RAC Cars uses on-going analysis to refine its website and its current top priority is mobile engagement, which accounts for 53% of its website traffic.

“Google search on desktop is dropping dramatically, mobile and tablet accounts for the majority of search and the challenge is deciding what’s most important, so there are compromises,” said managing director Peter McCullough.

Conference delegates received an in-depth insight into the workings of the company’s highly successful online classified directory in the RAC Cars workshop.

Digital Dealer Conference 2014 cover   
Click the image above to return to the Digital Dealer report homepage  
   

RAC’s digital team uses Google Analytics daily to tweak the content. The RAC Cars website has been designed to be as simple to use as possible and 90-95% of traffic lands on classified pages with a prominent call to action (CTA), which sees non-buyers filtered out of the journey in the early phases for a 4:1 sales conversion rate.

RAC Cars tracks browsers from the first visit through to conversion, segmenting the information gathered. Understanding the audience is key, according to McCullough, including their stock and search comparisons. He said visitor profiling is imperative while retargeting visitors has also had an impact.

However, McCullough warned there is a trade-off between conversion rates and data capture: “We get a higher volume of enquiries if we just ask for an email.”