Latest activity

Alex Snyder · Jul 2, 2026

Wow! The bot traffic has increased way faster than I anticipated. Yesterday afternoon we had over 16,000 visitors on the site at one point. Most are bots.

The day before we hit over 14,000 and one bot crashed the site. We have some more safeguards for this in place. And I will continue to work on ways to separate the bots from the regular traffic.

I wanted to address these big numbers by saying we are not claiming these to be all automotive industry folks. And I should say this is all intentional! It happening faster than I thought it would.

In the past few weeks, DealerRefresh has grown. We were already noticing more traffic from AI search results from over 20 years of content on DealerRefresh. We then changed the SEO structure of threads, added summations, rebuilt our old newsletter system, added rewards for participation, Jeff got back on LinkedIn, and built a giant vendor library. All of this is bringing more traffic.

That Traffic = a mix of bots and poeple.

Alex Snyder · Jul 2, 2026

This is pretty cool! Thank you for putting it together. I would have used it at my dealership.

Also, thank you for reaching out ahead of time to make sure this was okay to promote. You done good

I wish more vendors would reach out to Jeff and me before posting. They end up spamming the forums.

Alex Snyder · Jul 2, 2026

I am beginning to find that Perplexity is better at picking my purchases than I am. This requires a lot of back-and-forth in the research phase, but I am constantly amazed at how good it has been at pointing me toward niche resources to address my issue that I never would have thought of.

Recently, I was looking for a gravel bike and was hunting all over used sites like Facebook, PinkBike, etc., and it found me a brand-new one at a local store that was on major sale.

What was most amazing was that I told it the way I like to ride, the terrain, and the characteristics I prefer in a bike. When a used one hit the market I thought looked interesting, it would say, "That is going to feel more numb than what you're looking for" or "That's a good option for you because it is nimble and light." It was right!

Outside of the regular non-research purchases, in 2026, I have used Perplexity, and it has yet to steer me wrong.

I can absolutely see this being a great influence on car buying and servicing. Much of the work I have done on my off-road truck has been suggested by Perplexity, not by my mechanic. It has had a minor pull under braking and acceleration that my mechanic hasn't been able to figure out. Over multiple Perplexity sessions, we have made a number of adjustments and replaced a few parts to get the pull a lot more sorted. Not 100% fixed yet, but it is at a point where the truck is totally sellable to someone else without that being a big issue.

P.S. I turned this thread into a poll.

joe.pistell · Jul 2, 2026

CarsonWhite said:
shopper in their late 60s who walked into their Buick store and purchased a vehicle purely because “ChatGPT told them to.”

Carson,
This is the tip of the ice berg. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted in an interview 1yr ago (below) that he was surprised by how deeply personal daily discussions are between younger users and AI.

From my daily walk arounds, I'm seeing people of all ages move past treating AI like a basic Google search and instead learning to have real conversations with it.

One of my pals is a retired guy whose daughter's dryer broke. ChatGPT walked him through the repair process step by step, and he fixed it himself for $30. He was beaming with pride and told everyone about it. Everyday experiences like that build a high level of consumer trust.

IMO, This 'mastery' over complex problems will compel people to fully rely on AI agents for complex transactions, like buying a Buick.

Login to view embedded media

Chris Apostalides · Jul 1, 2026

You need to get in front of GM's/Dealer Principals/Owners. 95% of BDC managers cannot make the decision to pull the trigger. Start from the top down, not the bottom up. If an owner or GM pushes you to a BDC director or marketing manager, great, tell that person the GM asked you to contact them to set up a call.

It's not an easy road (I live it).

You will be doing a lot of LinkedIn, emails, and phone calls.

joe.pistell · Jul 1, 2026

Ryan Everson said:
No surprise, Carvana has it figured out. They continue to be way ahead of everyone else on vehicle merchandising.

Ryan,
100% agreed. Carvana and CarMax enjoy an incredibly tight loop of business operations and engineering, where the platform leaders have their instant feedback right from the sales floor, right from the call center. They have full visibility into internal KPIs and can iterate at light speed.

