The automotive industry has finally stepped out of the box and begun experimenting with technology to drive consumers from online searches and research into dealerships — not only to test drive the automobiles, but also to schedule maintenance and service.  

Paragon Honda, in partnership with its agency Team Velocity, collaborated with Google to build a voice assistant app that takes the headaches out of scheduling vehicle maintenance and service.

“Time is the new currency,” said Brian Benstock, general manager and vice president of Paragon Honda, in a video explaining some of the services. “We need to move at the speed of the customer. … And in fact, the whole notion of having to come to the dealership for services is outdated.”

Through the app, customers can schedule an appointment and even request to have their vehicle picked up, serviced, and returned to their home within 24 hours without ever having to visit the dealership.

Driving awareness for its 24-hour service, Paragon increased its investment in search through keyword terms like “honda oil change” and “honda maintenance” in the New York area. The results grew its repair orders by five-times the amount in the past 12 months.

Paragon also used search advertisements to drive new and used vehicle sales, but needed a way to prove its impact. Rather than focus on driving conversions through lead forms, Paragon used Google’s Store Visits technology to measure how its search ads helped generate in-store visits.

The visits were tracked through Google Store Visits, which marketers can use to monitor conversion tracking to see how clicks from ads and viewable impressions influence the move from offline or voice to physical stores.

The campaign relied on anonymous and aggregated data from signed-in Google users who had location history turned on to determine how search ads help drive in-store visits.

It helped Paragon’s marketers to better understand the keywords and the campaigns driving people to its dealership. It also showed that search was nearly five-times more cost-effective per vehicle sold compared to other media.

“You can’t afford today to put an ad on television and hope that some people sees it,” Benstock said.

Benstock said the normal, average cost to bring someone in the dealership and sell them a car is about $500. Using Google Store Visits through AdWords dropped to about $100.