CHICAGO -

After the last chapter of our “How to sell to Gen X and Y” series, we have a good idea of what happens during the active evaluation phase — when car shoppers expand their initial consideration set.

The question now is, is your dealership at an advantage when it comes to capturing these shoppers at the right time during their active research? To begin to answer that, we have to find out why online consumers are coming to your lot.

In our research, we pulled data from dealerships around the country that asked visitors a very important question: “How did you decide to come to my store today?”

For those whose answer involved an Internet source, a whopping 45 percent said they arrived on the lot hot off the dealership’s website (another 29 percent come from AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, the manufacturer’s website or Craigslist — more on this in a bit). This begs the question, how are they getting to your website in the first place?

Our research tells us that a stunning 96 percent of your potential customers are finding your website in one of only four ways: direct traffic, search engine results (paid and organic), Cars.com and AutoTrader.com.

Let’s break that down: Nearly three-quarters of the online shoppers that arrive on your lot come either from your website, the manufacturer’s website or a third-party car-listing site; those that come from your website arrive on it via search-engine and third-party listing sites. The takeaway?

There’s a small — but mighty — number of online sources that lead the majority of people to your lot:

•    Search engines (organic results and paid search advertising on Google, Bing and Yahoo)
•    Third-party vehicle listing sites (Cars.com, Autotrader.com, Craigslist)
•    Manufacturer websites
•    Your website

The information you present on this powerful collection of sites is crucial in pushing customers to your store. But what makes the difference between a consumer seeing your online content and moving on — or pulling the trigger and stopping by in person? Come back for chapter six of our series, in which we’ll explore the motivations that turn online browsing into on-lot shopping.

Editor's Note: To learn more from this series, see Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV

Patrick McMullen is vice president of sales at MAX Systems. This blog entry and others can be found at www.getrelevantordie.com.

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