Our incredibly fragmented, isolated cube-dwelling web vendors are still trying to figure out how to generate more leads.

Garcia, the CEO of Carvana, is 10q's talks about sales productivity as the hallmark of a great website: call counts going down, time on call going down, all the while sales are increasing 40% year-over-year and our incredibly fragmented, isolated cube-dwelling web vendors are still trying to figure out how to generate more leads.

Chris Apostalides · Jul 1, 2026

Good morning, all.

I am looking to give dealers on this forum 60-days of our trade value technology at no cost.

We have developed the only trade value technology in the marketplace that delivers leads with a guaranteed mobile number, vehicle info, and shopper's name. A dealer and I built Magic URL to solve a problem that legacy form fills cannot address, poor lead quality. Shoppers do not like filling out pages of information to receive a value. Those form fills cause high abandonment and create leads with incorrect contact data. I have asked HUNDREDS of dealers, if your current form fill generates 100 leads, how many are accurate (correct name and contact), and the standard answer is 60 out of 100 are typically good and the other 40 are unusable.

Magic URL solves this problem and generates leads that always have a verified mobile number, vehicle info, and shopper's name.

BDC teams and salespeople become frustrated when calling leads that do not exist. It shrinks confidence and isn't necessary in this day and age of technological advances. Magic URL has eliminated form fills and created a capture method that cannot be tricked. Our text enabled system allows shoppers to communicate in their preferred method, text messaging. Shoppers want instant gratification, without human engagement, in the simplest way possible. The system we developed is the easiest way for a shopper to obtain their trade-in value, and the most accurate method for a dealer to receive all of their information.

Additional benefits of Magic URL.

Never wonder if you are calling the correct number of a potential customer. All leads have a verified mobile number.
Our technology is not limited to your website. You can generate high-quality leads, instantly, from all marketing channels, digital or traditional.
Plug and play into Facebook, SEO, PPC, emails, direct mail, TV, POP signage, hangtags, or anything else.
Every campaign comes with a QR code that can be used on any marketing campaign.
We're integrated with Black Book, KBB, and AccuTrade values.
The built in 30-day virtual BDC follows up with shopper's (day 2, 5, 30) to ensure we capture as many leads as possible.
Leads are sent in real-time, but you also have access to a dashboard.
DealerVault integration to show sales, trades, and gross profit.

Take the tech for a test drive and see how it works.

Our demo website for testing the flow of the technology is Dan Jennings Auto - Click Me.

If you are interested, I am more than happy to offer our technology at no cost for 60-days. Let us prove to you how well it works before committing to our tech long term.

Samples of the technology are below. Because of file size restrictions, some of the images aren't the best quality. I can send more if anyone wants. Shoot me an email or give me a call/text. [email protected] or 314-701-6369.

I am always happy to answer questions. Thank you!

Sample CTA on SRP:

Sample CTA on Homepage:

Marketing Integration Examples:

Dan Sayer · Jul 1, 2026

BennettE said:
Bumping this! We have fully hit the market and have seen success with our first stores. If you have interest in giving it a spin now is the time. We just incorporated Ebay as well so we have 6+ sources.

What are the terms of the trial? May have a store or two willing to test.

Alex Snyder · Jun 30, 2026

Nice write-up! We are happy to help support your new start-up as it grows, Bennett

craigh · Jun 30, 2026

douglaskarr said:
We've built a platform for our data lake to bring in over a dozen resources.

Are you also bringing in DMS data or is this mostly the metadata layer of everything your dealership is producing or working in the market?

ryan.leslie · Jun 30, 2026

Remember when "attribution" was the buzzword of the hour? It might be time for that one to make a comeback tour.

Good Stuff Mr. Stauning.

craigh · Jun 30, 2026

We are in the data lake business as of late and I agree with all points in this thread - the first big challenge is getting ALL the data (financial data especially) and we typically throw all of that into the lake as bronze tier data. This data is messy, but pretty important for alot of the reporting we do.

