The cost per VDP – Vehicle Detail Page – is an important KPI

The VDP page, the so-called Vehicle Detail Page, is the most important page for selling your used cars, and possibly also your new cars in stock. This is where it happens: calling, apping, direct messaging or a showroom visit! Without a visit to your VDP, there is no chance of a conversion with the online customer.

I do not focus on the number of leads, but mainly on the number of VDP pages I can create for my stock. The more, the better. I do this by placing the inventory on portals such as Marktplaats, Autoscout24, Autotrack and ViaBOVAG. I also place the cars on Gaspedaal to stimulate the VDP pages on my own websites.

Now you can have a discussion about which VDP page is more important. Is it a VDP page on a portal where visitors know their way better than on the average dealership website? Or is the VDP page on the dealership’s own website more important? You can reason both ways, and both are correct.

Google Vehicle Listing Ads Experience Store Doesburg

But now, with the rise of searching via AI and with Google Vehicle Ads, the Cost per VDP suddenly becomes relevant. With Google you pay per click, per visitor who is directed to the VDP page on the dealership’s website. That therefore has a price.

At Ligier and Experience Store Doesburg I also run advertisements on Google Vehicle Listing Ads. I have been advertising there since the beta version, and with success. I sell cars through it, and the Cost per Lead and Cost per Sale are not high. And when we look at the Cost per VDP?

Statistics August

If you look at the statistics for August, you see the following:

Google Vehicle Listings Ads Analytics

The ads had 227,000 impressions, which resulted in 3,910 clicks. The costs are €0.20 per VDP page. Now the depth of the visitor coming from Google is not very deep, namely 1.3. That means the Cost per VDP becomes €0.15. Since this is an auction environment, and the major portals also invest in it, these costs are expected to rise significantly in the coming months.

Google Analytics Experience Store Doesburg

When I look at Marktplaats, I see the following:

Marktplaats statistics Doesburg

My investment that month on Marktplaats is €1,028 excl. VAT. For that, I get 31,589 VDP views on the platform itself. So I do not even count the number of leads, calls and URL clicks. The Cost per VDP is €0.03. A difference of 500%, in which the portal — and this also applies to Autoscout24, Autotrack and ViaBOVAG — delivers a much better ROI than Google Vehicle Listings Ads.

The portals are therefore not better, but they are more effective in creating more VDP pages at a better price. But sometimes it is also interesting to see what happened that month with the leads.

These are the campaigns of the leads that came into our store that month:

Walcu Stats Doesburg

There you can see that more VDP pages also generate more leads, but also that in Walcu we see that ChatGPT delivers leads. If you then look at which leads convert into sales, you see the following:

The distance between Marktplaats and Google is much smaller than the difference in leads. So the leads from Google have a higher conversion than those from Marktplaats.

Conclusion

What can you do with this? It gives direction on how to look at advertising on Google, Gaspedaal or portals such as Marktplaats. Without VDPs there are no leads, and the more efficiently you can buy those VDPs, the more money you can invest to create even more opportunities. That is how I look at VDPs and investments. These are my figures, and they differ per month. With thanks to our partner Infotrade, with Remco Roos, for the efforts to get Google Vehicle Listings Ads live.