How to Measure Automotive Marketing ROI Across Mail, Email, and Digital

Marketing success isn't determined by how many campaigns are launched. It is determined by the results those campaigns produce. Dealerships, OEMs, and automotive marketers need to see the effectiveness of campaigns to determine which channels generate the leads, appointments, and revenue they need to make effective decisions about future marketing.

It is not just about looking at a single channel. Modern customers may go through many interactions across multiple channels before making a purchase. This could be reading a direct mail piece, opening a follow-up email, or interacting with a digital ad. By focusing on an omnichannel approach to measuring marketing effectiveness, businesses can better understand where to focus their marketing efforts.

The Importance of Automotive Marketing ROI

Marketing campaigns are a critical investment in the success of an automotive brand, requiring time, money, and resources. As a result, effective marketing campaigns do not just cast ads out without measuring their effectiveness. When brands know what their marketing dollars are accomplishing, they can make more effective decisions about their future efforts. That includes:

• Determining where the marketing budget is delivering the highest level of results, including actual sales and not just impressions

• Evaluating the types of marketing and content that generate the best results

• Segmenting the target market to better understand how they react to various ads
  

Ultimately, measuring automotive marketing ROI means dealerships and other businesses can make data-driven marketing decisions that increase overall effectiveness and allow them to focus their marketing spend where it will accomplish the most.

The Omnichannel Customer Journey

Many brands spend considerable time and effort mapping out the customer journey. However, the path to conversion is rarely a straight line. For automotive customers it can include experiences across a variety of platforms, including both physical and digital marketing, before they are ready to make a purchase.

The customer journey might, for example, start with a physical mailer or customized email. A customer might visit a landing page to learn more, read a website, or open a follow-up email before they are ready to make a purchase decision. It could be a different platform altogether that finally triggers them to take that final step, including seeing a retargeting advertisement or even driving past a dealership and reading a letter.

A solid understanding of the complexity of that journey is critical. Marketers that focus only on the final step of making a purchase may miss out on the value of all the touchpoints that led to that moment.

Measuring the Right Metrics

In today's data-driven society, most marketers have access to more data than ever before. While that data can be valuable for critical decisions about marketing campaigns, it also means that much of that information does not accurately reflect actual value throughout the campaign.

For example, knowing how many impressions or clicks an ad gets can offer useful information about the reach of the campaign and its impact on viewers, but if they are not translating to actual revenue, it may not provide the key details needed to make vital decisions.

Generally, there are several metrics that paint a clearer picture of what a marketing campaign is accomplishing, including:

• Lead generation

• Conversion rates

• Cost per acquisition (CPA)

• Return on ad spend (ROAS)

• Direct mail response rates

• Email open and click-through rates

• Website conversions

• Service appointments

• Vehicle or protection product sales

• Customer lifetime value (CLV)

However, the specific metrics that matter most to any given dealership may depend on what they're trying to grow and where they are focusing their marketing efforts.

Connecting Offline and Digital Marketing

While most online marketing platforms make it easier to keep up with critical data and metrics, measuring offline engagement is more challenging. Modern technology, however, offers numerous options for tracking customer behaviors, including:

• Personalized URLs (PURLs)

• QR codes

• Unique phone numbers

• Dedicated landing pages

• CRM integrations

These tools work together to make it easier to see not only how customers are engaging with offline ads, but also how that correlates to their online interactions with the brand.

Attribution for a Complete Picture

Whether a dealership is trying to acquire a new customer or bring one back in for service, the sale is rarely credited to a single interaction alone. Customers may go through multiple touchpoints before they are ready to make a buying decision or appointment. Attribution modeling, however, allows marketers to assign credit to all the factors that may have contributed to the customer's ultimate purchase. Ultimately, that means marketers can plan their future campaigns more effectively, incorporating all the elements that make that vital difference.

Ideally, that attribution and data collection isn't just taking place at the end of a campaign, either. Effective marketers are checking data as the campaign moves forward and using that information to adapt their current efforts.

Turn Marketing Data into Better Decisions

Measuring the ROI of automotive marketing allows dealerships to create strategies that allow them to reach their customers more effectively. It also allows them to better understand the interaction of direct mail, email, and digital marketing, including how they can increase customer engagement and generate increased revenue and opportunities.

At Milestone Marketing Solutions, we understand the importance of every touchpoint in the customer acquisition process, and we strive to help our customers accomplish their goals through comprehensive data collection and analysis. Reach out to us to learn more about our solutions and how they can help your dealership or automotive business accomplish its marketing goals.