Has anyone else seen a drop in the quality of Cars.com leads?

[Rdpatrick]

In the past few months we've seen a significant drop in the quality of our Cars.com leads. Our rep approached us with an offer to upgrade our package and I brought up this issue and she did the typical lead provider song and dance. "You probably are selling more from Cars.com than you realize...Maybe you should take your photos from the passenger side angle instead of the driver's side...Your leads are poor because you don't have the super-duper-deluxe package".

The numbers just don't add up. The response rate of our Cars.com leads are extremely poor compared to other lead providers. We do still sell enough to justify keeping our package but I can't justify spending any more money for a poor quality lead. I suspect that Cars.com has changed their call to action to show a higher lead count to their dealers, at the expense of the quality of the lead.

Has anyone else noticed this? Any thoughts on what we can do to better respond to a Cars.com customer vs our other 3rd party leads?

 

[ddavis]

Ricky,
I haven't seen your website or presence on Cars.com but my experience has taught me that your lead count is dependent on the following basic factors:

* Low days to market.
* Market-based pricing for new and used.
* Great descriptions and good pictures (also new and used).

What other lead providers are you comparing this to?

 

[Rdpatrick]

My issue isn't with lead count as much as lead quality. We also use Autotrader, TrueCar, Craigslist, OEM leads, and our website leads. Compared with the other sources, our Cars.com leads just have a much lower response rate in the past few months.

EDIT: Specifically referring to email leads.

 

[yagoparamo]

I can't fathom how could a website like Cars.com lead quality could change other than their most dynamic piece:

Your inventory type.

If the Cars.com buyer in your area is a more affluent buyer because like in Seattle Cars.com is affiliated to the main local TV station, a change in your inventory from a $20K average cars to $12K average cars may suddenly make your inventory in general else attractive to the particular segment of your area that uses Cars.com

Did I make any sense?

 

[Rdpatrick]

Yes, that does make sense. Our Autotrader traffic is great, possibly because of our location, but we just don't get the same quality of leads from Cars.com.

I can see how our inventory would effect lead quantity, but do you feel like that influences the lead quality? Or are you saying that we may be getting less-affluent customers who just email us on a whim and then never answer their phone or check their email afterwards?

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Ricky,

Can you clarify...

When you say Cars.com leads are you referring to ONLY leads generated from your inventory listing on Cars.com and NOT from the New Leads Plus program?

NewLeadsPlus

I've found in the past where dealers have a tendency to accidently combine these 2 products together when they're tracking the performance of their new leads from Cars.com.

Having some clarification around this could results in some different advise from the community.

 

[Rdpatrick]

Yes, sir. Just the leads from our listed inventory. The NewLeadsPlus is actually what they were trying to sell us when the discussion started. Currently our Cars.com rep is trying to contact the leads herself to see if she can help us get a better response or see what's going wrong. And, again, this is the only provider we're seeing this with.

 

[yagoparamo]

Yes, that does make sense. Our Autotrader traffic is great, possibly because of our location, but we just don't get the same quality of leads from Cars.com.

I can see how our inventory would effect lead quantity, but do you feel like that influences the lead quality? Or are you saying that we may be getting less-affluent customers who just email us on a whim and then never answer their phone or check their email afterwards?

There has to be a correlation with the fact that $15k cars work well in the magazines and CL and $65k Audi S5 works well on Autotrader.com.

If you have a lot of 2012 S5 Autotarder works great and CL sucks.
If you have a lot of $5,999 KIA Shepia's Craigs List will rock for you.

So if your inventory changes sor will be sources that create the leads.

 

[Alex Snyder]

There has to be a correlation with the fact that $15k cars work well in the magazines and CL and $65k Audi S5 works well on Autotrader.com.

If you have a lot of 2012 S5 Autotarder works great and CL sucks.
If you have a lot of $5,999 KIA Shepia's Craigs List will rock for you.

So if your inventory changes sor will be sources that create the leads.

It is going to vary in every market, but in my Checkered Flag days I found that Autotrader was better for cars under $14,000 and Cars.com was better for cars over $19,000. We ran an average inventory price around $17,000ish so Cars.com produced better for us.

It wasn't simple to figure that out. It took months of data to discover these ranges and I'm sure it is all different today because markets fluctuate.

 

[yagoparamo]

It is going to vary in every market, but in my Checkered Flag days I found that Autotrader was better for cars under $14,000 and Cars.com was better for cars over $19,000. We ran an average inventory price around $17,000ish so Cars.com produced better for us.

It wasn't simple to figure that out. It took months of data to discover these ranges and I'm sure it is all different today because markets fluctuate.

Alex,

I meant my lines just as an example but the bigger picture for dealers is that "cars.com" suddenly doesn't send lower quality leads, or your website suddenly doesn't index properly. We always look at the other side to find the problem.

The most variable thing out there that will make the most impact on everything that happens: The cars that you buy at the auction.