Once we have as much bronze data as possible thrown in there, it's ETL time - most of our lakes skip silver entirely and go straight to gold files, which is merging all those customer records, balancing the accounts and making sure the financial statement actually aligns with reality after all credits, debits and inter-account transfers. Once you have the gold files figured out, the reporting layer is much simpler and (more importantly) a portable decision - you already have clean data you just need to visualize it, measure it, predict it, etc. The tricky part about this layer is the drilldown - we wanted to be able to click "90 Aged Units" and see those units, then click any unit and see all service data, but also see every single journal entry attached to that vehicle in the financial statement.

For the average dealer this is virtually impossible (especially with many of the vendors in our space) but we are having more and more conversations as dealers are realizing that this disparate data needs to be connected in order to properly see the entire operation.

One quick shout out: Tekion has done a superb job of opening this data up recently with their new direct data program - they have a full SDK to retrieve all data from the system and they're the easiest vendor to get data from because of this. We are also seeing great success with DealerBuilt and PBS who both believe data should be accessible with dealer consent.

Lending Mojo · Jun 30, 2026

If you’re an independent dealer looking for another strong financing source for your better-credit customers, Lending Mojo is worth a look. One of the most competitive auto finance programs out there, with quick funding and no extensive sign-up process or cost to join.

ALL DEALERS QUALIFY TO JOIN

Quick highlights:

• For customers 670+ FICO (A+/A/B tiers), rates as low as 5.49% for top-tier credit (rate same for 10yr old vehicles and up)

• Valuation based off JD Power Retail

• Terms up to 96 months

• Quick funding, no cost to sign up, no lengthy onboarding

• National coverage — all dealers qualify, no minimum time in business or financials

• Not just auto, they do commercial vehicles, equipment, and powersports/marine/RV

• Mojo Flex program for expanded approvals: no collateral restrictions (any age/mileage vehicle, salvage/rebuilt title, commercial units), helps with negative equity, no LTV restrictions, no recourse, no pre-payment penalty

Signup is free and fast — just go to lendingmojo.com and click “Join Today.”

Questions? Text/email gets the fastest response: 855-GET-MOJO (438-6656) or [email protected]

Dan Sayer · Jun 29, 2026

Steve Stauning said:
when there is clear evidence of competition successfully bidding on the name

First step for franchise dealers is to point it out to their OEM rep if the competitor is a like make. I know for Ford, when they see obvious Ford on Ford crime, that will activate a pretty swift slap on the hand to the other dealer.

joe.pistell · Jun 29, 2026

This video is how AI Engineering burns up 100's of hours in 2026:
Login to view embedded media
Mega AI power users will relate to this, it has a nickname: YAK SHAVING

On four different times in the last 2 weeks, I found myself in 1, 2 & 3 day long loops of rabbit hole prompt exploration solving what I thought were EPIC problems. The hours melt away as I and AI knock down one problem, then another, then another, Then a day(s) later, I come to realize that this monster of a fully automated system I built was useless. After the 3rd episode, I had turned into a F Bombing "WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M DOING" mad man.

It was then I discovered I wasn't alone,.. it's got a nick name... yak shaving.

craigh · Jun 29, 2026

joe.pistell said:
they are able to work with AI choreograph solutions that have never been made before.

The more I play with these tools, the more I believe in the Chamath pitch that AI is essentially acting as the best co-founder for every project. It has all the knowledge to handle finance, ideation, verification, research, etc - you have to have the idea and you have to be able to see the problem, but with some discipline we can solve almost any problem now.

I spend hours every week now working with employees at the company asking them where their time is spent and trying to identify areas for automation and efficiency - not to replace any roles, simply to let people focus on the parts of their job that move the needle for clients.

craigh · Jun 29, 2026

ChatGPT is getting useless even for the random time I decide to use it.

joe.pistell · Jun 28, 2026

AI power users, I don't know if this is me, but I swear it's not.

