Hey Vendors! Why is it always us?

[Chris Leslie]

Turning Auto Leads into Engagement http://dlrfr.sh/acnadz139

Why do some shoppers forget why you are contacting them, or outright deny they ever asked to hear from you?

To address this, we’ve laid out five free car sales training videos in a series titled, “Turning Leads Into Engagements.” In these videos we address the following topics:

1) Understanding the Mystery Car Lead
2) Online Car Buying Behavior and the Value of Leads
3) How Loyal Are Your Car Leads?
4)Tips to Best Manage Your Car Leads
5) Car Buyers Rely on Third Party Information

I'm really tired of vendors like this putting the whole blame on the dealers. Never have I seen a vendor give a realistic explanation of what is really going on out there in the world of 3rd party leads.

It's like asking the government about Area 51 anytime you want to talk about it. Nobody knows anything and nobody knows anyone else that knows anything.

How do you shoppers forget why we are contacting them? You know why and it isn't us. It's you!

I say lets talk about how Autobytel is the largest re-seller of "leads" out there.

 

[ryan.gerardi]

@Chris Leslie can you elaborate on what you are suggesting? Are you suggesting that when shoppers are (or act) confused about why your dealership is contacting them, that it's not the customer having amnesia or playing dumb?

From what I understand, Autobytel doesn't resell their leads, they generate and sell them to OEMs, dealers, and other lead providers. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Autobytel is the largest originator of leads?

At one time they were buying leads from the likes of AutoUSA and Dealix but they have acquire both these companies over the last few years and are now sourcing those leads on their own.

Full Disclosure: Autobytel advertises with DealerRefresh, but DealerRefresh does not endorse or denounce the company, their product, or their leads. I am genuinely seeking to understand your experience, evidence, and/or point of view.

 

[ChrisR]

@Chris Leslie can you elaborate on what you are suggesting? Are you suggesting that when shoppers are (or act) confused about why your dealership is contacting them, that it's not the customer having amnesia or playing dumb?

From what I understand, Autobytel doesn't resell their leads, they generate and sell them to OEMs, dealers, and other lead providers. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Autobytel is the largest originator of leads?

At one time they were buying leads from the likes of AutoUSA and Dealix but they have acquire both these companies over the last few years and are now sourcing those leads on their own.

Full Disclosure: Autobytel advertises with DealerRefresh, but DealerRefresh does not endorse or denounce the company, their product, or their leads. I am genuinely seeking to understand your experience, evidence, and/or point of view.

I would say that part of the 3rd party lead problem is that various site visitors fill out a form for one purpose, and suddenly have their information sent off to dealers.

Example: In January, one of my stores received a handful of Autobytel leads. The person tasked with responding to leads began the follow up process. A few attempts in, on each of these particular leads, he was able to make contact with the "lead submitter". They had no clue why a dealership was calling them, as they weren't in the market.

Thinking fast, this representative asked if the customer would mind answering a couple questions to help us get to the bottom of things. They agreed, and let us know they were never car shopping, a couple were shopping for car insurance, before their information was sent off to dealerships for a barrage of contact attempts.

That is in addition to all of the lead submitters that "didn't realize I was going to get phone calls when I put in my information to get pricing."

 

[Chris Leslie]

can you elaborate on what you are suggesting? Are you suggesting that when shoppers are (or act) confused about why your dealership is contacting them, that it's not the customer having amnesia or playing dumb?

I am suggesting that a lot of times people will fill out a form (lets say for a trade value) and instead of producing a number post click it returns the user to a thank you page. I am not saying all leads go this route but the issue still remains that 3rd party lead providers lack context of the user when pushing that lead to dealers and taking their 20 bucks. ​

From what I understand, Autobytel doesn't resell their leads, they generate and sell them to OEMs, dealers, and other lead providers. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Autobytel is the largest originator of leads?

They don't produce 100% of their leads I know for a fact. they still purchase leads. No one knows just how many. Yes, they sell them to other lead providers but where is the honor in that? ​

At one time they were buying leads from the likes of AutoUSA and Dealix but they have acquire both these companies over the last few years and are now sourcing those leads on their own.

How many other companies out there are they buying from now that they may purchase in the future? If they did that to these guys I would assume they would do it to the next guys as well. ​

My point in this whole rant is really to shed some light on how these businesses operate. They seem to have no problem kicking in the door of our dealerships and laying out all the things wrong we are doing with their leads. But, they never want to talk about whats really happening behind the scenes. I can't imagine its trade secrets because all in all its built on affiliate marketing more or less. When I ask places how they get their leads that they want to sell to me and instead of telling me they show me a black box and tell me not to worry about it. I have issues with that.

We as dealers get blamed for all the things we didn't close each month but I never hear a lead provider admit that maybe their leads just sucked that month or they started buying leads from another place that they didn't research well enough before adding them.

There is just a lot of unknowns going on in the world of 3rd party lead providers and I want to know more i guess.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

The business of reselling leads has been mostly crooked since day 1.

If the lead provider doesn't provide proof of where the lead actually originated from, one must be leary.

 

[Alexander Lau]

The business of reselling leads has been mostly crooked since day 1.

If the lead provider doesn't provide proof of where the lead actually originated from, one must be leary.

VERY MUCH SO!

 

[Rick Buffkin]

When I ask places how they get their leads that they want to sell to me and instead of telling me they show me a black box and tell me not to worry about it. I have issues with that.

@Chris Leslie, I completely agree with you brother. A couple weeks ago I was tasked to find a lead provider for some more opportunity at one of our stores. My initial though was "wtf". LOL. Anyway's I said to myself, surely the OEM has some sort-of leads program thats been vetted and has a decent closing ratio on the leads they send to the dealers. Sure enough they do. I called the OEM's digital dept. to get some more details about this program. In a 50 mile radius of our store, there was roughly 1100 leads sent to dealers over the course of 2 months. Of the 1100 submitted to dealers, the OEM tracked 7 that had sold. I repeated it back to the rep, "did you say SEVEN or seventy"!! She confirmed that she said SEVEN!! 7 out of 1100 leads that was delivered to dealers purchased vehicles in that time-frame. I kindly said "thank you but no thanks"!! I'll pass.