Your Key to More Leads is Not Increasing Spend
I got my start in automotive 17 years ago when my dad handed me the keys to his used car store and said, “I’m going to play golf. You’ll figure it out.” We had dial-up internet and a fax machine, a website that used ClipArt for graphics, trade appraisals came from that little yellow book in dad’s back pocket, and the AutoTrader photographer visited weekly to shoot for our page in their paper circular. Need to replenish inventory? Just hang out on Wednesday mornings in the gas fumes and cigarette smoke-filled lanes of Manheim’s humble beginnings. Ah, the good ole days!
Since then, there have been very few roles in this business that I haven’t held, from wholesale to retail. I’ve watched the industry move from paper to digital and listened as the #1 concern for GMs shifted from foot traffic to phone ups to internet leads. No number of leads is ever enough, and growth in lead volume simply moves the goalpost further away due to our insatiable need for more. We’re willing to throw more money into advertising, enroll in every flashy third-party tool we demo, and jump from provider to provider because surely it’s a problem with them, right? What if I told you that the biggest determinant of your lead volume is the one you can fix for exactly $0? Your website is the issue.
Mobile is Key
Everyone on the sales floor views your website all day in a desktop view, I get it. But by not optimizing for mobile first, you’re losing customers. 70%+ of your audience is on mobile, and 90% of them prefer shopping in apps, where conversion rates are 157% higher than mobile sites. (1)
Think Amazon: Minimal CTAs, streamlined search results, and frictionless navigation. They understand mobile-first.
Key takeaway: Simplify your mobile experience: fewer options, clearer paths to conversion.
For the Love of Buttons
Here’s where I start hurting some feelings—it is scientifically proven that offering more options leads to difficulty in decision-making and reduces the motivation to make a purchase.
The Jam Experiment (2) proves it: While a booth with 24 gourmet jams on display garnered 20% more customer views, the booth with only six jams on display had a 27% higher conversion rate. Offer fewer conversion options, not more.
Your Vehicle Details Page (VDP) needs a makeover:
- Focus on: A low-pressure form, a call option, a trade valuation tool, and a finance tool.
- Ditch: Clutter and overwhelming options.
Color & Contrast Matter:
- Red: Urgency, but potential negativity.
- Blue: Trust and calm.
- Brighten CTAs That Matter: Guide the user’s eye.
Key takeaway: Your giant, ugly CTA stacks are costing you sales. A store website that averages 10,000 visitors per month could increase gross by $30,000/mo (assuming $2,000 profit per deal) if CTA optimizations increased conversion rate from 1% to 2% (assuming an average sale conversion rate of 15% for website leads).
Site Speed is Non-Negotiable
- 53% of mobile users bounce if a page load takes over 3 seconds. (3)
- Even a 100ms delay = 7% conversion drop.
- Only 8.8% of users click on a banner from a rotating carousel, 40% of which were the banner in Position 1, and click rates cut in half for each banner thereafter. (4)
Actionable Steps You Can Take Today:
- GTM Audit: Eliminate unnecessary backend scripts dragging down your website load times.
- Banner Reduction: Limit to two, focus on key offers.
Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is
Recently, one of my clients asked me for help – their leads were down, sales goals weren’t being met, and customer pay RO figures were dismal. After auditing their website, we made the following quick and simple updates:
- Backend: Removed 11 old scripts from providers and tools that were long canceled, noticeably increasing page load times.
- SRPs: Reduced CTA stack to one simple form fill, added Sort By option, streamlined filters, and killed the pop-up message.
- VDPs: Reduced CTA stack to four (simple form fill, trade valuation, payment estimator, and shortcut to credit app) with a Tap to Call option on mobile. Used a brighter color on all form fill CTAs to draw attention.
The results in just two weeks?
- 43.5% increase in average engagement time per user
- 53.4% increase in event count
- 29.6% increase in page views
- 26.4% increase in SRP views
- 62.1% increase in VDP views
Your digital advertising providers should be as invested in your website’s performance as you are. We know that sending visitors to a bad user experience doesn’t bode well for either of us. Stop throwing money at a problem you can fix for free—your digital ROI and sales are suffering for it.
