Vehicle Engagement on your Website: Beyond VDP’s

In 2024, the automotive industry is witnessing a paradigm shift in online engagement measurement, moving beyond traditional Vehicle Details Page (VDP) views to embrace a broader range of metrics thanks to the the Automotive Standards Council (ASC). Metrics such as media engagement, click-to-call interactions, call-to-actions (CTAs), and form submissions are now pivotal in understanding customer behavior and predicting sales trends. Dealerships that incorporate ASC metrics are experiencing tangible improvements in Gross Per Unit (GPU), with increases of up to 10%. The Dealer Insights platform gives you access to these engagement metrics to empower dealerships in making informed decisions about pricing and inventory management. This progression highlights the importance of staying ahead in a digitally-driven automotive landscape, where adapting to change isn’t just recommended—it’s essential for continued success.

As Dealer Insights customers you already have access to these tools. To view the dashboard you’ll go here: https://v2.dealerinsights.com/dashboards/vdp-views  and log in if you’re not already. (Need a Dealer Insights login? Email us and we’ll get you setup.) You’ll see in the screen shots below you can filter by year, make, model, trim to look at engagement on different segments of your inventory.

You’ll also see in the screenshots below you can sort by clicking on the column headers to highlight different metrics. If there’s a particular vehicle that’s not moving fast enough you can quickly search for it in the search bar and look at that vehicles specific engagement metrics. If you click on the vehicle title on the left you’ll be taken to the VDP if the vehicle is present on your website. Vehicles without a link are not currently on your website.

Having this information at your fingertips makes it easy to highlight well performing and poor performing vehicles based on customer engagement. Dealers that we’ve studied use this information to make decisions on pricing, potential future stocking plans, and where to allocate marketing dollars. For example, if you have a handful of vehicles with poor engagement you may want your marketing agency to promote those through advertising to turn them quicker. Vehicles with high engagement – high form submissions, CTA’s and lots of VDP’s may not be the best candidate for a price drop if they’re currently getting attention. There’s no reason to give up gross unnecessarily on high value units. If you’re a customer that has questions about using this tool, or not a customer but want access to tools like this, reach out to us today. We’re happy to help!