What is attribution?
The dictionary definition of attribution:
noun
the action of regarding something as being caused by a person or thing: the electorate was disillusioned with his immediate attribution of the bombings to a separatist group.
- the action of ascribing a work or remark to a particular author, artist, or person: the study of Constable is fraught with problems of attribution | the attribution to Mozart on the title page is correct | he bought pictures unseen, according to their attributions.
- the action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by a person or thing: the attribution of human emotions to inanimate objects | [count noun] : attributions of false motives, especially of greed, are commonplace.
In the dealership marketing world, attribution relates to which lead gets credit for the sale. If a lead came from Autotrader and buys a car, Autotrader is the source that gets the credit and that goes toward the R.O.I. (Return On Investment) measurement on Autotrader’s performance that month.
Car Dealer CRM History for Leads
Tom Harsha and I have been at this a long time and wanted to inform you that an ancient way of looking at data is corrupting your view of your dealership’s marketing. CRMs were born in a time when we used to buy Internet leads from companies that no longer exist. To get more dealer adoption on saving dealers money, CRM systems implemented a “refund” system on duplicate leads. Whenever customer data that was already in the system matched a new lead’s customer data, the new lead was flagged as a duplicate (usually marked bad) and a notification was sent back to the lead provider asking saying “don’t charge us for this lead because we already had it from somewhere else.”
This model died in the mid-2000s, but most of our CRM systems were built before this time. This rejection of duplicate leads is deeply coded into their frameworks; making it impossible for them to divest it.
CRMs/ILMs built in the 1990s and 2000s
- eLead
- VinSolutions
- DealerSocket
- Reynolds CRM
- AutoBase
- HigherGear
- iCarMagic/iMagicLab/CRMSuite/TheCRM
- LeadProspector
- Cowboy
- AVV WebControl
More Modern CRMs
Keep in mind CRM development is a feature chase. Because many dealers will not switch systems without one CRM working the same way as another old one, these CRM companies copy each other. Just because it is a newer system does not mean it has shed all the old ways of the older system.
- DriveCentric
- Tekion
Why can you not trust CRM reporting for attribution?
CRMs have no way to show many sources contributed to the sale of a vehicle. They are singularly focused on giving credit to the original lead source. Sometimes, that lead source was from years ago; granting that old source credit for something it had nothing to do with on this sale.
This is why marketers get so upset with sales people who change the source to “walk in” or “phone up.” When that happens the true source gets blown out.
Besides, since when was “walk in” or “phone up” an ad source. Those are categories for how the customer came to your attention. Ad sources have advertisements. They’re directly paid for! I never understood why CRMs insisted on putting customer entry points into the ad source area of the data. I guess this leads back to that singular approach to measurements. It is too simple.
What is the solution?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a free one or one that is easy. You can invest in a C.D.P. (Customer Data Platform) or another reporting system that looks at wholistic advertising ROI. We are happy to recommend some to you.
The other option is to audit every sold customer’s CRM history. See it for yourself. If you see a “duplicate” lead in the customer history, that lead deserves some credit for helping make that sale. Instead of just looking at the CRM report, a little more legwork needs to happen. I used to do this as the eCommerce Director for Checkered Flag for every deal, every month. We sold thousands of cars a month. It sucked, but from 2004 to 2010 I did it for the whole group.
The final option is even more difficult: trust your vendor. And I know this is rich coming from a vendor. When we say we had a hand in moving that metal, we didn’t just pull that out of our butts. At least listen to us a little.
At the end of the day, just be educated that you cannot fully trust your CRM reports.
