Faye Lillard, Product Manager For the past couple of years, intent data has bloomed into a major data category for sales and marketing. Yet, according to a study from
TOPO, 67% of organizations struggle to make intent data actionable.
In 2021, we believe that will change.
Increasingly, automotive dealerships recognize how technology can dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing and sales teams. The best tools help them leverage data to deliver a precise and positive customer experience that feels tailored to each and every buyer. With that, we expect to see more and more companies effectively using intent data-- especially their own.
What Is Intent Data?
Intent data is qualitative information showing an individual’s intent to purchase. There are two types of intent data: third-party intent data and first-party intent data.
Third-party intent data is sourced from other relevant websites that indicate a customer is in the market. Here’s how it works in practice:
• Albert is the head of sales for a company selling widgets.
• Betty has spent the last week scouring the internet for information about widgets.
• One of the pages Betty landed on during her search was a content piece about widgets. It was written by a data company, and they collected identifiable information on Betty.
• Albert has a contract with that same data company and they provided him with a daily feed of people shopping for widgets.
• Albert used that list to reach out to Betty, introducing his widgets at the very moment she’s looking to buy.
First-party intent data shows the customer journey for each individual shopper on your website. Compared to third-party intent data, first-party is often overlooked as it accumulates on your own website and requires user-level website analytics to mine. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
• Phil owns a car dealership. He has a website designed to educate shoppers on his inventory and capture leads through calls, forms, and chat.
• On Phil’s website is a tracking script from a website analytics company like
Foureyes.
• Sue is in the market to buy either an SUV or minivan. As part of her research, she visits Phil’s site three times.
• Sue finally decides to call and asks a few questions about one of the SUVs she’s been eyeing.
• When Sue calls, Phil can look in Foureyes and see everything Sue has been researching on his site. It helps him confidently switch to talking about a minivan when Sue balks at the cost of the SUV she first asked about.
How Will Intent Data Be Used in Automotive in 2021?
The increased recognition around intent data combined with a need for more efficient and effective marketing and sales will drive greater adoption of tools powered by first-party intent data.
In automotive, these include multiple Foureyes modules that enable enable car dealers to:
• Distinguish sales leads from everything else: Driving 500 leads in a month may or may not help you hit your sales number. It all depends on the quality.
Foureyes uses intent data to distinguish the quality hidden in the quantity.
• Improve customer experiences: Dealers wanting to have better conversations, schedule more appointments, and make stronger vehicle recommendations need to be able to see what customers aren’t saying. Foureyes shows every time your phone, form, and chat leads visit your site, every car they’ve looked at, and every search they’ve performed, so you know what your customers are really interested in.
• Scale personalized communications: Using real-time intent data, dealerships can send inventory emails to every lead, dynamically tailored to the specific vehicles they are shopping and mirroring their shopping intensity.
"Knowing that dealers continue to find Foureyes a valued part of their sales and marketing efforts achieves our team’s mission of giving customers a love-love solution and experience,” said David Steinberg, founder of Foureyes. “We’re proud of our team's dedication to deliver on our promise, and to be recognized with this award further reinforces what we hear from the dealer community – that 'Foureyes just works.'"
Foureyes, known for its patented user-level data collection technology, leverages dealerships’ own data to provide additional visibility, ultimately helping dealers solve specific challenges with their suite of modules designed to track, protect, engage, and sell better.
“We congratulate Foureyes on receiving a Top Rated Lead Management Award, an accolade we consider to be one of our industry’s most important because it comes directly from dealers,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder Jared Hamilton. “In our 13th year of presenting these awards, we feel especially proud that DrivingSales Vendor Ratings continues to help dealers make smart and informed decisions through thousands of peer reviews that lead them to outstanding service providers such as Foureyes. We’re thrilled Foureyes has been recognized as one of the best by the people to whom their services count the most: the dealer community.”
The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards measure dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services, and are based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified over the calendar year (January – December) at https://www.drivingsales.com/vendor-ratings. DrivingSales Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons, and provides dealerships with important information from actual customers who have hands-on experience using vendor products / solutions in their stores. DrivingSales has a dedicated team that goes through each review and confirms that it was left by an actual dealership employee.