iVendi is calling for a set of industry-standard metrics to be created that will allow dealers to measure and compare the impact of their online motor finance.
CEO James Tew, explained that there is currently some confusion, with differing methods being much superior and business-relevant than others.
He said: “Different dealers often desire subtly different things from online motor finance but, fundamentally, what they are all really want is to pull more customers from a wider area onto their web site to sell more vehicles. It’s that simple.
“The question is how, for a relatively new area of retailing for motor industry, we settle on measuring whether that is happening?
“Some dealers use traditional web metrics and, while they have some relevance, they tell only part of the story. Others look baldly at the motor finance approval rate but, again, that is just a single element.
“As a motor finance technologist, we can see the impact that our tools have on dealers and they almost always agree it is positive - but it would be useful to be able to discuss what is happening using a widely-accepted set of metrics.”
iVendi’s VP data and insight Rob Severs has been working on this issue in recent months and has produced a new dashboard that shows a variety of measurements.
He said: “We 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.
“In addition the report illustrates the disconnect between the online buyers and the offline dealership, showing how each business is performing against its online peers, and also provide details on out-of-hours activity, which is one of the advantages of online motor finance.”
Rob said that, following trials, the new dashboard would be amended to create what iVendi hoped would serve as the basis for an industry-standard model.
He added: “At the very least, we think we can establish a way of looking at online motor finance that places all the key metrics in context, providing a very useful tool for dealers.”