Even the debate over whether Internet sales are incremental business or just business that has shifted from another media source has never been settled. About the only thing the industry as a whole can agree on is that Internet sales, regardless of your definition of an Internet sale, are here to stay, so you might as well figure out how to measure and monitor them.

What are valid measuring sticks? You need to have traffic in order to generate leads and leads come before sales, so start by tallying the unique visitors to your site. Then measure leads. Over time, you should see some trends in traffic and leads generated from your own site, which will help guide you in creating search engine marketing campaigns.

Further breakdown your lead sources: dealership Web site, manufacturer Web site and third-party leads. Several in the industry are stating that dealers should ramp up their dealership Web site to replace their third-party lead sources; however, that’s not where most leads are coming from just yet. Dealer data reported to NCM Associates indicates that third-party leads are still the top source (by percentage of leads) of all dealership types for new and used vehicle with the only exception being domestic new vehicles. In that category, the manufacturer leads received were slightly higher than third-party leads.

Once you have the lead, it is all about setting an appointment and getting the appointment to show. Current benchmarks for Internet leads are as follows: