Mobile web

With smartphone browsing overtaking desktop searches at weekends, the prediction that mobile users will exceed desktop for the first time in 2013 is very real.

Mobile web is something many dealers have already tackled along similar lines to Manchester-based Co-operative Motor Group, which operates franchised main dealer showrooms across the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the North West.

The group launched its smartphone-enabled website, incorporating vehicle searches and service and MoT bookings, in October last year after statistics showed a staggering 300% growth in visits to its main website via mobile devices which was accompanied by a much higher bounce rate.

Further capitalising on the smartphone phenomenon, which now account for 37% of all mobile phone sales, the group has also introduced Quick Response (QR) codes on individual vehicles, which, when scanned, link consumers to additional content via iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

Digital marketing manager Katy Robinson said: “Since the mobilisation, visitors from mobile devices are climbing each month and now make up almost one-third of all visits to our website (up from around 7% before the mobilisation).

"They are viewing more pages than before the mobilisation and spending less time getting to where they need to go.

"QR code technology is still in its infancy in the UK; that said, our QR codes are scanned on a weekly basis.”

Likewise, Auto Trader has experienced a massive rise in mobile phone searches – 2.2 million mobile unique users performed
30 million searches on Auto Trader Mobile in January, an increase of 150% compared with January 2011.

However, research suggests that mobile search is actually stimulating search on other platforms with 78% of mobile users maintaining or increasing the frequency with which they use their pc to search.

Car buyers are making full use of Auto Trader’s mobile website accessing dealers’ stock at any time, with 46% doing so on a dealer’s forecourt to find out more about specific cars.

Nathan Coe, group director, said: “The need for dealers to ensure that their website is easy to use for customers on the move is more important than ever.

"It’s vital for businesses to ensure they are prominently displayed in the mobile search results and that they have optimised their websites for all platforms, as a poor user experience can lead buyers to visit competitor websites instead.

"Dealers who quickly adopt this new technology and have a website that is optimised for any device will be increasing the number of buyers accessing their stock.”

Motors.co.uk has also seen browsers accessing its website via mobiles double to 16%.

Used car advertising websites

Although only five years old, Motors.co.uk has established itself as the second most highly used website for used car advertising after Auto Trader.

With almost 1.5 million unique visitors in January, according to statistics from digital measurement company Comscore, it may not quite be in Auto Trader’s league of 10.8 million unique visitors monthly (source: Omniture), but it is undoubtedly formidable.

Marketing Delivery’s Evans advised: “Dealers need to ensure their stock appears beyond their own website.

"As the biggest brand out there, many car buyers will go straight to the Auto Trader website, but others opt for a Google search and that’s when the likes of V-cars, Netcars.com, Motors.co.uk and eBay come into play so it’s important that dealers ensure they have as wide a representation as possible.”

Netcars.com, launched 18 months ago, has more than 1,000 dealers advertising 65,000 used vehicles on the site which drives traffic to the dealers’ own website, triggering a charge only when a unique click- through is made.

The company is aiming to increase its current 350,000 unique users a month, which results in 11-15,000 deep links a day through to dealers’ websites, to 3-4 million in just three years.

Said marketing director Louis Rix: “What we’re doing works, there’s no wastage of dealer marketing money because charges are only made for traffic we redirect to their websites.

"But in just the same way that dealers would have advertised in more than one newspaper, it makes sense for stock to appear on more than one website.”