DanMorgan said:

Here in Baltimore MD. Area Guru's and Trader always had high referral traffic even if lead count wasn't the highest which is why we always kept them for that reason. I'm now at a Infiniti/Nissan point that hasn’t had any 3rd parties for a while and relying on an ad agency doing more organic Google advertising that I'm keeping my eye on to see if it makes sense or not.

The jury’s out right now but around this area dealers either pay up because they “have too” for all the leads they can get others limit 3rd party spend since the flip side is people may or will find us anyways by their google search and us showing up well in those results.

We’ll see.

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Hey @DanMorgan-

Organic is great for all of the reasons that you mentioned. I'd suggest making sure that your agency is running an aggressive campaign with minimal impression share lost to budget on new and used VLA too. Do some searches. The 3rd parties are in there for a reason.

Please PM me if you want to discuss this. Always glad to have a discussion with a fellow Refresher.

Here in Baltimore MD. Area Guru's and Trader always had high referral traffic even if lead count wasn't the highest which is why we always kept them for that reason. I'm now at a Infiniti/Nissan point that hasn’t had any 3rd parties for a while and relying on an ad agency doing more organic Google advertising that I'm keeping my eye on to see if it makes sense or not.

The jury’s out right now but around this area dealers either pay up because they “have too” for all the leads they can get others limit 3rd party spend since the flip side is people may or will find us anyways by their google search and us showing up well in those results.

We’ll see.

@Jeff Kershner's Mercedes-Benz of Hagerstown has been named a Cars.com 2026 Dealer of the Year​

https://www.drivemb.com/dealer-of-the-year-2026-cars/

woa! OG @Eley Duke 's in the house. LTNTT!

Ralph Ebersole said:

You will find for 3rd party it is market driven. Cars is stronger in some-many are the old newspaper markets; Trader in others, etc.

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OG Ralph E is in the house!

I was with elead for forever at my old long time spot then we switched to Tekion literally a week before the CDK hack and I'm a few months at a new spot that has elead/CDK. Getting back with elead/CDK is like riding a bike...the muscle memory has come back and I love the improvements CDK made to the backend Admin stuff.

Tekion is a very involved system and I was pretty used to it but it was a constant learning venture especially with the reports/data/campaigns side of things but that is not a bad thing. They are constantly improving.

My gut take is I'm happy to be back with elead's desking tool and CDK's deal/DMS (DRIVE) but will probably miss where Tekion was going with the data/reports/campaigns system it had with the CRM/ARC link.

KennySmithAutoUnite said:

Going through our lead bills again and wanted to compare notes.

Cars.com, CarGurus, Autotrader/KBB, TrueCar, OEM leads, whatever you have in the mix.

Not looking to beat anybody up. Some of these work in one market and fall flat in another.

What are you guys running right now?

Roughly what are you paying, and what are they really producing after the duplicates?

I’m less interested in CPL than appointments, shows, sold units and cost per sold.

Which sources are still worth the money?

Which ones are on the bubble?

Anybody cut one recently and realize you didn’t miss it or cut one and regret it?

Rough numbers are fine.

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You will find for 3rd party it is market driven. Cars is stronger in some-many are the old newspaper markets; Trader in others, etc.

POWER USERS:
When you are in AI for deep research and complex analysis, and it's output is so complex it takes you 20 mins to unpack it all?

Paste this prompt below into your thread, It's awesome:

It's been a long day and my brain is fried, talk to me like I'm 5.
Only report to me in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English. That means approved plain words, active voice, and one instruction or idea per sentence. Small words, short sentences, short paragraphs. If you have to use a big word, explain it right after. Only return what's actually necessary.
Just tell me what you did, did it work, what do I do now.

Click to expand...

If you use it, please give me a like.

p.s. sorry if this is a dupe post, I love this prompt and I cant recall if I posted this before (& a search didn't find it)

This is a great thread!

Would you like to use DealerRefresh as an example to show it off in this thread? I'm curious how we stack up.

Vollie is the leading software for dealership BDCs today. From what I know, it handles most of your questions.

CWinfrey said:

ProMax and it's not even close.

336-600-4756 Call me, I'll show you

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How do you say you work for ProMax without saying you work at ProMax

Ryan Everson said:

The sweet spot for AI agents is work that's structured enough to repeat, but variable enough to require judgment rather than standard automation...

