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The situation regarding COVID-19 continues to evolve in Canada, with impacts on AutoTrader.ca traffic varying by day. However, our Director of Marketing Intelligence, Baris Akyurek, took a look at what trends we can observe.
“The marketplace has proven very resilient in the face of COVID-19. This past week we saw around 3.5M sessions and 10.7M VDPs generated by 1.9M users. Early March saw typically strong YoY growth, however the past week has tracked around 9% lower for sessions YoY, so we will finish March with total sessions similar to March 2019.
Our research shows that users are spending longer in the research phase during COVID-19 since they may be delaying their purchase. We still see around 50,000 email and phone leads for our dealers each week since COVID-19 began, showing there remains intent to buy soon.”
Our advice to dealers, maintain exposure so your inventory makes it to car shoppers’ short list during this research phase. Stay on top of lead nurturing during this time, consumers might take a little longer to convert than usual, but with the right remote selling approach and communication strategy, there is business to be done.
For more advice on managing incoming leads during COVID-19, visit our COVID-19 Resource Center.