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GA4 Is Here! Part 1

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GA4 is here!

Part 1: What does this mean to your dealership?

You may have noticed the doomsday clock that was counting down to Google’s migration to its new analytics property, GA4, and wondered, “What the heck is this? Will I lose my data? Do I have to do something before time runs out…or else?” Great news! It happened, and you didn’t lose anything. In fact, you’ve just entered the next generation of analytics that will help your business make better use of your data.

LESA has been tracking the migration. Once you provide us with your new GA4 ID, we can start sending your engagement data to the GA4 platform where they will be processed to offer new, more relevant insights into your website’s effectiveness and your customers’ behavior.

And if you also grant us view access to your GA4 property, we can collaborate with you to help you look at the video effectiveness stats and generate reports down the road. If you have any questions about how to set up view access, contact us at support@lesautomotive.com for instructions.

What do you really need to know about GA4?

GA4 is Google’s new web analytics platform that collects event-based data from both websites and apps. It replaced the former Universal Analytics (UA) property effective July 1, 2023. You may still be able to see your old UA reports for a while, but any data collected starting July 1st will be processed by GA4.

The shutdown of UA is being rolled out in stages, however all UA properties are now in a queue to be terminated, and you will be required to set up GA4 to access website measurements of any data collected on or after July 1st.

Here are some quick facts that may make the migration to GA4 feel a bit less stressful:

  • Your old data is not lost. Existing UA data can be imported into the new GA4 platform to help maintain continuity and preserve your historical data.
  • Some of the reporting metrics and terminology will look familiar, which should smooth the transition to GA4.
  • GA4 allows for more customization than UA offered, so once you’ve configured your GA4 property, you’ll have the ability to tailor your analytics to meet your business’s specific needs.
  • You are not alone! There are plenty of supportive, how-to resources out there to help you transition to GA4 and use its capabilities to your best advantage.

Why did Google switch from UA to GA4 – What’s the advantage?

GA4 offers a number of improvements over UA, including new privacy controls, simplified reporting, and direct integration to media platforms. It also collects both website and app data to provide a better understanding of the customer journey. Perhaps most significantly, it focuses on event-based data, so instead of giving you a count of the number of times customers arrive at your site, like a traffic meter, it lets you see what customers actually do while they are there.

Now you’ll be able to see just how customers are responding to your content. Understanding the cause-and-effect aspect of your online marketing campaigns, including your video merchandising campaigns, will help you understand which of your site’s features are resulting in direct actions such as clicks, shares, or other tangible forms of engagement. You’ll have a better idea of how to attribute conversions, so you’ll know what’s driving sales and be able to do more of what’s measurably effective.

The future of measuring your video merchandising campaigns

We’re especially excited about the potential of GA4 to measure and track your customers’ actions when they engage with video inventory content on your website. GA4 may reveal patterns in customer behavior that led to conversions, which could allow you to pivot to customize your video merchandising strategy to emphasize more of what’s working.

We know that 60% of auto shoppers who used online video during the research process reported visiting a dealership or dealer website after watching a video of the vehicle they were considering. Leveraging your video content library has never been more important. To understand why, check out our Why Video page. You’ll be glad you did!

Stay calm and … complete your GA4 set-up!

GA4 analytics is ready to start processing your data in new and beneficial ways. You can start taking advantage of all this new platform has to offer once you configure your new GA4 property. LESA is ready to start sending your video merchandising data to GA4, and we have every expectation that the new property will help us create winning video strategies for your dealership.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll take a closer look at how LESA’s data is displayed in GA4 and offer tips on how to navigate this new analytics landscape. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Unlock the Power of Automated Social Media to Drive Sales

Written on . Posted in Blog.

Marketing Status Quo

Car dealerships, like most businesses today, allocate at least some of their human and financial resources to maintaining a social media presence. And it’s obvious why. The Pew Research Center reports that today 72% of the public uses some type of social media, with YouTube and Facebook being the most-widely used online platforms.

To manage this must-have marketing strategy, your dealership may rely on the services of a social media company to spread the word about your inventory on these popular platforms and others such as Instagram, which Pew found is used by at least 40% of US adults. Maybe you’ve purchased a marketing program that promises to make a certain number of posts per month on your behalf with various add-on options like “boosts” to enhance visibility. This seemed like a good idea at the time; it took the burden of managing your social media presence off your desk and resulted in one less headache. But is it really working?