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ya, this is the new prompting formula for the new frontier models. All of my prompts were sooo last year lol

Ryan Everson said:

with an outcome you can evaluate and measure.

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The loop and The Gauntlet

The machine needs a tweak where it not only searches DR's entire name file (of active participants), but it also looks for more than new jobs or new products, etc.

Grok's really good at the socials. Maybe somebody's got some time to build that monster

P.S. Speaking of Grok, Has anyone looked into Grok Bot yet? That's got @Ryan Everson written all over it.

My daughter is in a leadership position at [a dealership whose name we will not speak] lol. She spends most of her days pushing papers around like an office manager or office worker shuffling files, building PPTs. I gotta sit down with Grok, but I bet you I can save her four hours a day.

Tallcool1 said:

This is really cool @joe.pistell .

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Thnx Clint.

It was an AI harvest, I gave it this URL and gave it some instructions, and it went to work. I limited it to one page, not the entire DR audience, but it's easy to do. It's all machine made. Once it makes its first pass, then you could run it daily on a cron job.

P.S. by the way, congratulations on your election

This is really cool @joe.pistell .

Ryan Everson said:

Example of an updated mockup on a single taste skill pass:

Click to expand...

sexxxy... once rare and magnetic, is now a commodity... is now table stakes.

And, the internet has a new consumer... BOTS.

Bots now account for roughly 51% to 57.5% of all internet web traffic, officially surpassing human-generated traffic for the first time. According to network data from Cloudflare Radar, automated machines and AI agents generate a slight majority of online requests, leaving humans at roughly 42.5% to 49% of total web activity.

This is fantastic, Joe!!!

Clint Jones received a Nebraska state-board appointment​

Clint Jones, DealerRefresh member Tallcool1 and owner of Clock Tower Auto Mall, was confirmed to the Nebraska Motor Vehicle Industry Licensing Board on January 30, 2026.

The Nebraska Legislature approved the appointment by a 37–0 vote. The board regulates motor-vehicle dealers and related licensees in the state.

Links: Nebraska Legislature transcript · Licensing Board membership Nebraska Legislature

@Tallcool1​

George Nenni released a 2026 update to his GA4 book​

George released a May 2026 update to A Car Dealer’s Guide to Google Analytics 4.

The new edition includes updated dealer-specific instructions and color screenshots reflecting changes inside GA4.

Link: George Nenni’s announcement LinkedIn

@George Nenni​

Dealer Authority expanded Inventory Everywhere beyond automotive​

Dealer Authority introduced Inventory Everywhere before 2026. The system distributes live inventory across channels such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Google Vehicle Listing Ads.

The noteworthy 2026 event is its expansion into boat and marine dealership marketing in April.

Brian Michael West has been one of the public authors and promoters behind the product.

Links: Automotive Inventory Everywhere · Marine expansion

@Brian Michael West

Vicimus gained a distribution partnership for Bumper BI​

Consolidated Dealers Co-Op announced a 2026 partnership with Vicimus to make Bumper BI available to its dealer members.

Bumper BI combines information from sales, F&I, service, parts, accounting, marketing, and inventory into one dealership reporting system.

Craig Hooghiem is listed as Vicimus COO and EVP and is part of the leadership team behind the platform.

Links: Partnership announcement · Bumper BI leadership

@craigh

Alex Snyder expanded VehicleLyfe into service-lane acquisition​

VehicleLyfe’s name change occurred in 2025. The important 2026 development is a product expansion.

In June, VehicleLyfe added acquisition-opportunity generation using:

• Open repair orders.
• Closed repair orders.
• Service appointments.
• DMS data.

VehicleLyfe also describes an AI layer that converts customer and vehicle data into CRM insights, narratives, and customer profiles.

Links: VehicleLyfe timeline · Humanizing Data with AI

@Alex Snyder

Mitch Gallant disclosed an AI merchandising platform​

Mitch now operates Gallant Signal Marketing, an AI-native marketing and consulting company.

Its 2026 materials describe Blink Merchandising Engine, an AI-powered system that creates trim strings, product descriptions, and visual merchandising content for a retail operation with more than 200 units.

Links: Gallant Signal · Blink product description · Verified business listing

@Mitch Gallant