But, if the dealership had access to all of the data available and could see Lauren's entire shopping journey, they would see that she was looking at color options on their site after several months of activity. How different might it have turned out if the Acura dealer could see that in the weeks leading up to that web form submission, Lauren was on other car websites every day, researching her options?

If they had that sharper view into her journey and could see all of those sure signals of intent, they could have treated Lauren's inquiry much differently. They could have called and offered her an aggressive discount or low financing rate, among other tactics to win her business.

Additionally, from Acura's limited, first party-only point of view, they only saw her interest in an Acura. But, in actuality, the first several months of her buying journey, Lauren just wanted "a car", not specifically an Acura. It took several months for her to narrow down her selection to the Acura. When a brand has only a first party view of a consumer, it is not truly focused on solving the consumer's need (i.e. selecting the right car) -- it is focused only on the consumer's need as it relates to their brand (i.e. selecting the right Acura.)

In the graph above, we see that the Acura dealer only sees the eighth step in Lauren's shopping journey. If the Acura dealer had a view of her entire journey, they could have approached her much earlier to help her focus on the Acura sooner, and could have nurtured her along the way so that when it came time for me to make a choice, she'd be more likely to come to them for her pre-owned Acura.

Additionally, because Lauren bought from Carsense and not the Acura dealer, the Acura dealer translates her behaviors into her being someone who did not convert (since they had no way to see the conversion.) This could lead well- intentioned, but ill-informed marketers to make disastrous conclusions about Lauren.

Once you step outside of only using Google Analytics and marketing automation analytics to understand what visitors are doing when they visit your own organization's website, and you begin to use scoring algorithms that help you identify consumers who will be most likely to convert, in a measurable way, you can identify what can be done differently with those consumers.