Marketing Delivery data has revealed that UK motor retailers are capturing marketing consents for fewer customers following GDPR.

The company examined data from more than 475,000 vehicle enquiries made to UK dealers, comparing information captured during the fourth quarter of 2017 (before the introduction of GDPR in May 2018) with the final three months of 2018.

The findings suggest that although email address capture rates have risen marginally year-on-year, from 86% to 88%, over the same period email consent rates have dropped from 80% to 70%.

That means many dealers are capturing email data that they can’t then use, though with enquiry volumes growing from 222,660 in Q4 2017 to 252,600 in Q4 2018 (a rise of 13.4%), the data suggests a greater focus on data capture following GDPR’s introduction.

Marketing Delivery’s managing director Jeremy Evans said: “Email remains the most productive channel for converting sales enquiries, and is the most likely channel through which car retailers can gain customer consent for marketing communications, such as new car sales messages, used car stock alerts, and service and MOT reminders.”

It also found a similar trend with mobile number data, where capture rates have remained the same, at 80% in both quarters, but consent rates have dropped significantly, from 73% to 56%.

The analysis also indicates that the best-performing dealers in its sample are enjoying similar levels of customer data capture and consent as they were before the GDPR changes.

Best-in-class dealers are consistently securing customer email consent in more than 90% of enquiries, and mobile phone consent in more than 85% of cases.

By contrast, customer email consent rates for the poorest-performing dealers are between 40 and 50%, with mobile consent rates languishing between 20% and 30%.

Evans said: “While GDPR appears to have impacted the ability of some dealers to secure customer consent for future communications, data capture rates for email and mobile remain strong in the majority of cases.

"Furthermore, the best-performing dealers are successfully engaging with as many customers now as they ever before the introduction of GDPR, regardless of the type of showroom system used.

"Combined with the recorded growth in enquiry volumes, this suggests that training and monitoring can have a positive impact on a dealer’s ability to successfully capture customer contact data and secure consent for future communications.

"It’s down to dealers to sell the value of consent to their customers, by offering only the most useful, relevant and timely communications.”