AutoPlayAuto.com has now been live since mid 2019 and the vast majority of AutoPlay dealers have now migrated over to the new system.

However there are still some AutoPlay users still using the iOS App and using the old Silverlight application via Internet Explorer on https://automotive.autoplay.co.nz/ 

At some point during 2020 AutoPlay will be turning off the old Silverlight application and reviewing the role of the iOS app.  AutoPlayAuto.com works on tablets and phones as well as desktop PC's via Chrome, Safari Firefox and other HTML5 compliant browsers.  This has rendered the iOS App and Silverlight systems obsolete as AutoPlayAuto.com will work on your iPad and iPhone.

We are no longer supporting the old applications and we are working through the steps necessary to shut these services down now that they have been replaced by https://www.autoplayauto.com.  At this stage we do not have a firm deadline for when the old systems will be disabled but it is highly likely to be no later than June 2020.

AutoPlay run monthly releases and all of the new features such as Appraisal Splat Graphs, Appraisal group offers and more is only available in https://www.autoplayauto.com.  If you are not using the new version you won't be able to take advantage of any new functionality.  The new system is also considerably faster, and in addition it is likely you may experience issues running the old Silverlight or iOS Apps.

For these reasons it makes a lot of sense to migrate now*.  All that is required is Chrome or Firefox (on Desktop), Safari (on iOS) or Chrome (on Android).

Deadline: June 2020
Action Required:  Switch over to use https://www.autoplayauto.com 

* Note - if you are a Toyota New Zealand dealership you will notice "My Leads" is no longer visible.  In https://www.autoplayauto.com the "My Leads" screen has been replaced by the Sales Pipeline.  There is a little more set up involved with Sales Pipeline so if you have any questions please contact Support on support@autoplay.co.nz 

Happy New Year to everyone!  With 2020 now upon us it’s time to look back upon the last month of 2019 and review the top sources of leads, test drives and sales in December last year.  December is traditionally a quiet month for dealerships - a naturally lower volume of activity, coupled with the fact that it can be harder to retain lead management discipline when you’d rather be at the beach – often results in sizeable decreases in the volume of leads, test drives and sales.
​
December 2019 was no different with leads decreasing by 13.4% from November to December 2019, test drives decreasing even further by 22.3% and sales falling off slightly by 7.8%.  With the decreased volume of leads and test drives in December it will be interesting to see the flow on effect on January performance – already a quiet month with many people still on holiday.

With leads decreasing by 13.4% month-to-month the tops sources of leads decreased across the board.  Interestingly this was more evident for dealership websites with the volume of leads dropping by 16.8% for the ‘Web – Dealer’ source and only decreasing by 6.6% for the ‘Web – Classified’ source.  This suggests that whilst dealer websites are very competitive with the likes of Trade Me and Driven over the course of the year, these classified websites do a better job of retaining eyeballs over the xmas and new year’s period.

This was mirrored to a lesser extent with the volume of test drives in December 2019.  Test drives attributed to ‘Web – Classified’ sources decreased by 12.3%, compared to a 18.3% decrease for test drives attributed to ‘Web – Dealer’ sources.  Interestingly test drives recorded against the ‘Direct’ source decreased by only 6.1% vs the total average decrease in test drives of 22.3% - meaning either there was still a steady stream of true “walk in” test drives, or dealers did not push these customers as much to identify the true reason they came into the dealership for a test drive.

Sales decreased overall by 7.8% from November 2019 to December 2019, however several of the top sources of sales experienced even greater drops – meaning some of the lesser recorded sources of sales were not as affected by the holiday period.   Sales from the ‘Web – Classified’ source decreased by 10.7% in December 2019, whilst ‘Web – Dealer’ sales only decreased by 5.5%.  Whether this means anything significant when contrasted by the larger than average drop in ‘Web -Dealer’ leads and test drives remains to be seen – it may be too soon to see the full flow on effect of these decreases.

From everyone here at AutoPlay we’d like to wish every dealer a successful 2020 and hope you all embrace effective lead management practices in 2020 (we can help with that!).  Make sure to check back next month to see the top sources of leads, test drives and sales in January 2020.

Hundreds of dealers have already signed up to receive leads via DRIVEN's new lead generation packages, don’t miss out on yours.
 
Select your preferred DRIVEN lead generation package, and as a thank you from the DRIVEN team, you’re in the draw to WIN a $15,000 NZME advertising campaign for your dealership.*
 
Check out the packages below and choose the one which is best for you.

Standard Lead Generation is available as Driven's fixed rate package, all you’ll pay is a small monthly subscription, up to 80% cheaper than what you'll pay elsewhere. This covers having your listings promoted to Driven's motoring audience of 133k monthly** and unlimited email enquiries.
 
