In the ever-evolving digital age, data privacy has become an increasingly important factor in the way we do business. This is especially true in the automotive industry, where car dealerships are struggling to keep up with customer attribution details due to new privacy laws. 

There’s no question that safely using and storing data is important, and every one of us wants our data protected too. But these data privacy laws affect analytics data. It matters to car dealership owners, general managers, and marketing managers especially. Explore what the challenges are and how you can navigate the murky waters.

If you’re in the automotive industry, it’s highly likely that you use attribution metrics to measure and generate insights on customer journeys. Understanding how customers interact with your online and offline marketing channels is essential for optimizing ad campaigns, adjusting pricing strategies, and targeted messaging. 

But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of what these types of metrics actually mean – well, that can be a bit more complicated. In this blog post, we’re breaking down the basics of what five common attribution metrics are as well as their underlying meaning so dealerships and marketers alike can have easy access to a high-level understanding of these key topics.

Is the automotive industry complex? Absolutely.
Regardless of which department you’re exploring – service, parts, collision repairs, or sales – more than two-thirds of all leads come from online while virtually 100% of sales happen in person. But aside from sales, what dealer principals and general managers are most interested in is where their customers are coming from. 

Which channels are drawing the most traffic and generating the most revenue? What campaigns have proven most successful in converting shoppers into buyers? While attribution can help answer these questions and others, doing it at the dealer level can pose challenges that can render the results less effective than they could be, or they could be altogether misinterpreted.