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Alex Snyder · 2026-09-17T19:15:54-0400

carguyfiles said:
Any thoughts on Muse @Alex Snyder ?

I haven't given it enough time to opine on it.

Alex Snyder · 2026-09-17T19:14:21-0400

Generic Salesperson said:
Alex, this is exactly the kind of blind spot I was hoping to find, thank you.

Sure thing.

Generic Salesperson said:
So when you're building an equity mining or lease maturity program, is the standard move to just pull straight from DMS and treat CRM as a supporting layer, or do dealerships also invest in fixing the sales team's CRM discipline so the two sources actually agree with each other over time?

Most dealerships purchase another piece of software for equity mining. For most, it goes much deeper, including lease portfolio management and service drive mining. Some CRMs have these features, but there is that old saying: "Master of one vs. trying to be a master of everything."

Fixing a sales team's CRM discipline... yeeeeeah. That's 1000% a requirement of leadership caring about it and enforcing it. Regardless, CRM is still not the place to run equity mining from. You can do basic stuff, but you'll want more later.

Generic Salesperson said:
On point 3, is the fix usually as simple as store specific landing pages and phone numbers so attribution is clean, or does the culture difference you mentioned mean the messaging itself needs to diverge too, not just the tracking?

Yup, that's a good place to start, and anything else will present itself.

Generic Salesperson said:
And point 4, personality, I'd love to hear more. When you say that's what makes you trust a candidate without direct dealership marketing experience, what does that actually look like in an interview? Is it how someone talks about a mistake, how they react when you push back on an idea, something else?

This is purely chemistry between you and the hiring person/people. You should look for that too. Nobody wants to work with people you don't get along with.

joe.pistell · 2026-09-17T13:55:40-0400

Overfuel is my fav website platform. Congrats.

Alex Snyder · 2026-09-17T10:26:48-0400

Automobile Industry Pricing Transparency: FAQs

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) developed these FAQs to help the automobile industry comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act.

www.ftc.gov

The FTC dropped its FAQs about automotive pricing this month. DealerRefresh and other places have discussed quite a bit of it (@tomkline's various AMAs have been great). If you've paid an ounce of attention, much of it should not be a surprise. There are a few things that I hadn't heard much about before these FAQs landed.

#10: About in-transit vehicles.
#11: Use of not actual photos for marketing
#12: Vendors are being held accountable too

Alex Snyder · 2026-09-17T10:16:34-0400

joe.pistell said:
Ugh. a $500 Fable 5 day. That's over the $200 base. I could have waited 36 hrs for the reset, but, time is more valuable. It's worth every penny, but it still is painful to a bootstrapper.

Code for Joe had another brilliant idea.

Alex Snyder · 2026-09-17T10:15:18-0400

Simply including fixed ops in a marketing conversation is a big first step. Too many dealerships separate sales and service in marketing.
Well, using a CRM is the first mistake. CRM data is trash for doing campaigns like equity mining. It is okay if you're generically looking for someone who owns a specific year make model. You need the DMS data to get the specifics of how the car was purchased to compare to current market values.
Each rooftop has different management and that creates a different culture. They also have different cars. If you're not clear to the customer which store this ad is for, they show up at the other store and the experience can turn sour fast.
Your personality.

Chris Cachor · Wednesday at 4:49 PM

I like the "confirmed available as of" timestamp.

joe.pistell · Wednesday at 4:46 PM

Ugh. a $500 Fable 5 day. That's over the $200 base. I could have waited 36 hrs for the reset, but, time is more valuable. It's worth every penny, but it still is painful to a bootstrapper.

Gayle Rogers · Wednesday at 4:00 PM

KennySmithAutoUnite said:
That example with your daughter is probably the best way to explain it.

If she walked into my store asking for a pink Beetle, I wouldn’t tell her she’s shopping wrong. I’d ask a few questions first. How far is she driving? What can she comfortably afford? How important is reliability? What does she actually need the car to do?

Then show her a few vehicles that make sense and explain why.

And I’d leave the Beetle in there too. If she understands the tradeoffs and still wants the pink Beetle, that’s fine. The point isn’t to choose for her. It’s to help her make a better decision.

I think that’s the piece we’re missing online.