Enhanced Lead Generation package is Driven's performance based pay per lead model for dealers who want to accelerate their growth faster. This package gives you access to the full dealer toolkit of lead generation options.

​Furthermore, Christmas has come early, you won’t pay anything until 2020 - with extended free access right until the end of the year.

Contact Driven via support@driven.co.nz to have one of the DRIVEN Specialists get in touch with further information.
 
*Competition drawn 16th December 2019. **SOURCE: Nielsen Online Ratings October 2019

It's that time of year again...Santa's loading up his sleigh, the reindeer's are stretching and AutoPlay are prepping for the end of year rush.

Christmas is typically a busy time for AutoPlay so if you are looking for some help sending a christmas/new years email to your customers please make sure to give us as much advance notice.  We may be unable to get your email out on time if we are given less than 10 working days as notice - so get your request in nice and early to make sure you don't miss out.

Over the Christmas and New Years period AutoPlay NZ will be closed from Friday 20th December through to January 6th.  The full schedule is below;

• Thursday 19th December - Normal office hours
• Friday 20th December - Closed for our Xmas party!
• Monday 23rd December - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Tuesday 24th December - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Wednesday 25th December - Closed
• Thursday 26th December - Closed
• Friday 27th December - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Monday 30th December - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Tuesday 31st December - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Wednesday 1st January - Closed
• Thursday 2nd January - Closed
• Friday 3rd January - Skeleton crew only for urgent requests
• Monday 6th January - Normal office hours (for most AutoPlay employees)

​If you have any questions please get in touch with us at support@autoplay.co.nz 

​After decreasing from August to September, the volume of Leads and Test Drives bounced back – increasing by 3.4% and 2.0% respectively.  However, after increasing by 3.9% the previous month, the period of September to October saw Sales decrease by 9.4% - continuing the up and down trends we’ve seen across kiwi dealers all year.

Much of the increase in Leads can be attributed to an increase in the number of leads attributed to the ‘Brand’ lead source – which increased by 37.2% from September to October.  This caused it to become the second most common source of leads in NZ – leaping ahead of the ‘Web-Dealer’ source for the first time in recent memory (which decreased by 1.3%).  

‘Web – Classified’ remains the most common source of Leads in NZ and increased by 1.2% from last month.  Similarly the ‘Direct’ source still accounts for the second most Test Drives generated in October – despite decreasing by 3.9%.  The ‘Web – Dealer’ source accounted for the third most Test Drives and increased by 1.7% from September to October.

​With Sales decreasing by 9.4% it’s unsurprising that we saw decreases in the volume of Sales attributed against each of the top 3 sources of Sales.  ‘Web – Classified decreased by 11.’2%, ‘Repeat’ dropped by just 1.1% and sales from the ‘Web – Dealer’ source dropped by 11.9% - resulting in dealer website leads falling to become the third most common source attributed to sales in NZ.

​Make sure to check back next month to see the top Sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in November 2019

​Over the last few months we’ve seen numerous ups and downs and September was no different.  After increasing by 2.6% from July to August, the overall number of Leads decreased by 3.9%, whilst Test Drives decreased by 2.5% from August to September.  Likely due to the increase in leads in August, we saw an increase of 3.9% Sales from August to September.

​‘Web – Classified’ remained the most common source of leads in NZ, but after increasing by 4.7% the previous month, leads from this source dropped by 5.2% in September.  ‘Web – Dealer’ leads from dealership websites also decreased – by 2.8% from August.  After increasing by almost 10% in August, we saw ‘Brand’ leads dropping by 13.1%.

​September 2019 saw Test Drives from ‘Web – Classified’ decrease by 1.7% from the previous month.  After being the second most common source of Test Drives for the last 12 months, September saw ‘Web – Dealer’ drop by 17.3% - leapfrogged into second place by test drives attributed to the ‘Direct’ sources.  Whilst this generally indicates walk-in Test Drives, this can be a negative as it can be used instead of attributing Test Drives to the real source.

​With Sales increasing by 3.9% we also saw Sales attributed to the ‘Web – Classified’ source increase by 2.8%.  Despite the overall increase in Sales, those attributed to ‘Web – Dealer’ dropped by 9.4% and ‘Repeat’ dropped by 1.1% from August to September 2019.

​Make sure to check back next month to see the top Sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in October 2019.  

The market performance in 2019 to date has been up and down, and July was no different.  After increasing by 3.3% from May to June, the volume of leads captured by kiwi dealers decreased by 3.2% from June to July 2019.  Test Drives fell again with 4.6% fewer Test Drives loaded across the 80% of franchise dealers using AutoPlay in July.  Sales bounced back in July with 12.9% more Sales being logged among AutoPlay dealers in July.

