An under-discussed subject in the world of automotive marketing, Shopper Distribution determines how evenly shoppers are allocated across your vehicles on your website. Most managers view their advertising analytics on a website-wide level, thus only learning about the web traffic to the entire dealership site. While the broad numbers can help paint a general picture, the granular analytics of Shopper Distribution can help dealers make better marketing decisions to grow the bottom line. With over a decade of experience in automotive marketing, Speed Shift Media presents this following guide on Shopper Distribution in 2021. If this is an unfamiliar topic to you, make sure to read until the end… We compiled a list of important questions to ask yourselves and #6 will surprise you!

What is Shopper Distribution?

Consider the following pie charts… each pie represents 10 VINs and the size of the pie corresponds to the number of VDP views generated on that VIN:

As one can clearly see, Good Shopper Distribution is when the web traffic that hits your dealer site is evenly distributed across your vehicle selections. With Good Shopper Distribution, you would be happy to see that your traffic vendor is evenly spending your budgets across your inventory. Conversely, Poor Shopper Distribution alludes to the scenario where the traffic you may be paying for is inefficiently distributed amongst your inventory. With Poor Shopper Distribution, the dealers now face unclear conditions on how they can move forward with their marketing strategies.

What is Click Candy?

A very common scenario that leads to Poor Shopper Distribution is Click Candy. Click Candy refers to the highly attractive vehicles in the lineup which garnish all the attention, but generally sell the least. For example, the 2021 Toyota Supra is a Click Candy vehicle which many click on, but few purchase (relative to the Highlanders, Corollas, and Tacomas). Other examples would be the Dodge Hellcats, the Chevrolet Corvettes, the Acura NSX’s… You get the point. These vehicles typically already have strong selling potentials due to their established reputations in enthusiasts circles, so they don’t need further marketing dollars to turn. Click Candy leads to Poor Shopper Distribution and can possibly lead to $xx,000 thousands of dollars in marketing waste, if the dealer is not paying attention!

This is what Poor Shopper Distribution looks like…

Looking at the graphic above, you can clearly see how Poor Shopper Distribution can be problematic in your dealership, leaving the majority of your inventory underexposed to the web traffic you are paying for.

So What’s The Solution?

Besides partnering with Speed Shift Media to come up with a winning advertising campaign for your dealership, we usually recommend our dealers to ask themselves the following…

Questions about quantity…

1. • Why does so much traffic land on so few VINs?
2. • Is the amount of traffic I am getting a good or bad thing?
3. • How can I get traffic to the VINs that aren’t getting any?
4. • Why am I spending so much on VINs that already get lots of activity?
5. • What sources are bringing the greatest volume of shoppers?
6. • How well distributed are those shoppers across my VINs?
7. • How much of my marketing spend am I wasting?

Questions about quality…

1. • What sources are bringing in new shoppers?
2. • What sources are bringing back existing shoppers?
3. • How engaged are the shoppers I am getting?
4. • Are the shoppers I am getting local to my store?
5. • How many vehicles get exposure for my spend?
6. • How many sold vehicles are the shoppers engaged in?
7. • How much of my marketing spend am I wasting?

In asking yourself these questions above, you’re likely to find areas of Poor Shopper Distribution. The easiest fix would be to take this discovery and bring it to the attention of your dealership’s marketing department or agency. This way, you could receive some valuable feedback regarding the source(s) of the issue(s) and thus make better marketing decisions for your dealership. Besides that, see our webinar highlights video below for more information relating to Shopper Distribution!

How Can Speed Shift Media Help?

Our platform, VIN IQ, has been designed as a supercharged Google Analytics built specifically for automotive dealerships. VIN IQ analyzes and interprets vehicle-level data and prescribes inventory marketing tactics that reduce waste and turn cars faster, with less markdowns, and without increasing marketing spend. We are currently offering a two month free trial and will work with you to optimize your campaign performance!