The main driver of traffic to your store will be your lead providers. There are a ton out there. The common ones you’ll see are TrueCar, KBB, Autotrader, Cars.com, etc. The main goal of these companies is collecting information on prospective buyers and sending it to you. With so many options, how do you decide which to choose?
This isn’t an easy question to answer, but every store struggles with it. Each provider will present statistics on how much traffic they receive, and how many opportunities they give to stores in the form of lead submissions. One thing to remember is just because a company gives you opportunities, doesn’t mean it will sell you more cars. Some lead sources have better closing ratios than others. Also, it’s important to look at your own dealership staff to see how many leads your organization can handle.
When looking at lead sources, if you don’t have the ability to handle large volume, you want to look at the quality. This is commonly judged by the closing ratio. The problem with using this metric is, it doesn’t actually tell you if the lead was good or not, only if your sales staff could close them. The quality of a lead provider is best determined by how many people your staff is able to contact.
The provider with the highest metrics will always be your website. Customers are engaged with your store, have seen your inventory, and are interested in a specific vehicle. However, most stores cannot survive on leads coming from their website alone. The next step is generally an inventory aggregator such as AutoTrader.
These types of websites are used to display your inventory to customers up to hundreds of miles away, along with your competition. Their main selling point is, everyone uses us so even if the lead didn’t come from us, they likely saw it on our site (that’s where they hit you with impression metrics). The tough part is, it’s impossible to track.
The next type of lead provider is a Car Buying Service. These are sources like TrueCar, Edmunds, and others. When you receive someone’s information from these sources, it’s important to know that in general, four other stores received the same lead. Speed is important here. These providers generally have a low closing percentage for multiple reasons. They could be far away from you, you don’t have what they’re looking for, another dealer contacted them first, and more. Sources like TrueCar use other websites such as USAA and sends them through their portal. Many times customers don’t know this, so when you’re putting together your responses, make sure to refer to them not as TrueCar buyers, but USAA buyers.
Most stores are going to use each type of lead provider. Using each type gives you more visibility to prospective customers. The real trick is the next part, how do I handle these customers when I receive their information?