Despite the widespread adoption of technology in various industries, traditional methods of selling cars, such as having salespeople meet customers in person and local dealers owning the client relationship, have remained unchanged. This leaves car manufacturers with little insight into the effectiveness of their advertising spending on buying patterns and retail performance. To address this, some companies, like Tesla, are seeking to alter the industry sales model by establishing direct-to-consumer dealerships. However, this can be a time-consuming and costly process. Boston Consulting Group and PlaceSense have developed a solution using footfall data from mobile phone geodata to provide data-based insights and improve productivity for automotive OEMs and large dealership groups. This method can also be used to gain a competitive edge and make a big difference in the mature automotive industry.
Data-Based Insights Improve Automotive Marketing Spending with Footfall Analytics
Boston Consulting Group has created a method for analyzing data that shows how many people visit and purchase cars from a particular dealership. By combining publicly available data, it is possible to gain access to previously unknown information. The analysis is based on footfall data, which is collected from mobile phone geodata and serves as a reliable proxy for sales conversion rates. Automotive OEMs and large dealership groups can use this data to gain insights into sales performance, competitor strength, and the effectiveness of marketing investments.
Footfall Analytics Provides Invaluable Insights for Automotive OEMs and Dealer Groups
BCG and PlaceSense collected and analyzed footfall data from the major automotive brands in Germany from 2019 to 2021 to measure dealership performance. They used three sources of information: geodata points from 10 million mobile phones, land registry data for 36,000 buildings, and official car registration data. After filtering out employee and after-hours visits, they analyzed the data on the 5.8 million new cars registered in Germany to determine how many cars each dealer sold. By combining this information with footfall metrics, they were able to determine the number of visitors, number of cars sold, and conversion rate for each dealer and rank the individual dealers’ conversion rates. These findings can be used to compare the sales performance of different dealers within the same brand or across brand dealer networks.
Findings Show Significant Differences in Conversion Rates Among Automotive Brands
Findings from the analysis showed that the top performing brand attracted more than triple the number of visitors per dealership compared to the bottom brand. The top performer had a conversion rate of 15.5%, while the next two brands had conversion rates of around 14%. The brands at the bottom had conversion rates ranging from 10% to 12%. In the competitive car sales industry, even a small advantage in conversion rate can make a big difference and provide more resources for advertising or other strategic investments. The three brands with the fewest visitors also had the lowest conversion rates, but this does not necessarily mean they have poor sales performance. These brands may have large store networks and rely on a large market presence rather than a strong conversion rate. Footfall analytics can provide insights into the factors influencing foot traffic and conversion rates and how to improve them, as well as optimize the setup of each dealership.
Gain a Competitive Edge with Footfall Analytics: A New Method for Assessing Car Dealership Performance”
Footfall analytics can provide valuable insights for automotive OEMs and large dealer groups by analyzing data on the number of people who visit and purchase cars from a particular dealership. By merging publicly available data, including information from mobile phone geodata, land registry data, and car registration data, it is possible to determine the number of visitors, cars sold, and conversion rate (the number of visits that are converted to sales) for each dealership. These analytics can be used in a number of ways, including assessing marketing effectiveness, improving supply chain decisions, optimizing the dealership network footprint, and informing go-to-market strategies for electric vehicle manufacturers.
Using footfall analytics, automotive OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and large dealership groups can gain insights into how well their dealerships are converting visitors into sales, as well as their competitors’ performance. The technique, developed by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), combines data from mobile phones, land registry, and car registration to identify sales traffic and conversion rates. This information can help OEMs and dealership groups optimize their marketing budgets, supply chain decisions, and dealership network footprint, as well as predict the effectiveness of marketing investments and improve branding decisions. It can also be useful for electric vehicle manufacturers, who can use foot traffic data to assess how well their dealerships are positioning their brand and identify the best locations for new dealerships.
We are grateful to Jan Barenhoff, Eyal Laxner, Philipp Kohn, Yuhang Lu, Quan Nhon Vuong, Rishit Aakash, Julia Heskel, and Pascal Bruckner for their valuable contributions to this article.
This article, which can be found at the following link: https://www.bcg.com/beyond-consulting/bcg-gamma/driving-auto-sales-with-footfall-analytics, was written with reference to the original source. It discusses the use of footfall analytics to drive auto sales.