As part of ongoing solution innovation initiatives, Urban Science’s Advanced Analytics team was tasked with the challenge of developing a new, technologically superior, enhanced lead scoring model to apply to AutoHook’s third-party incentive solution, also known as Lead2Show. This new, centralized model has proven to pinpoint even more leads with the highest probability of purchasing, faster and more accurately than ever before.

AutoHook’s new lead scoring model leverages the unrivaled sophistication of the Urban Science® DataHub™ - the only source of near-real-time industry-wide sales* data-fueled directly from automakers, not 90-day old registration data. Daily processing of sales and lead data allows us to deliver superior lead scoring automation technology that identifies more in-market buyers faster, without increasing the number of incentives issued.

For our dealers, this means a more efficient, cost-effective solution that eliminates instances of wasted time and money incentivizing leads with a low likelihood of purchasing or leasing a new vehicle. Simply stated, this advanced lead scoring model allows us to send even higher quality leads with the highest propensity to buy into dealer showrooms.

The direct-to-dealer benefits of our new, advanced lead scoring include:

More Sales
Higher Buy Rates
Lower Cost Per Sale
Less Waste (more buyers without increasing the number of incentives issued)

But we don’t expect you to take our word for it. In true Urban Science fashion, we have the data to prove it. We conducted extensive testing and validation efforts to confirm not only that the technology effectively does what we built it to do, but we also calculated the exact statistical significance of the implemented enhancements compared to our previous scoring model.

Methodology

To calculate the success of the upgraded technology, we applied both scoring models to the same data set of 173,532 third-party leads across all OEM brands over a two-week period. The actual results shown below reflect only the leads that were validated to have a high likelihood to purchase and thus received an AutoHook incentive offer. The data confirmed the new and improved algorithm provides significant, quantifiable benefits to our dealers including more sales, a higher buy rate and a lower cost-per-sale.

Results

73% Higher Buy Rate
23% Reduction in Cost Per Sale
11% Increase in # of Sales
10% Reduction in Incentives Redeemed

Good news for current AutoHook clients, this upgrade in our technology is already working for you and will not affect the cost of our solutions. If you don’t use AutoHook’s third-party incentive solution (Lead2Show), for a $77 cost per sale, why wouldn’t you take advantage of this service?

*Sales refers to vehicle unit sales and does not represent vehicle price or revenue.

OEMs are stepping up to the plate with aggressive incentive programs to help out consumers impacted by COVID-19, and they’re putting strong media weight behind these campaigns. As a result, impressions are up and if dealers want to capture this traffic, they need to align with these programs. People still need cars and the data shows they are actively looking to take advantage of these OEM initiatives. Dealers have a great opportunity to gain market share by engaging the traffic generated by their brands (even if that means working leads from home)!

Brands like Ford, Hyundai, FCA, GM, Volkswagen, and more are all offering progressive purchase incentives right now and as a result, impression counts are through the roof. Furthermore, it’s not just about brand awareness activity. Consumers are actively searching retail terms like “incentives” and “auto dealer near me.” Dealers should definitely align with this activity if they want to capture the retail traffic that’s being generated by their brands and gain market share in a down market. This means not canceling your digital ad spend, as we discussed in Part 2.

As an example, we interviewed a digital marketing manager of a large dealer group yesterday and in their market, in March, they were up nearly 70% and they absolutely did not cancel their digital advertising spend.

If you can’t get the eyeballs on the traffic, you certainly can’t get the leads. And you won’t get the showroom visits or the at-home appointments and ultimately, this will lead to less sales. Dealers need to leverage what the OEMs are doing right now, during this time of need, when these opportunities are available. In the wise words of Lewis Carroll, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

Next time, we’ll talk about sales definitely being down, but they’re not gone. Dealers need to keep working leads, even if that means finding new and innovative ways to do so because if not, your competition will.

Stay tuned for On the Dealer Front Lines Part 4: WHO’S WORKING YOUR LEADS?