NASHVILLE. Tenn. -

For dealers still unsure how to incorporate Facebook into their marketing strategy, Dataium’s newest report sheds some light on how effective the social media site can be in generating new activity for a store’s website.

Dataium found that while only 0.45 percent of vehicle shoppers have been referred directly from Facebook to a dealership website, analysts highlighted that 94 percent of those referrals are visiting the dealership website for the first time.

In addition, the firm found 27 percent of those first time visitors return to the dealership website after their initial visit, compared to a 22-percent return for the average shopper.

In terms of vehicle views, Dataium noted that 36 percent of shoppers referred by Facebook view at least one vehicle, compared to 32 percent of shoppers who were referred by other websites.

However, analysts pointed out Facebook shoppers view an average of only two vehicles, compared to other shoppers who on average view five models.

“The data shows that Facebook is a good approach to getting new visitors to dealership site,” stated Dylan Snyder, Dataium’s senior manager of business intelligence.

“The lead to visitor ratio, which is less than half of our network average, is disappointingly low. However, this highlights that dealerships cannot rely on Facebook alone. Traditional methods are still needed to turn these new visitors into leads,” Snyder continued.

These Facebook findings are part of Dataium’s annual social media report that examines the influence of Facebook and other social media websites on automotive shopping behavior.

The report is based on online automotive shopping events from a database of more than 100 million active auto shoppers and details the impact of social media on visits, vehicle searches, inventory views and leads on dealership websites.

“There has been much discussion in the automotive industry surrounding the importance of incorporating Facebook and other social media outlets as part of an overall marketing strategy,” Snyder acknowledged.

“Because of this, we’ve developed the social media report which aims to help car dealers and their marketing agencies determine how much return they are getting from these social channels,” Snyder added.

In addition to the report, Dataium also offers subscriptions to their social media dashboard which can be customized to provide social media influence around a specific make, model, DMA or by an individual website.

The complete social media report can be accessed at dataium.com/library along with additional reports and research on mobile device usage, online auto shopping trends, visitor search profiles, the Auto Shopper Intensity Index report and more.