Components of Connect

Coin (Widget)
When Connect isn’t delivering any interactions, it lives on the page in this coin. The color of the coin is determined by the OEM’s brand colors, or by the client’s preference. You can change the colors in Connect settings, under the General tab. Clicking on the Coin opens up the widget to the homescreen.

Homescreen
The homescreen of Connect offers almost all the available interactions. It can be accessed by clicking on the coin.

Dynamic CTAs (In Page)
These are calls to action that in most cases existed on the site before Connect was deployed. They look native to the site, but when a visitor clicks on them, Connect is triggered. They can be found on search pages (SRPs), Vehicle Description Pages (VDPs), and the Homepage of the website. Leads who convert on these buttons are sent to the client’s CRM with the vehicle of interest included in the ADF.

Minihome
This is a form of Connect that appears for new visitors when they first arrive on the website, or anytime a visitor hovers on the Coin. Hovering over each icon shows the visitor the module name. Clicking on the icons opens the widget into a full interaction. Clicking on the x inside in the Coin will close the minibar.

Mobile minibar
This type of interaction shows on mobile sites on some of our clients (they have to opt-in). It’s a mini version of the homescreen. We’ve found that it performs much better on mobile than desktop Connect on mobile. Some clients don’t opt-in because of interference from other on-site tools.

Text us, Hours and Address will always be shown on Mobile Minibar. Clients can’t choose what other modules to show, Connect will decide what to show and where.

Full interaction
A full interaction will be shown to the visitor in instances when Connect decides to deliver it as-is, or when Connect delivers a notification and the visitor clicks into it, or at times when the visitor selects the module from the home screen, the minibar, or a dynamic CTA.

This is the place where visitors can convert--they fill out the form with the module-specific details (ex., in the case of the Trade-in module, they fill in details about their vehicle), and proceed to screen 2 or depending on the module, screen 3 where they fill in their name, email, and phone number.

Notifications
This is Connect’s least intrusive way of getting the visitor’s attention. It shows text (and sometimes an image) inviting the visitor to interact in some way. Clicking on the notification opens the module in a full interaction.

Follow-up interaction
Some Connect modules can take another action at the end of the conversion. For instance, when a visitor converts on an incentive, he is then given the option to book a test drive for that vehicle. If he books the test drive, this is considered another conversion. In this instance, we would have one lead, and two conversions. When we talk about conversions and leads, it’s important to understand that leads refers to the net number of unique people who converted, and therefore it’s possible and highly probable for a dealership to have more conversions than leads each month.

Exit pop-up
When a desktop visitor signals that he is about to leave the site (by moving the cursor to either of the top corners of the browser window), Connect sometimes shows a pop-up, as a last-ditch effort to engage the user before he leaves. Exit pop-up is enabled by default. If a client doesn’t want it, it can be turned off.

Reporting

To view the performance of each of these components inside the AutoLeadStar Dashboard, you may view the reporting page nested inside of Connect: /connect/reports/connect-performance