Most consumers today head to the internet to research their next car and the dealerships they will visit. And most dealerships have an online presence to connect with these consumers such as a website and a few social media sites. For most car shoppers, your online presence will be their first interaction with your dealership, which will ultimately be the deciding factor as to whether or not they choose to visit your lot. Your first impression needs to be a good one. So while you may have the basics in place, there are several key digital areas you need to focus on to make your online presence and brand reputation shine.

How Car Shoppers Shop Online

The time consumers spend online researching their next vehicle is growing.  In 2015, the average time consumers spent researching on digital channels was 12.5 hours (Autotrader). They visit approximately 9 sites, with the largest percentage being third-party sites. The internet is by far the #1 source for both new car and used car buyers with 75% of new car buyers using the internet, and 77% of used car buyers using the internet.

According to Google stats, 82% of car buyers are in the market for three months or less and use seven or eight digital sources on average.

Three of the top five ad formats which prompted research into a potential car purchase are digital.

How Automotive Brands Can Appeal to Online Shoppers

With consumers using a variety of online sources, dealerships must focus on having a consistent presence across different sites.  However, with so many different sites from which to choose and limited time and resources to devote, dealerships (as in all industries) are often challenged to figure out where to concentrate online resources.  Twitter, Facebook, social ads, mobile ads, websites, third-party review sites, YouTube, search engines, online magazines, and so on are part of the digital ecosystem, so the question then becomes which ones to prioritize?

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