Some customers know exactly what they want and should be able to get straight to inventory.

Others need help getting from “I need a car” to “these are the three that actually make sense for me.”

Once they make that decision, then we get into the actual inventory, mileage, condition, history, equipment, price and which store they want to deal with.

A good salesperson already does a lot of this in person. I think the website should be able to do some of it before the customer ever raises their hand.

I don't think this is simply a "website issue"...It's a larger problem of expectations, intent and purpose. @KennySmithAutoUnite outlined it really well.

Most dealership websites, and really a lot of websites in general, are built almost entirely around getting someone to contact you. Go to a dealership website and count how many different ways you're pushed to call, chat, submit a form, check availability, get a price, etc.

The website isn't really being used as a consultative tool. It's being used as a funnel to get you off the website and into contact with the dealership.

And I think that extends to marketing in general. So much of what we put in front of customers doesn't position dealers as experts, designed to help them understand their options, make a better decision, or always make the best choice. It's designed primarily to serve the immediate goal of generating a lead.

A lot of it is systemic. We've built a lot of technology, marketing, metrics, and processes around capturing the customer instead of helping the customer.

Gayle Rogers · Wednesday at 3:45 PM

dealerdata1 said:
I have been doing a ton of work on this recently but figured I would share the results of a case study we ran across 1300 dealerships

The basics were we monitored Core Web Vitals every day on both mobile and desktop (and technically still do)

I then segmented the data between the highest performers and lowest performers in the same market and pulled SEO keyword ranking data to compare

Summary - website that have passing or near passing CWV scores ranked for more keywords in positions 1-3 on google than websites who had failing CWV

And that was looking at dealers who didnt have a lick of SEO compared to dealers spending $5k a month, so the moral of the story much like everything is that if you dont have the basics down, it really doesnt matter and if anything hurts you

Anyway I look forward to offering SEO services in the very near future for a fraction of the cost with significantly more impact and ability to track sales back to the work to give true ROI

I love that you have been put the effort in to do the actual research. I know there aren't enough people in our industry that do. That said, I'd be really curious about the correlation vs causation factors. There are so many things that come together to create a "well optimized site" and/or one that ranks well. I'm certainly not dismissing the importance of CWV, but shark attacks are not caused by an increase in ice cream consumption...

Alex Snyder · Wednesday at 1:23 PM

Service is the most underutilized part of the dealership website. It is the most important gateway to future sales.

I'm researching dealership defection rates driven by rising vehicle ownership costs. When I'm done, I'll share it here to further strengthen your argument.

George Nenni · Tuesday at 1:38 PM

Here is a cool website I found looking for dealership citation data, pretty cool. Ranks core web vitals, and shows market share for automotive website providers, and shows when dealers defect from one website provider to another:

DealerDB - Market Dynamics

Explore the most up-to-date data on market share shifts, performance metrics, and vendor switches to stay ahead in the competitive auto dealership industry

www.dealerships.io

Alex Snyder · Tuesday at 12:27 PM

I like what you're up to!

joe.pistell · Saturday at 12:28 PM

Let's work that "Check Availability" CTA:

CTA call to action is one of the most valuable lead gens, let's experiment!

Within our constraints of car dealer world... this is very doable:

This CTA exploits that most websites are updated hourly. The goal is to change the CTA into a sense of urgency.

TROLLS... Be nice, this is a 1st draft, I am sharing the draft for idea improvement feedback.

This is yet another "you heard it here first" share on DR.
Your NEVER see this on Linkedin.

JayKelly · Sep 11, 2026

Are the large players in this space building their own walled gardens? Will this help or hinder at the dealer level? I could be wrong but I am pretty sure Cox hasn't and probably can't integrate all of their solutions beyond an API currently.
I believe the value proposition of the CDP is allowing dealers to be proactive. unlocking the insights, allows dealers to become as efficient as possible with their investments.

Watch the Widewail interview around AI assistants and the data they are ingesting.
Did you catch the Gemini updates?
Steallantis's new rules?
The FTC .....
You have increased scrutiny from the govt, OEM's and search engines on the bottom of the funnel where dealers spend the majority of their dry powder trying to move the needle.
You will need to truly understand your metrics before you can pivot to offense. The dealers that start to dive into the lost opportunity cost will set themselves apart in the future.

