and when it does, you can give your dealership a competitive advantage by ensuring all your leads are automatically captured and nurtured.

Foureyes automatically tracks and captures website leads in the background for you, while also sending automated, personalized inventory emails to leads – leaving your sales team to do what they do best – sell.