Website traffic is critical for customer acquisition. The more visitors who explore a dealership’s online content, services, and inventory pages, the more likely the dealer will earn more business.  

However, traffic alone is not enough, and it will eventually become a useless statistic if dealers do not capture the information necessary to turn website visitors into leads.  

This article discusses five strategies dealers might use to drive those conversions by encouraging visitors to act before leaving the website. 

5 Strategies to Turn Website Visitors into Leads 

1. Outline Customer Personas 

Dealers should understand as much as they can about their target customer base when designing or updating their website. They might accomplish this by creating fictional personas for each prospect type based on the following characteristics: 

• Basic demographics 
• Key triggers that influence purchasing decisions 
• Likes and dislikes 

Furthermore, dealers should ascertain why those personas are particularly interested in their vehicles and determine what knowledge they can offer the customer during the purchasing process. 

After creating all the relevant customer personas, dealers should identify what they have to offer each prospect and create compelling and informative website content.  

2. Create Content for Those Personas 

Dealers might tailor this content to each persona in the form of blogs covering a wide range of topics, including: 

• Seasonal maintenance tips 
• Auto industry news 
• Technology updates 
• Expected future trends 
• What to expect during the purchase process 

This content aims to enlighten and assist potential customers rather than sell to them. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate industry experience and expertise to help them through their projects while meeting their needs. 

3. Design Engaging Landing Pages 

 Landing pages are a crucial step in lead generation, representing the point at which dealer marketing meets potential buyers. Their benefits include: 

• Boosted paid traffic returns. Dealers can route paid traffic to specific landing pages to increase the existing efforts’ value. 

• Effective conversions. Landing pages use compelling text and visuals to convince visitors to take a specific action. 

• Visitor information. Dealers can leverage landing pages to collect critical information that will help them categorize contacts and offer valuable sales information. 

• Effectiveness control. Landing pages allow dealers to manage and boost offer effectiveness without overhauling the entire website. 

• Automated follow-ups. Dealers can trigger a follow-up campaign tailored to leads’ interests when those visitors complete a landing page. 
  
  

4. Include a Call to Action (CTA) 

The Call to Action (CTA) invites visitors to take the next step in the purchasing process. It is a critical – and often overlooked – aspect of every website. 

Methods for increasing a CTA’s efficacy include: 

• Including language that is descriptive and promotes action 
• Creating CTA variations for each persona 
• Using consistent wording 
• Making the CTA button stand out with contrasting colors 
  
  

5. Choose Metrics and Measure Results 

Dealers should identify and review key performance indicators (KPIs) for the essential steps of the conversion process. Those metrics should include: 

• Click-through rate (CTR) on CTAs. A single landing page might have multiple CTAs, and a dealer might discover that one performs better than the rest. This data allows the dealer to concentrate efforts on the CTAs that are most effective with the target demographic. 

• Landing page conversion rate. The CTAs lead visitors to the landing page. At this stage, dealers must know how many of those prospects fill out the necessary forms that convert them to leads. Like CTAs, a website will have multiple landing pages, and dealers can identify and focus on those with higher conversion rates. 

• The number of new leads and sales generated by a specific offering. Next, the landing page drives traffic to a particular vehicle or service-related offer. The dealer can then measure and compare which ones generate the most leads. 
  
  

Knowing More About Your Visitors is Critical 

The number of visitors to your website is crucial, but what matters more is how many potential buyers become active customers. Applying these strategies to turn website visitors into leads can help attract and retain more of your website visitors, increasing the chances of converting them to paying customers.  

However, developing a lead-gathering system and optimizing your sales process is only as effective as your technology. You need solutions that help you learn more about your website visitors to better target those prospects with tailored ad content.  

Contact us today and learn how Affinitiv’s Anonymous Shopper can help your dealership convert more traffic website into leads via our proprietary shopper identification technology.