The trouble with typical social media marketing packages is that they can appear flat, impersonal, and canned. They come from an outside source, may be limited to static photo images, and lack the more authentic, humanizing experience customers are looking to engage with in today’s marketplace. On top of that, they’re expensive and the ROI may be uncertain.

Enter Savvy Video Merchandising

LESA offers a solution that saves time and money and gives dealers the tools to leverage video to capture the low-funnel sales traffic that abounds on social media. Our tools aren’t intended to replace your social media agency altogether. Rather, for a fraction of what you would have to pay an agency, these tools empower you to:

  • Produce professional-quality video content in-house
  • Put that content to work on three top social media platforms simultaneously
  • Create and control a custom, personalized, multi-media presence
  • Take part in the shift to video merchandising

Video is key at every stage of the marketing funnel, from a customer’s initial Google search to their interactions with your BDC. A 2019 study found that of all the topics on YouTube, vehicle videos was the second most-viewed category, coming in second after video games. And yet, only 1% of the videos on YouTube at the time were about vehicles. This represents an enormous opportunity and illustrates the consumer’s desire for video. If a large portion of the car shopping public is active on social media, and if they’re craving vehicle videos, it just makes sense to get your inventory onto video and put it out there on social media. As fast as you can.

LESA’s Elite and Ultimate video merchandising packages help you get there with our Dealer Video Inventory, Ultra 360 Spin, Feature Videos, and Automated Social Media tools. The inventory walkaround videos you create with the tools in these packages make your dealership website come alive with interactive, engaging content, while also improving your site’s SEO. And with just a few clicks our included Automated Social Media tool lets you post this same video content to the most popular platforms where it can reach that massive audience of active online vehicle shoppers.

With Automated Social Media, your vehicle videos post automatically to Facebook, Instagram, and — best of all – now also to Google My Business. We do this according to the schedule, criteria, and filters you choose using our intuitive dashboard. You can also track your posting history and see how your site views change in response to your posting campaigns.

In no time, you’ll be auto-posting polished videos like the one below on multiple platforms simultaneously with links that take the viewer right to your dealership’s website.

We make it easy and flexible, so you can post what you want, when you want in-house to build your brand, increase purchase interest, and create the emotional connections through social media engagement that will drive your referral business.

Better yet, posting inventory video content you already created in three essential places at once not only gives your campaigns great consistency but also frees up your marketing department to spend time on other tasks.

Change Is Hard Easy

In case you’re still using photos to showcase your inventory, you should know that video continues to gain momentum as a must-have. A 2019 Google/Ipsos study found that 60% of auto shoppers who used online video during the research process reported visiting a dealership or dealer website after watching a video of the vehicle they were considering. That was up from 46% in 2017.

To take advantage of our Automated Social Media tool, simply select our Elite or Ultimate video merchandising packages, and we’ll get you set up. Before you know it, you’ll be making your hottest vehicles accessible to the mind-boggling percentage of adults who are on social media every day.

Our Automated Social Media dashboard is clear and straightforward. For example, you just click on the days of the week and the time of day you want your posts to appear. Toggle buttons let you decide if you want to enable/disable Facebook auto-posting, or whether you want to turn on/off posts to Instagram, remove sold vehicles, or create a 30-second montage video. Drop-down menus let you prioritize posts by price or inventory age.

Don’t Be Left Behind

With most social media platforms moving to video content, dealerships need to adapt or be left behind. Today’s customer wants to see your inventory in all dimensions using multi-media, as if they were at your store in person. To stay competitive, you need to give them as much information as possible, as many ways as possible, so they can have a virtual showroom experience. Think about how much you spend on making your physical showroom a selling point, and then think about the fact that your website and social media platforms get far more customer traffic!

Indeed, industry strategist Cox Automotive reports, “Dealers agree that digital retailing is key to a long-term winning strategy – with 75% of dealers acknowledging that they won’t be able to survive without it.”

The takeaway is this: With LESA’s Automated Social Media tool, offered in our Elite and Ultimate video merchandising packages, you can create more effective social media campaigns in-house for a fraction of the cost of relying solely on an agency, and you can measure your success. You can capitalize on the social media networks you have already invested in constructing by leveraging the indisputable powers of video merchandising and content sharing to drive referral business and build the sort of customer interest every business needs to thrive.