Over the course of nearly two decades where Firas Makhlouf has spent leading technology and digital marketing initiatives at Driver’s Village, he’s pretty much done it all. From helping the dealership initiate client server architecture to move the group from “dumb” green screen terminals to PC’s in 1999, to introducing new forms digital marketing such as third-party leads, banner advertising, and now growing brand awareness through social media. But what Firas says works best for the dealership right now is when they’re able to drive low-funnel, VIN-specific traffic directly to their website.
So when Firas was introduced to LotLinx at a Chrysler conference in Las Vegas in October 2014, he was immediately intrigued.
“A different kind of digital marketing solution.”
A couple months after he became aware of LotLinx, Firas tried it out, and he’s been an enthusiastic customer from that day.
“We feel the value of that LotLinx customer is a lot higher than what we were once accustomed to. When LotLinx sends a shopper to me, I know that person is in the lower part of that funnel. He’s seven to 10 days away from buying. When we see traffic that’s not VIN-specific, those people are either mid- or top-funnel. They’re between 60 to 120 days out.
“We serve up our new and used vehicles to LotLinx, and they take it and distribute it out to many different sites. When a customer is doing a search and sees that VIN-specific 2015 Nissan Altima with 18,000 miles — that’s a unique vehicle. It’s like a snowflake. No one else has that vehicle but me. Yes, there are other 2015 Nissan Altimas out there, but this one with the scratch on the front bumper is mine and only mine.
“The results are measurable. The traffic that comes to my site is traffic we own. I can do with it as I please. If I want to serve up an ad to them, or they want to see all my inventory, both new and used, or they want to get into the e-commerce side of things and get a trade valuation — the LotLinx model is really profitable for us because now we have the shopper right where we want him.”
Better analytics make for better marketing
In recent months, LotLinx has increased its capabilities to deliver actionable intelligence to dealers at the VIN-specifc level, and Firas is taking full advantage of it.
“When we first started looking at it,” he reports, “we saw that some vehicles that I don’t have enough of were getting too much exposure, so we started shaping our spend based on our bread-and-butter cars. We no longer serve up Jeep Wranglers because those are on my lot maybe 15, 30 days. The ones that are on my lot for 45 to 60 days and those that I have multiple models of are the ones we want to serve up, and LotLinx is helping us control that spend.”
Firas recently gave LotLinx access to the dealership’s Google Analytics. “They’ve set up goals and work flows, so I can see now how LotLinx traffic is engaged, how deeply they’ve penetrated our site. It’s become a lot easier to analyze our traffic and spend.” 20 years on the job, and Firas is still getting better at it — with a little assistance from LotLinx.
Fore more information about how Driver’s Village is benefitting from LotLinx, get the free case study. Included in the case study is a scorecard that shows:
- Percentage of new shoppers delivered to the Driver’s Village website
- VDP Views on the Driver’s Village website
- Cost for each VDP View
- Number of Vehicles sold attributed to LotLinx
- Cost Per Vehicle Sold Through LotLinx
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