Big data. Two words you’ve been hearing a lot lately. What does it mean to you as a local retailer (or in this case, an auto dealer)? Complexity, confusion and frustration.

I wrote this thought leadership piece for a national automotive dealer magazine to be useful to GMs and Internet managers who spend thousands of dollars every month on a litany of marketing activities.

These vendors are drowning you in data to measure success. Still, you’re left wondering: “How much impact is it really having on my bottom line?”

I’ve worked with hundreds of auto dealers to help them be found in their local market and sell more. With terabytes of marketing results data at my fingertips, and happy dealers who’ve consistently increased monthly sales, I present these five marketing metrics that deliver game-changing results.

1 Advertising Position

Your monthly marketing investments should be consistently driving custom-crafted marketing messages into highly visible positions online - the top three positions at the top of search engine results in your target markets are where you need to be.

As Ricky Bobby said in Talladega Nights, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

How important is it to be on top? In search marketing, the difference between first and second is massive. According to Compete.com and Kantar Media, consumers click the first sponsored ad 59% of the time, the second 15%. The third? Just 9%.

A surefire recipe for ceding your local market to the competition is not to pay attention to search marketing. Google researched how organic and paid search results work together and concluded that turning off paid search ads resulted in an 89% drop in website traffic.

The inescapable conclusion: Search advertising position is a top metric for measuring success. Your ads must appear “above the fold” as often as possible to improve visibility and the probability of a conversion.

2 Share of Voice (Impression Share)

A close runner-up to ad position is, simply, measuring how often your ads appear whenever a local shopper is looking for your products (makes and models). Customers are conducting more than 11 hours of research over a period of weeks or months before buying. Are you showing up?

Google your top brands, models and services. Are you showing up in the top positions, every time? If you show up 2 times out of 10, that’s a 20% “share of voice” in your market. Your competition is eating your lunch. Your advertising partner should be delivering your ads into the top positions 60-70% of the time.

Read all 5 of my useful metrics (via Dealer Communications magazine):
5 Marketing Metrics to Rule Them All