GDPR Impacts Marketing Consents for UK Car Dealers

Car dealerships across Britain are being forced to adapt to having less marketing data to drive new business. This comes nearly a year after the GDPR regulations came into effect, limiting their freedom to operate.

According to research conducted by Marketing Delivery, a total of 475,000 vehicle enquiries were made to UK dealers, comparing data from the fourth quarter of 2017 with the last three months of 2018. Email consent rates have dropped from 80% to 70%, which means that many dealers are capturing email data that cannot be used.

Although last year saw the volume of enquiries increase by 13.4%, growing from 222,660 in Q4 2017 to 252,600 in Q4 2018, the data suggests a greater focus on data capture following GDPR’s introduction.

This trend was reflected in mobile number data where capture rates remain the same at 80% in both quarters. However, consent rates have decreased significantly, from 73% in 2017 to 56% in 2018.

Jeremy Evans, Managing Director of Marketing Delivery, said: “While GDPR appears to have impacted the ability of some dealers to secure customer consent for future communications, data capture rates for email and mobile remain strong in the majority of cases.”

Of the dealers who are best-in-class, their secure customer email consent rate remains consistent in more than 90% of enquiries, and mobile phone consent rate in more than 85% of cases. Customer email consent rates for poorer performing dealers are between 40 and 50%, with mobile consent rates declining to between 20% and 30%.

Mr Evans said: “Email remains the most productive channel for converting sales enquiries, and is the most likely channel through which car retailers can gain customer consent for marketing communications, such as new car sales messages, used car stock alerts, and service and MOT reminders.”

“It’s down to dealers to sell the value of consent to their customers, by offering only the most useful, relevant and timely communications.”

Are your dealerships seeing a decline in customer consent rates? Let us know your thoughts on GDPR in the automotive sector by commenting below or tweeting @Honcho_Search.