Background
Autometrics collects the most comprehensive new vehicle shopper data to enable automakers, their agencies and industry analysts to track essential metrics including new car demand, competitive threats and opportunities, marketing and incentive effectiveness, shopper to sales conversion ratios, cross shopping activity and inventory management opportunities, all at national, regional and DMA level. Combined with the latest data science techniques, clients can tactically allocate sales and marketing resources to reflect changing patterns of sales demand, increasing sales at a lower cost.
Autometrics’ shopper data is the most complete and consistent leading indicator of new car demand for new vehicles in the US. Data for all makes and models is collected in real-time from a vast range of third party automotive websites, covering an estimated 90% of all new car buyers.
Why is the Shopper Data important?
Using Autometrics shopper data, automakers have almost immediate insights into lower funnel demand for their vehicles, by market, and how that demand is changing relative to the competition. The negative sales impact of competitive campaigns can be assessed as soon as they air, as well as consumer reaction to own-brand marketing activities.
Insights are available to answer a range of questions, such as:
Marketing and Incentive Strategy
Should the focus be on increasing the number of shoppers, due to lower than required Share of Shoppers in a market? Or should the concentration be on sales conversion tactics, due to higher than expected Share of Shoppers, or a combination of both approaches?
Incentives Effectiveness
Analyse historic incentive effectiveness for each vehicle segment at national, regional and DMA level, by dollar value.
Advertising Effectiveness
How effective is each advertising campaigns at increasing shopper demand? Which markets are responding more favorably to an ad campaign than other markets? Which competitor campaigns have the greatest negative impact?
Inventory Mix
Which markets have oversupply or undersupply of vehicles for the six weeks ahead, based on regional sales demand? Plan local media campaigns to move vehicles that are in oversupply, and avoid wasting marketing efforts on vehicles that are in undersupply.
Cross Shopping Intelligence
Which competitors are likely to affect my shopper sales conversion targets?
Competitive Analytics: Why is it important?
Actionable intelligence about shoppers ready to buy.
Autometrics data reveals actionable intelligence up to six weeks before new car shoppers purchase a vehicle. The data is a real-time census of the number of people in market for every make and model, at DMA level, including all competitors.
Using Autometrics Shopper data transforms the ability to understand the competitive landscape, and for the first time, enables timely and less wasteful marketing and incentive actions. For example, a key application of Autometrics Shopper data is to determine whether the focus should be on generating additional shoppers, if there aren’t enough to meet the sales targets, or, on converting existing shoppers into customers, or both.
Attracting more shoppers
Often clients find there aren’t enough Shoppers in market for their vehicles, and they need to focus on generating additional Shoppers through advertising and promotion activities. Clients use Autometrics data to reveal whether the volume of Shoppers is sufficient, based on seasonal sales conversion rates, to hit expected sales targets for the month ahead, and where any gaps exists, by region and DMA.
Further, the success of marketing actions are revealed in days (and sometimes overnight) by their impact on Share of Shoppers – this enables adjustments to be made faster. Equally, all competitor marketing campaigns can similarly be tracked to measure their impact on shopping demand. And further still, historical analysis of prior campaigns tells clients what actions have worked in the past, again at regional and DMA level.
Converting more shoppers into buyers
The relationship between Shopper data and Retail Sales is vital for automakers to track and understand, on a daily basis. Often clients find there are enough shoppers in market, and the challenge instead becomes converting them into customers. Autometrics enables the optimization of incentives and tactical marketing budgets by only allocating dollars to regions and markets where incentives are needed.
Further, clients use Autometrics data to respond immediately to competitive actions that will have a negative effect on their shopper to sales conversion rate, and minimize the effect on future sales. A simple glance at a daily Autometrics Share of Shopper report reveals exactly what competitive challenges are gaining momentum, and where.