YachtWorld, Boat Trader and Boats.com launch new Connections reporting

Dominion Marine Media brands YachtWorld, Boat Trader and boats.com announced the launch of Connections reporting, an online performance tracking tool which offers boat brokers, dealers and manufacturers insight into all of the ways consumers interact with their inventory before making a purchase. Customers now have visibility into buying behavior by tracking consumer activities such as social shares, email shares, website referrals and more.

Today’s boating consumers are spending more time researching online before arriving at a storefront to make a purchase. Traditionally, online marketing companies have historically reported on activity at the very top of the funnel (traffic) and at the very bottom (leads). Now with Connections reporting, customers across YachtWorld, Boat Trader and boats.com can track the activity that takes place in the middle of the funnel, where 90 percent of the online interaction occurs.

Connections are all of the ways that consumers interact with a brand or product before making a purchase, such as website visits, inventory browsing, social shares, email reminders and more. The new reporting will track where and how consumers are sharing their listings, including when a consumer prints or emails one of their listings, looks up their business location, calls a dealership, or views any additional client inventory listings.

These metrics are a stronger way to determine the strength of a business’ online marketing.

“While phone calls and emails are still very important metrics to track, we are seeing that consumers are interacting with products they’re interested in much more often. Dealers and brokers are providing more information about their boats, which consumers expect and appreciate – so they no longer have to submit a hard lead (phone call or email) just to get basic information about a boat listing. A consumer may connect with a brand in five or six ways, but never submit a traditional phone or email lead. Instead they perform their research and then show up at the storefront ready to purchase. Tracking these interactions allows our customers to understand consumers’ touch points and anticipate storefront traffic,” said Courtney Chalmers, vice president of marketing for Dominion Marine Media.

Consumers make over 300,000 “connections” to YachtWorld, Boat Trader and boats.com clients every month. This data is available across the three websites and can be seen by office or boat-level and across customizable timeframes.

To find out more information about Connections, visit www.YachtWorld.com, www.BoatTrader.com or www.boats.com.