iVendi has released its latest online retailing report, which hopes to work towards creating an industry-standard method of measurng online motor finance.

In what iVendi believes to be an industry first, it uses the number of page views for finance-specific web pages as a key measurement, which the company believes should become the fundamental metric of value for dealers, lenders and manufacturers.

Other online measurements include a map showing from where geographically customers are viewing the web site, most popular finance products, busiest time of day, a monthly traffic view and the average number of finance quotes per vehicle.

iVendi’s VP data and insight, Rob Severs (pictured), has been working on the online retailing report for the last year. He said: “We believe that part of the maturing of online motor finance will be standardised measurements of its impact and our online retailing report is very much aimed at meeting that need.

“It use a series of graphical and numerical representations to look at how motor finance is driving traffic and where that traffic is coming from before drilling down into some of the key motor finance metrics.

“The major difference in the latest release is the amount of prominence we give to finance page views as a measurement, in order to differentiate between ‘casual shoppers’ and genuine buyers with an interest in finance.

“Through conversations with dealers, this seems to be the metric that has most meaning for them.

“Simply, it provides evidence that visitors to a web site are taking the finance option being provided online seriously enough to find out more information and try the online tools that are being provided.

“Alongside other stats such as the total number of finance quotes, number of unique buyers and the number of full page advert views, it provides a good overall picture of the role finance is playing in your overall online presence.”

Severs said that the latest report was being trialled with a number of different dealers and would be adjusted based on their feedback to produce a definitive version.

He added: “If we are going to create a widely-accepted industry standard for online motor finance, it is important that we engage in as much dialogue as possible across the industry.

“However, while we are going through that process, our existing report places many of the key metrics in context, providing a very useful tool for dealers.”