Digital Advertising Resource for
RV Dealers and RV Industry

How Many PHOTOS Should I Have on my RV Classified Ads? …

Posted by Shawn Friesen on Mar 13, 2013

For an RV dealer, the main question always is: “How can I generate more RV shopper leads as opposed to less RV shopper leads?”

More leads is a good, good thing!

As a part of our RV Sales Maximizer Planning Sessions, we have the privilege of carefully analyzing large numbers of RV classified ads together with our dealer customers. This research proves that several key components of classified ads seem to continually “rise to the surface” as vitally important to the number of leads YOU are going to generate. For example …

“How Many PHOTOS Should I Have on my RV Classified Ads?”

Great question! Let’s look at this recent RVT.com data:

Zero Photos: Produces the lowest number of leads (by far)

VS.

1 to 15 Photos: Produces 188% MORE leads than Zero Photos

VS.

16 to 30 Photos: Produces 230% MORE leads than Zero Photos

Produces 15% MORE leads than 1 to 15 Photos

Key Take-Aways for RV Dealers:

The data above from RVT.com shows that more photos get you more leads but, you might ask … “Why look at ads with Zero Photos? No dealer would ever publish an RV classified with NO photos.”

On the contrary. Unfortunately, we do see it. Here are a couple of scenarios:

Some dealers order several new RVs, and then immediately advertise them online BEFORE the units have been received at the dealership. Hence, no photos.
Also, no-photo ads showing up online can have a lot to do with the dealer’s “merchandising process.” How fast are you at merchandising your inventory? For various reasons, dealers can take units in on trade, advertise them online immediately (without photos) and then, unfortunately, it can take some time before they get the pictures onto their ads.

Not great. Here’s how Dennis Galbraith of DrivingSales.com puts it in his book: Online Vehicle Merchandising

“Listings with photos convert from the SRP (Search Results Page) to the VDP (Vehicle Detail Page) at least 3 X more than vehicles without photos. … The longer vehicles wait for photos, the slower inventory will turn. It’s just that simple.”

In fact, Galbraith asserts:

“It can be said with little exaggeration that
a vehicle without photos is virtually not for sale.”

Now notice, in the statistical data above, how having 16 to 30 photos gets you 15% more leads than having 1 to 15 photos.

Is 15% more leads really a big deal? Is 15% really worth a lot of fuss and bother?

Perspective on Photos – # of Leads You Receive Over a Given Amount of Time

For perspective let’s look at, say, 100 leads.

Some large dealerships in strong retail locations can receive 100 leads extremely quickly. For smaller dealers, it takes more time. So, whatever the timeframe, if you simply start adding more photos to your RV classified ads, where you used to get 100 leads, you’re now getting 115 leads.

Same inventory
Same market
Same amount of time
Same cost of advertising. But, now suddenly – because you’re adding more photos –
You’re enjoying 15 more leads

What would you do with 15 extra leads? How many sales do you think you’d make? Are those extra leads going to mean one (1) additional sale? Two (2) sales? More? (Use this formula to calculate the cold-hard-cash value of “extra” leads.)

Every extra sale helps, right? And, the data shows every extra PHOTO helps get you there.