Auditing Third-Party Tools

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Posted on by Sam Harrington
Categories: JTT - SEO, Just The Tip Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Every day, prospective car buyers are visiting your website. But today, we’re not gonna talk about how they GOT there, we’re going to talk about what happens when they ARE there. More importantly, how it could hurt YOUR chances of making that sale.

Whether we’re talking about your website’s ability to (i) calculate the value of trade-in (ii) to schedule service appointments, or (iii) its chat feature, most of these services are made possible through the integration of third-party tools. They’re designed to help your site offer a more enriching user experience to prospective car buyers…but they’re also designed to convert their data into leads for your dealership.

So, what happens if one of these tools isn’t performing the way that it’s designed?
Well…you could be missing out on potential goal conversions and – YES – valuable sales leads!

To prevent this, you NEED to take ownership of it.
You need to make sure that your site is FLUID, because anything that HURTS the user experience hurts your dealership! Even worse, it does so on THREE levels!

ONE: it’s a turn-off to prospective buyers because they can’t accomplish what they set out to do on your website.

TWO:
they’ll leave your site dissatisfied, increasing the bounce rate on your site which –

THREE: reduces its value in the eyes of Google, who will then rank your site lower in local search because of it!

How do you test your third-party tools to ensure they’re working PROPERLY?
You need to take off your “dealer hat” and walk a mile in the shoes of your customers. You need to go into each tool and complete the form submission with the mindset of a CONSUMER. Did everything work properly? Is there any way the process could be improved upon? Did you find the process JARRING – or even worse, was any part of it BROKEN? If so, you’ve identified the problem, and can move on to fixing it.

The most important thing to remember is that these audits need to be done regularly.
Issues can arise at any time. Plus, most third-party tools don’t connect to your Google Analytics; so you can’t always tell if an event is triggering for a goal completion. So you need to stay on top of this IN-HOUSE to ensure that you’re offering the customer the best results, and the best experience.

A great experience for a prospective car buyer means a high-quality lead for you.