By George Nenni, Generations Digital

Each time I get fresh access to a dealer’s Google Analytics, I hold my breath in anticipation of what the results will look like.  My first task it to look at the dealer’s high-level traffic report, inspecting the volume and quality of website visitors they receive from organic search, paid search, social media, etc.  A common disappointment is when I see a large chunk of untagged, mis-tagged, ill-tagged, mal-tagged traffic, as I know the dealer may be dealing with an unsophisticated agency, and I’ve got my work cut out for me.  

If my goal is to measure the effectiveness of a dealer’s digital marketing campaign, I must first make sure the incoming traffic is properly identified.  A large portion of the traffic typically categorizes itself.  Items such as paid search, organic search (most of it) and organic social typically lands in the proper channel to identify it.  The problem arrives when third party agencies are running campaigns, but don’t have a good understanding how to properly tag the traffic they are driving to the dealer’s website.  The tool they use are UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes, and the lack of a deep understanding can make it very challenging for dealers to inspect their incoming campaign.  UTM codes are simply suffixes that append to the end of a normal URL, helping analytics tools understand where the traffic came from. UTM codes may sound complicated, but they are definitely not. However there are specific rules, syntax that must be followed or problems will arise.  There are two main categories of problems the agencies create: 1) Not understanding how Google prescribes these codes to be used, resulting in 100% of the agency traffic going into the Other channel (miscellaneous file) 2) Taking shortcuts and not tagging each specific campaign, making it nearly impossible to determine which campaigns are working.  Worst case scenario (see screen shot below), the Other Channel is the dealer’s largest traffic category.

The good news is, the mechanics of fixing the problems are very easy.  The bad news is, it can be an uphill battle with non-responsive agencies. These agencies wonder why I care so much that their traffic is being filed in the miscellaneous drawer, is it really hurting anything?  I simply respond that my goal is to help the dealership determine which digital marketing channels are offering the best ROI, and without properly tagging, my only advice for the dealer is to choose a more sophisticated provider. The most common agency culprits are traditional media companies who are also offering digital services.  While I hate to generalize, I would say across the board newspapers, cable companies, television and radio stations all deliver digital campaigns that are improperly tagged, or not tagged at all. They are providing the dealer with high level reporting from their back-end systems, that does not seek to inspect the traffic downstream into the website.  But traditional agencies are not alone.  What is even more surprising is that many large automotive digital-only agency players also suffer from same issues, lack of understanding how to properly tag campaigns, and low willingness to make things right.

These agencies should not just take my word for it, they should read the published standards by Google, or better yet, the published automotive standards by PCG (http://www.pcgresearch.com/google-utm-guide/).  I’m not saying PCG’s standards are perfect, but I haven’t heard anyone else trying to bring organization to this process, so I applaud them for putting some standards out there.  In addition, one of the best investments these agency teams could take is attending a training course on to inspect website traffic using Google Analytics.  Google offers online certification classes for a great overall understanding (https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/). Better yet here is a free plug for my friend Brian Pasch, attend either his online classes, or his onsite Google Analytics training next month in New Jersey (https://www.pcgtraining.com/google-analytics-skill-building-certification-nj/).  I’ve attended each of these, and highly recommend.

Let’s face it, informed and proactive dealers are grabbing the wheel today on the attribution bus and inspecting their campaigns themselves using Google Analytics. These dealers produce their own reports showing which campaigns are working and which ones are not and comparing these reports to the ones provided by the agencies.  These agencies need to wake up and realize that if they don’t understand how their campaigns will be measured going forward, they will be the first vendor dropped by the informed dealer.

I hope you have found this information helpful.  If you are an automotive retailer, don’t miss the upcoming seminar at the GCADA Learning Center. This seminar will explore how to make the best decisions on digital marketing investment and measuring return on investments from this spending. After the seminar, all attendees will have the opportunity to receive a complimentary digital marketing audit, including analyzing your paid search and social media spending. RSVP at www.gcada.net/lc-digital.

You can also follow me on these social networks:

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/georgenenni

Facebook: facebook.com/generationsdigital/

Twitter: twitter.com/generationsdig