You’ve probably been hearing that personalization is good for business. Online shoppers want to see content that is relevant to them, when it is relevant to them. They want their needs taken into account, and their questions answered.  Businesses that can make this happen reap the benefits.

Your dealership showroom surely already personalizes the in-store shopping experience– but you can also bring this level of personalization online with smart targeting technology. You can enable your website to tailor the shopping experience to each customer so that it is always personalized and never random. First, though, you’ll need an arsenal of content and offers to appeal to a wide variety of shoppers, because the customers shopping for cars on your website are not all looking for the same thing. Some want lots of information while some are just looking for the nearest pre-qual form. Some want to read comparisons and some just lurk on the same VDP over and over, waiting for the right moment to take the plunge

So let’s look at examples of content and offers, some for early stage shoppers still doing research and some for late stage ones closer to purchase. Use these ideas to build up a large variety of offers on your dealership website.

Popups For the Early Stage Shopper

Ah. the early stage shopper: reading up, checking their options, probably checking out the competition. Maybe they’re still fantasizing about their next purchase, thinking about how to make it a reality, stealing a couple minutes at work or on their commute home to check out your inventory and see if anything strikes their interest. Probably, it’s been a number of years since their last purchase and they need to catch up on all the latest features and upgrades. Your website can do two main things for these shoppers: provide them with lots of information to further their research that doesn’t ask for contact information and doesn’t push for conversion, and, in conjunction, offer them opportunities to convert that don’t ask for too much of a commitment:

1. Content that doesn’t ask for anything in return

Check out this offer:

This feature explanation helps shoppers enrich their knowledge and understanding of your inventory– and it doesn’t ask for any personal information in return. Note that it allows the user to easily expand and contract it using arrows, to read more when they wish and dismiss when they do not. For a shopper who is doing research on your website and wants to learn more about your inventory, this is a great resource. The fact that it doesn’t require leaving contact information makes the shopper feel valued– they are able to get what they need from your website without being hounded immediately for a mailing address.

Here’s another:

This is a great example of video content that can be shown to shoppers in the research phase. The customer can click on the video to expand it and view with sound. Here’s a screenshot:

Features with visuals- what more could a car shopper want?

2. Conversion offers for the early-stage shopper

Of course, along with great content, your website should also present offers to convert suited to the early stage shopper. An early stage shopper doesn’t want to fill out a lot of fields asking for all their personal details. They don’t want to feel like they’re making a big commitment by completing a form. So try something like this:

This offer speaks directly to the early stage shopper, clear acknowledging with the language “window shopping” that they have not yet made a decision. Its fields are minimal and straightforward, and its CTA is clear and directly connected to the content of the offer. Design is appealing and nothing about it pressures or bombards, especially as long as timing is optimized to show this offer when the customer is likely to be receptive.

Here’s another:

Advertising a store-wide sale is another great way to appeal to an early-stage shopper. Someone doing research would want to know about this special, which just might draw them into the dealership.

All of these content and offer popups could appeal to late stage shoppers as well– all those customers who are closer to buying. However, there are some popups that will be more successful with specifically later stage shoppers. So without further ado:

Popups For the Late Stage Shopper

For shoppers who actually have a better sense of what vehicle they want, popups should present offers related to those vehicles. Here’s one example:

This offer also has minimal fields, but its focus makes it a great choice for a customer viewing that particular VDP. For that customer, this is extremely useful. It would be far less useful for an early stage shopper who hasn’t yet settled on a model.

Here’s a similar offer:

Again, specific, straightforward, and, with the right technology, targeted to the right customer.

Make sure your website has plenty of offers for a variety of shoppers– and then make sure to use smart targeting technology to make sure the right customers see them at the right time. That’s personalization.

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