The Truth About Automotive Leads
The truth about automotive leads may surprise you. Do you advertise your vehicles on websites such as Cars.com, CarGurus.com and other sites of that genre? What are your expectations of those websites? Do you expect your automotive Internet leads from these sites to be exclusively yours?
Your expectations and what actually happens may be two entirely different things.
If you advertise your vehicles on these sites, check to see if your leads are going to other dealerships. To find out, grab the VIN number of one of the vehicles you are advertising, and do a Google search for that VIN number. There is a good chance you’ll be shocked to see how many websites are advertising your vehicle.
The Trouble With Sharing Automotive Leads
On the surface, this appears to be a potentially good thing. You might think to yourself, this sounds like I’m getting additional advertising for free. But upon closer examination this isn’t good at all.
Think about it: You only get a lead when someone responds to one of your ads on Cars.com or CarGurus.com. But what happens to the leads from all of the other websites advertising your car?
So how did these other businesses get the information about your vehicle? The other websites bought it from the company you originally advertised with, or they could be a “sister company.” Either way, the folks you’re advertising with could very well be making additional money by using your vehicle info – without telling you (or asking for permission), and without compensating you.
These companies have also been known to “remarket” your leads to other competing dealerships. At that point, it becomes a wild goose chase to see who can contact the potential customer first.
If that doesn’t make you take notice, this next revelation might. Let’s say a prospective customer responds to an ad highlighting your vehicle. Often, the next question for the customer is related to financing. However, if you don’t happen to be a financing partner, they could send this lead to a competing dealership who is a financing partner!
Do yourself a favor. Put yourself in the shoes of a potential car buyer and do some research. Take the time to enter the VIN numbers of various vehicles in your inventory, and see how many websites your cars appear in. Then fill out a form on these other websites, as if you are a potential customer, and see which dealership calls you. You could discover the automotive leads you think are exclusively yours, are anything but yours alone.
JKR Advertising has a solution to this issue, ensuring you get high-quality automotive leads that are exclusive to your dealership. We advertise your vehicles directly on Google, Yahoo and Bing. All web traffic goes directly to your dealership website, so all generated leads are exclusive to your dealership. We are currently offering a FREE Internet advertising review, where we show you how to successfully advertise your vehicle and generate leads that are exclusively yours – just as they should be!