The people who come to your website are more than just visitors. They’re potential leads. In fact, your website is the best way to get quality leads to grow your automotive business. Dealer website leads outperform brand and third-party sources for one straightforward reason — these potential customers came to you.

Maybe they clicked on an ad or search result, or maybe they came directly to your website. Either way, they’re more likely to already know your business and your brand. That means they’re more open to your offers and are more willing to fill out your lead forms. But getting lead forms right can be the difference between capturing these quality leads or letting them click away.

Websites Are Better Lead Generators

There are three broad categories of leads your automotive business might collect: third-party, brand-generated, and dealer website. While all can contribute to your sales pipeline, one rises above the rest — website leads.

Third-party leads often come from aggregators or lead generation services. Common examples in the automotive industry include Autoweb and Dealer.com. These sites can offer a high volume of leads, but conversions are fairly low. Just 2.5% of third-party leads turn into sales.

Brand-generated leads perform slightly better. They close at an average of 6.2%. By comparison, dealer-generated leads, those that come directly from your website, close at 9.5%. Increasing the volume of these high-value leads can directly impact your sales performance.

Transform Lead Forms Into Lead Generation Machines

Make it easy for website visitors to become leads by improving your lead forms. In general, only 17.75% of consumers who start a form actually finish it.

The most common reasons for lead form abandonment are security concerns (29%), form length (27%), and unnecessary questions (10%).

With a few simple tweaks, you can transform your lead forms into lead generation machines:

1. Optimize forms for mobile: Nearly half of all web traffic in North America comes from mobile devices. Ensure your forms are mobile-friendly for a seamless user experience.
2. Reduce the number of fields: The fewer fields, the higher the conversion rate. For example, forms with three fields have a 25% conversion rate, while those with five fields drop to 15%.
3. Ask only the essential questions. You might like to know your customer’s level of income and how far they drive each month, but those types of questions can feel overly personal or frivolous.
4. Strengthen your call to action: Users should understand the clear and immediate benefit of filling out your forms. Craft form headlines that drive action, such as "Get Your Free [Offer]" or "Register for [Event] Now!"

These adjustments can increase the likelihood that you’ll get quality leads by making it quick and easy for website visitors to fill out your lead forms.

Think Beyond the Form

The form is just one part of the experience. Visitors are more likely to become leads if the whole experience is tailored to them. Ignite by Launch Labs can help. With Ignite, the moment a user lands on your site they are prompted to share their location. With that consent in place, Ignite can collect their information and track their actions across the site.

Using this first-party data, Ignite delivers personalized messages and CTAs. Single-field forms are optimized for mobile and designed for one-tap conversions. This streamlined approach will help you capture more leads and boost conversion rates directly from your site.

Ignite elevates leads who have claimed your promos, so you know who is ready to purchase and can easily follow up. You can even use that first-party data to create look-alike audiences that can attract more site visitors with similar purchase intent.

Discover how Ignite by Launch Labs can convert website visitors into high quality leads. To see the process in action, schedule your free demo today.