When a new release is dropped by a frontier LLM like Claude or OpenAI, the new release is razor-sharp and the upgrade is marvelous, but then as the weeks pass, the quality degrades. Just before the next new release, it really gets bad. Claude 4.8 is dumb as a box of rocks right now, and I want to kick it lol.

joe.pistell · Jun 28, 2026

carguyfiles said:
ai whiz kids and subject matter experts are two totally different things. anyone can write slop

I said "Wiz Kids in Dealers are building custom apps" and you took it out of context due to my brevity. This is what I meant:

EDITED because I need grammar police to lock me up:

Lucky dealerships' have intelligent minds (i.e. hat racks like @john.quinn ). These minds, who have been working inside the chaotic madness called a car dealership, have come to realize that if they take their domain expertise and all of the structured and semi-structured data that surrounds them, they are able to work with AI to choreograph solutions that have never been made before.

I have a dealer group client with a wiz kid inventory merchandising manager in charge of a standing inventory of > thousand VINS (that turns 8 times a year). This wiz kid was smart enough to see a problem, and see all of the disorganized & siloed data and create a system that no vendor nor any of his leaders could figure out how to do. He built the system at home.

Alex Snyder · Jun 27, 2026

Let's connect in the next week or two, Chris.

joe.pistell · Jun 27, 2026

Chris Cachor said:
Here's the marketing site I'm working on:

Dealer Commerce — Turn Online Shoppers Into Showroom-Ready Customers

DUUDE! I cant wait to dig into your mad scientist work!

Chris Cachor · Jun 26, 2026

So what originally started as a proof-of-concept from this thread kind of spiraled into a full blown commercial offering. I’ve been using different AI tools over the past 18 months or so to build out a vision for what a modern dealer platform *should* be. And so many of the things we’ve talked about here with other thought leaders is now a reality. I wouldn’t have the energy to make it all possible without AI. But I think the end result is pretty cool.

Here's the marketing site I'm working on:

Dealer Commerce — Turn Online Shoppers Into Showroom-Ready Customers

I have the platform feature complete now, and I'm going to spend the next month or so on polish and talking to dealers about it. More exciting things to come!

Dan Sayer · Jun 26, 2026

Steve Stauning said:
Okay, I made up the 92% statistic, though I doubt I am too far off.

"Hold my beer," said OTT.

If there was anything media agencies learned from SEM, it was the longer you keep something a mystery, the longer you can maintain profits. I don't want to take away from your continuation of the SEM alarm, but can you at some point run a series on OTT and the fleecing of automotive retail in that space? I doubt I'd be that far off if I made up a statistic that 98% is fraud!

elmagito · Jun 26, 2026

Baron Ringler said:
I caught this thread late, but for your sake I'm glad you didn't go with Reynolds. Reynolds adapted a caveat in their dealer contracts from when they merged up with UCS, that they own rights to all dealer data to use as they choose. For UCS, this would manifest when they discovered a store would be migrating to a different DMS, they would basically shut off all access to your own dealer information, making you pay to unlock it. I was a Reynolds installer for three years and the number of times we'd be in a Ford store at 1am, 2am, or later, to not give UCS a heads up on what were doing, was insane. And again, Reynolds adopted that business tactic once they merged with UCS.

I wish I would have read this earlier. Our owner and bean counter decided to switch from Drive Centric to Reynolds Focus in order to upgrade our current DMS of UCS / Power to Ignite. I am doing everything to convince them to stay with DriveCentric but it seems they already made the decision. I work as the Sales & Marketing Director at a Ford Dealer for over 15 years and DriveCentric has been the best CRM we have ever used. We have been with them for the past five year after being with ELeads.

Alex Snyder · Jun 26, 2026

Hey Steve, thanks for doing this!

How often do you find a PPC company pushing the dealer to purchase their own brand name? And about how much of the budget does that usually equate to

Latest activity

Latest activity

DEAL Magic URL Trade Value Technology™️at No Cost

Attachments

Filter