Unlike most sources, leads from ‘Web -Classified’ sources increased by 5.4% from June to July.  July also saw ‘Web – Dealer’ reclaim the second most popular source of leads despite decreasing by 1.9% from month-to-month.  This is because leads from the ‘Brand’ source decreasing by a massive 69.1% from June to July.  This is not unexpected as every June in NZ we see brands accounting for a large amount of leads due to the marketing and sales activities around Fieldays.

In July ‘Web Classified’ was the most common source of Test Drives but fell by 9.4%.  Test Drives arising from ‘Web – Dealer’ leads increased by 2.1% and Test Drives from ‘Direct’ leads decreased by 2.0% from June to July.

After a sizeable drop in Sales in June, Sales across the board increased in July 2019 (by 12.9%).  This was primarily due to a significant uptick in conversion to Sales on ‘Web – Classified’ leads – increasing by 23.2% from June to July.  Sales from ‘Web – Dealer’ source also increased by 5.5% resulting in a great month of Sales from online sources.  Sales from ‘Repeat’ customers decreased slightly (-0.1%) but still remained the 3rd most prevalent source of leads in July.

​Make sure to check back in August to see the top Sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in August 2019.  

​May 2019 saw increases of more than 8% in the number of Leads, Test Drives and Sales from the previous month.  In June 2019 we saw a slight increase in leads of 3.3%, but Test Drives decreased by 10% from May 2019 to June 2019, and Sales decreased by 15.7% from month to month.

The top 3 sources of leads remain unchanged with ‘Web – Classified’ continuing to be the most common source of leads for NZ Dealers despite decreasing by 1.3% from May to June 2019.  With Fieldays in June, ‘Brand’ supplied leads jumped a spot to be the second largest supplier of leads in NZ – on the back of a 29.6% increase the previous month, leads from the ‘Brand’ source increased a further 15% in June.  ‘Web – Dealer’ rounded out the top 3 despite a 6.6% decrease.

Test Drives decreased across the board as we were yet to witness the conversion of Leads to Test Drives within June from the Fieldays event.  Typically, we would expect to see an increase in Test Drives in the months following Fieldays.  From May 2019 to June 2019 we saw a decrease of 24.7% in Test Drives from the ‘Web - Dealer’ source, a decrease of 2.4% from ‘Web – Classified’ and an increase of 3.3% in Test Drives generated from May to June 2019.

Sales dropped by 15% from May to June across kiwi AutoPlay users.  We saw this trend across all sources with ‘Web – Classified’ decreasing by 22.9%, ‘Web – Dealer’ decreased by 14.7% and Sales from the ‘Repeat’ Source decreased by 16.5%.

​Make sure to check back in August to see the top Sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in July 2019.  

​After April was one of the worst performing months in recent memory, we experienced a bounce back in May 2019 with increases in the number of Leads, Test Drives and Sales recorded.  We saw Leads increase by 14.2%, Test Drives by 17.4% and 8.0% increase in Sales from April 2019 to May 2019.

The top 3 sources of leads remain unchanged with ‘Web – Classified’ bouncing back from an 11.7% decrease from March to April, with a 10% increase from April to May 2019.  Leads from the ‘Web – Dealer’ source increased by 6.7% and continued to be the second most common source of leads in May.  As brands geared up for Fieldays in NZ we saw a number of pre-qualified leads for the event get pushed through to dealers in advance of Fieldays.  This was reflected in an increase in leads from the ‘Brand’ source of 29.6% from April 2019 to May 2019.

Following the trend, we saw Test Drives increase by 17.4% April to May 2019.  The most common source of Test Drives was again ‘Web – Dealer’ leads which increased by 12.4% month to month.  After drops of more than 30% in April, Test Drives from ‘Web – Classified’ sources bounced up to second on the back of a 16.4% increase month to month.  ‘Direct’ Test Drives also increased, but by a smaller margin (6.8%) – resulting in this source slipping to occupy the 3rd spot in Test Drive tracking.

​As with Leads and Test Drives, we saw an increase in Sales.  This played out as an 12.9% increase in Sales attributed to ‘Web - Classified’ sources, 3.5% increase in Sales from dealer websites (‘Web – Dealer’) and 5.6% increase in Sales attributed to ‘Repeat’ lead sources.

​With Fieldays just completed in June, we expect to see a big increase in brand leads when we publish the June figures next month.  Make sure to check The PlayBook next month for the top sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in June 2019.  

​As winter sets in we’ve seen a noticeable drop in activity by NZ dealers across all the key kpi’s.  April was one of the worst months in memory with Leads decreasing by 22.3%, Test Drives by 31.2% and Sales by 19.8%.

​With Fieldays just around the horizon in June dealers across NZ will be hoping for a bounce back in Leads, Test Drives and Sales in the coming months.  As always make sure to check back next month for the top sources of Leads, Test Drives and Sales in May 2019.  ​