General Motors has upgraded its Shop-Click-Drive online shopping tool to offer test drive scheduling, trade-ins at home or work and real- time credit applications. In May, Stellantis pushed to get more dealerships onto its digital retail platform. Even premium brands, such as Mini and Porsche, have rolled out robust digital tools.
Last year, Nissan made its shopping platform the focus of a high-profile marketing campaign. The automaker touted the [email protected] service in its annual “Heisman House” college football campaign, and struck a deal to run ads for the service on Amazon shipping boxes.
“We saw a bunch of traffic go to the website,” Mohnke said. “We had double what a normal campaign average would be for key buying actions, such as customers searching for inventory.”
The online push is showing real- world results.
Terry Rodrigue, executive manager at Royal Nissan in Baton Rouge, La., attributes 10 to 15 sales a month to leads generated from [email protected]
Rodrigue, whose dealership was an early adopter, said he is impressed with the platform’s functionality and the access it offers to Nissan’s national website.
“It’s integrated with the manufacturer’s Tier 1 website and no other tool can do that,” Rodrigue said. “If a customer searches for a car that we have on our lot, a link brings them right to our site and then we capture that deal.”
Beyond lead generation, [email protected] offers visibility into the customer’s shopping journey enabling retailers to craft targeted offers.
The dealer can see that a customer came to the platform, valued a 2016 Rogue trade, searched for the new Pathfinder, looked at 72-month financing and that’s where they stopped, Mohnke said. “Then [the dealer] can intelligently reach out to that customer and suggest next steps,” he said.
