Units sold is the one number every channel can win on.

Third-party listing sites are sold on lead volume and reported on units, and both numbers are available quickly, which is why they are used.

Neither says anything about what the deals were worth, and gross per deal varies enormously by where the customer came from.

A channel producing price-led shoppers who arrived having already compared four listings will deliver units at minimal front gross.

One producing customers who came for the dealership rather than the listing will deliver fewer units at a materially better gross, and lose every units-based comparison.

Ranking on total gross is a single change of column and it reorders most dealerships' source lists.

Finance and insurance product penetration varies far more by customer type than by deal structure, and customer type varies by channel.

A file containing vehicle gross alone therefore understates exactly the channels that bring customers open to products, which are usually the more expensive channels.

Including back gross is one more column and it is the single most common reason a ranking changes when a dealership runs this properly.

It also puts a number on the argument between the sales floor and the marketing budget, which is otherwise conducted entirely on anecdote.

Where the export separates the two, the report shows both so the source of the difference is visible rather than merely the total.

A customer who returns for service for five years is worth considerably more than the deal, and whether they return is influenced by how they bought.

A shopper who drove ninety minutes for the lowest advertised price will service the car near home; somebody who bought locally will not.

Matching service revenue back to the acquiring channel over a longer window is the second report worth running, and it usually widens the gap the gross report opened.

It also changes what a dealership is willing to pay for a local customer, which is a strategic decision rather than a media-buying one.

The report keeps sale and service revenue separate so neither is silently credited to the other.

A large share of a dealership's business arrives with no digital trace: people who drove past, who bought here before, who were sent by a family member.

Left in Direct / Unknown that is honest but blunt, and it makes the paid channels look like a larger share of the business than they are.

A tracked number on the showroom line and a source field completed at the desk are enough to separate them, and both are cheap.

Knowing that a third of your deals are repeat customers changes the marketing plan far more than reordering the listing sites would.