Dealership Marketing

Tracking Your Webite Visitor Analytics by Mobile Device

Jeff Kershner
Posted onMay 27, 2010 at 1:19 AM
Updated onUpdated on May 27, 2010 at 3:29 AM

Mobile Traffic Increasing Dramatically

Ryan over on the forums posted a new thread “ipad Traffic Increasing Dramatically“.

Recently I have seen an increase in ipad visits to websites I play with. It’s interesting because I suspected this but didn’t suspect the amount so quickly.


Ryan brings up a great point…

Are you watching your dealer website visitors by mobile device?

This is something I have been watching for about a year now, adding the Visitors by Mobile Device to my dealers (and DealerRefresh) Google Analytics dashboard for quick reference.

A little over a year ago – you were lucky to see a few iPhone visitors to your dealership website, but just over the last 4-6 months, visitors from mobile devices have really increased. Especially on Andriod devices, and now we are quickly seeing visits from the iPad.

NOTE: IF you have your websites set up to automatically detect a mobile browser – you might want to be sure that it’s not pointing over to the mobile site for iPad visitors (unless you have a Flash intensive dealer website ). It’s annoying as hell when you want to visit a dealers website from your iPad and you keep getting redirected to the mobile site.

Whether or not you have a mobile dealership website, you might want to keep an eye on your analytics. They might just tell you something.

Mobile will of course continue to rise – it’s going to happen, especially on the local side.

Google Says Local Intent is Behind One-Third of Mobile Searches

Are you watching your visitors by mobile device in our analytics and are the analytics showing that maybe you should have a mobile website if you don’t already?

If you do, who is your mobile website provider? Feel free to drop a link in your comment (dealers only please).

What are you currently getting from your mobile website??

Jeff Kershner
Founder of DealerRefresh - 20+ Years of dealership Sales, Management, Training, Marketing and Leadership.
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I have been paying attention to the mobile analytics for about 6 months now and visits are up over 100% in the last three months. Our website provider, eBiz Autos, just launched our mobile site a week ago so I am hoping to see my bounce rate steadily decline. We have flash on our homepage so bounce rate was high from Apple devices. mobile.pasoroblesford.com
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    Richard
  • May 29, 2010
Yes, that would be annoying to be re-directed to a mobile site on your iPad.
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Total traffic sources may also increase as the choices available to access sites increases.


Sources such as iPhones, iPods, iPads, Android, blackberry now account for (for some) up to 5% of total site traffic - and will only grow. (our iPad traffic is up 133% over last month & shows much different user patterns/behavior when compared to normal user visits.)


Expect more visits from OS/browser sources as obscure as Playstation & playstation portable, opera mini & Wii.


The key will be understanding the intelligence & how it's responded to.


- Are they new/returning visitors?

- What's their click-path?

- What's the conversion rate?


Thoughts?
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    Jeff Kershner
  • May 31, 2010
Eric, you are of course right. We need to "expect more visits from OS/browser sources as obscure as Playstation, playstation portable, opera mini and even Wii."


Right now I it might be too soon to really get any true perspective of different habits as shoppers are visiting our dealer websites on these new OS/browsers, due to the low volume by in itself.


I can't speak for others, but I find myself a little more click happy when "exploring" sites on new (non mobile) browsers - but that might just be me . Especially the ipad - I love to read and surf the web the ipad.


I "think" if a site is optimized right, we'll see a lift in overall conversion from mobile devices. Especially if your phone numbers are placed in optimal areas throughout our website and are quicklinked allowing the browser to place the call right from page they are on.


One thing to consider; when you get the opportunity - browse your websites on the different browsers. We dealers need to be sure our dealer websites are cross browser compatible.


Flash websites are of course not going to show up on iphone/Mac mobile OS. So if you have one of those Flash intensive websites - you may as well forget about your dealer website rendering correctly on the iphone or ipad. Something to possibly consider in the near future.


One of my websites has a homepage flash element - I'll be getting with this vendor very soon on an alternative solution.


It's going to fun watching where this goes and how much this conversation will change over the next few years.
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@Jeff - For sure, too soon for the data to suggest any real trend...at this point, it should at least be on someone's radar if they're involved w/managing a website.


I have noticed one goal conversion on our site blow up overnight, from the iPad user's experience - hoping for a significant behavior change w/this one metric as it could help identify a significant shift in our retail strategy.


As I gather more info, I'll share my findings...
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    Dealer Brain
  • June 1, 2010
Great questions Eric. Everyone should have the answers to every single one of those questions. If you don't, reply and let me know why... do you not know where to start?


Your mobile traffic should at least convert the same as the full blown site (as I have seen for my stores). Mobile is overestimated in many areas and underestimated in others... no, I'm not a politician.


More coming later...


-Dealer Brain
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