KennySmithAutoUnite · Sep 11, 2026

At 12 ROs a day with that much room in the shop, I probably wouldn’t try to solve it with one promotion.

Direct mail still works pretty well for us, especially when we target it instead of just blasting everybody. I’d go after customers who haven’t been back, overdue service, declined work, missed appointments, older VWs, stuff like that.

We’ve also been getting service appointments through Meta. Pretty simple ads. Real pictures of the shop, one reason to come in, and send them straight to the appointment scheduler. Something as simple as letting people know you have openings this week can work if everybody else around you is booked out.

I’d hit Google pretty hard too. If somebody nearby searches VW service, brakes, tires, warning light, MOT/inspection, whatever the problem is, I’d want them to be able to find you and book without having to hunt around.

Then I’d track booked appointments, shows and actual ROs from each source. If the mail is producing ROs, send more. If Meta is producing them, keep feeding it.

With that much open capacity I’d be trying a few channels at the same time and figuring out which one actually puts cars on the drive.

KennySmithAutoUnite · Sep 11, 2026

Joe, I think you’re right. I’ve never sat in a store thinking we need another place to send inventory. Something usually has to make me care first.

If you can show me real shoppers are there, keep the pricing and inventory accurate, and it doesn’t create more work for my team, I’ll listen.

Ryan, I’d call every one of those stores that turned it on without being asked. I’d want to know what happened that made them go looking for you in the first place.

KennySmithAutoUnite · Sep 11, 2026

Curious if every store has one of these.

Everything runs fine until somebody takes a few days off and then you realize they’re the only person who really knows how part of the process works.

Could be titles, accounting, recon, inventory, CRM, service, whatever.

Doesn’t even mean the process is bad. Sometimes that person has just been doing it forever and knows all the little stuff nobody else does.

What is it at your store?

And if you’ve actually gotten away from depending on one person like that, what did you change?

JayKelly · Sep 10, 2026

Pattern recognition, decisioning and service schedule optimization are the best use cases for AI.
Back in the day when roller hockey was a thing, I bought a pair of roller hockey skates. Think traditional hockey skates except with wheels. I considered myself pretty fast but everyone and I mean everyone was skating circles around me. They all had a good laugh then told me those are nice new skates. You will need to upgrade the bearings if you don't want to have a heart attack out here. We should be using the data and technology to optimize the human experience not replace it. Do you think there is a correlation between your google reviews and the fact that it takes 6-7 outbound messages to get someone to book service? What percentage of your chats are people who's car needs immediate service? Who monitors that? Did the LLM improve your show rate? close rate?

joe.pistell · Sep 10, 2026

Vochi said:
You’re right that segments exist the question is can a need entry point plus one constraint get the shopper to where they want to go faster than dropping them into the full segment?

I am done spoon feeding you sir, you are on your own.

If you give a shit, let go of the mouse, get into a store and start helping sell cars.

Alex Snyder · Sep 10, 2026

Whoa......waaaaaaaay back. That was when we were on a DealerOn website. Circa 2005 I think.

joe.pistell · Sep 10, 2026

Vochi said:
What matters most to you?

Family

Towing

Off-Road

Daily Driver

Ahh grasshopper, segments (well known to shoppers), maps to owner's context.

Try it.

joe.pistell · Sep 10, 2026

JayKelly said:
Asking a website to parse motivation is outside the realm of possibility.
The website is designed to capture intent.

Another OG, JAY KELLY IS IN DA' HOUSE! :woot:

KennySmithAutoUnite · Sep 10, 2026

Joe, I get what you mean now. I was reading “low quality user” as the shopper, not the level of experience they expect.

I agree though. Before we keep adding more tools, the basic shopping experience has to be really easy. Help me find the right car, show me what matters, and don’t make me work for it.

If we get that part right, the rest should feel a lot more natural.

joe.pistell · Sep 10, 2026

Alex Snyder said:
The second thing has been UI/UX development. We could be unique in that I could make a pixel-perfect design for engineers to implement before AI came around.

LOL Alex Snyder's avatar from 20 years ago!!
Checkered Flag Motor Car Corporation

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Let's work that "Check Availability" CTA:​

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Let's work that "Check Availability" CTA: