Heath Thompson was getting ready to stop advertising on Autotrader and cut back on digital spending last fall at his rural Georgia store when the company, hoping to retain the contract, offered to do an attribution study to show Autotrader's influence.
Thompson, general manager of Ronnie Thompson Ford in East Ellijay, Ga., agreed to the study. He was surprised by what he learned.
Data analytics firm Transparency, which does the studies for Cox Automotive's third-party sites Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, examined the store's dealership management system and other data between May 1 and August 31. It found that 63 percent of the dealership's customers during that span had visited Autotrader or KBB before purchasing a vehicle.