Jerry, every description, new or used, should have a call to action. This will increase the number of phone calls, no matter if its AutoTrader, Cars, CL or your website. I would prefer to have a phone call than an email as long as I have a good person on the phones.
See You Later Autotrader!
- Thread starter jon.berna
- Start date
- Mar 7, 2012
- 158
- 34
- First Name
- Mike
If Stefan or jberna are still with us, would you guys mind sharing with us the results of your year without autotrader? It was around this time last year that you gave your notice. Did you find that other vendors picked up the slack? Did you end up going back to Autotrader? Any stats or data you would be open to share would be greatly appreciated.
Our 2nd best month (as a group) on record came the month directly after cancelling and the best ever month came in Aug. Hard to say specifically what caused what as there were countless changes being made across the group. Personal is and will always be the number one way to improve the volume in a dealership. We have seen 40-60% MOM turnarounds from GM/SM changes. Website traffic increased 20-25% MOM right away and ended up being 65% YOY by Aug (Jan-Aug '11 vs, '12). This wasn't just from PPC but a spectrum of digital offerings.
A few of our stores are on Autotrader as of a month or so ago but on the whole most are not. Our focus over the last year was to instill the correct pricing procedures which is still not perfect but definitely much improved. There was a time when managers didn't even know how to price a car. The theory was what is the point to advertise anywhere if you are going to be 2-3k off the market.
Our comparison had to do with paying nearly twice as much as a group (AT vs. Cars.com) and I think everyone would agree that at some price point any product, no matter how good it is becomes too much (especially if used poorly as in our case). Our market was dominated by other groups spending 2-3x more than us on AT and close to zero on PPC. So the choice was try a different direction that is relatively soft or swim upstream.
I would say to those asking themselves the question should I cancel, lower etc. you have to realistically grade your current performance in your vehicle acquisition, photo process, pricing and re-pricing process. If these are poor then you can't blame the vendor for your issues. The individuals that support or not support any vendor 100% no questions asked shouldn't sway you from making a decision based on your situation. If someone would use one vendor no matter what in any market or situation then I wouldn't listen to them as obviously they aren't thinking clearly or have another agenda...
Be creative, make a decision and get everyone behind it!
A few of our stores are on Autotrader as of a month or so ago but on the whole most are not. Our focus over the last year was to instill the correct pricing procedures which is still not perfect but definitely much improved. There was a time when managers didn't even know how to price a car. The theory was what is the point to advertise anywhere if you are going to be 2-3k off the market.
Our comparison had to do with paying nearly twice as much as a group (AT vs. Cars.com) and I think everyone would agree that at some price point any product, no matter how good it is becomes too much (especially if used poorly as in our case). Our market was dominated by other groups spending 2-3x more than us on AT and close to zero on PPC. So the choice was try a different direction that is relatively soft or swim upstream.
I would say to those asking themselves the question should I cancel, lower etc. you have to realistically grade your current performance in your vehicle acquisition, photo process, pricing and re-pricing process. If these are poor then you can't blame the vendor for your issues. The individuals that support or not support any vendor 100% no questions asked shouldn't sway you from making a decision based on your situation. If someone would use one vendor no matter what in any market or situation then I wouldn't listen to them as obviously they aren't thinking clearly or have another agenda...
Be creative, make a decision and get everyone behind it!
Thanks for the info, I've been considering dropping AT as well. It just seems like they've gotten out of hand with all the little extras you have to purchase to even be relevant I don't have a very big budget where I'm at and am starting to think I could put that AT money to better use elsewhere.
How are you all calculating out your referrals to your website from Autotrader?
Being in Canada we are using Autotrader.ca which is a fair bit different compared to Autotrader.com. For my dealership (independent, used), with an average of 230 used vehicles in stock, last month (January 2013) Autotrader.ca referred the following (info from my Google Analytics)
1542 Visits, 63% New Visits, Avg Time 6:10, Bounce Rate 14%
We are in a highly competitive area (probably the most competitive in Canada). No clue if this is good or not as I've never had another dealer to compare to.
Being in Canada we are using Autotrader.ca which is a fair bit different compared to Autotrader.com. For my dealership (independent, used), with an average of 230 used vehicles in stock, last month (January 2013) Autotrader.ca referred the following (info from my Google Analytics)
1542 Visits, 63% New Visits, Avg Time 6:10, Bounce Rate 14%
We are in a highly competitive area (probably the most competitive in Canada). No clue if this is good or not as I've never had another dealer to compare to.
Last edited:
- Apr 1, 2012
- 144
- 35
- First Name
- Cody
If you set up conversion tracking on your website and Google Analytics you can see how many of those visitors ended up as e-leads. There used to be a way to track phone call leads in your Analytics, but I'm not sure if the service has been continued.
I have that setup, the unfortunate problem is that many of our leads end up being Carchat24 leads, so they don't record as conversions in Analytics. That is one of the minor gripes about chat software that I have. That being said, I'm going to look into it tonight and see how I can set it up to see conversions that take place on a 3rd party url
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Hi Stephen,
Thanks for sharing your info. This might sound like a stupid question, but do you mean Autotrader sent 105 visitors to your website or that visitors from Autotrader submitted 105 eleads on your website? I would have thought the 1st one (105 visitors).
- Dec 30, 2009
- 1,883
- 480
- First Name
- Yago
Most likely Google analitycs shows 105 referrals from Autotrader for that period
- Oct 29, 2009
- 730
- 833
- Awards
- 8
- First Name
- Rick
Just wanted to throw this out there. I haven't read the entire thread and maybe someone might have mentioned this earlier. I'm not sure. AutoTrader is now offering website tracking codes similar to Dataium's. Without the tracking codes, if a customer is on AutoTrader, see's your vehicle and then goes to Google and enters your dealership website from Google, you really have no way of knowing that customer was originally on AutoTrader.com and we give the credit to Google. With the tracking codes you will now be able to connect the dots and see that customer was on AT first. They are rolling this feature out very slowly. If your interested in it you will need to contact your rep and they will have to get approval. The trial goes on for 3 months and then they will show you the data / results.
Heres some more info about the program:
http://www.weworkforyou.com/uploads/DigitalAudienceAnalysisFINAL12-19-12.pdf
If you don't like reading then watch the video
Dealer Learning Center | Learning Library | We Work For You
Also, I did have AutoTrader do a sourcing study for our Toyota store and the results was very positive. The sourcing study was free of charge to us and AT paid a 3rd party survey company to survey our sold customers and really dig in and see what really brought them into our store.
AT offers alot of good programs like this. You really need to get in tune with your rep and find out what AT can offer you other than a subscription.
Heres some more info about the program:
http://www.weworkforyou.com/uploads/DigitalAudienceAnalysisFINAL12-19-12.pdf
If you don't like reading then watch the video
Dealer Learning Center | Learning Library | We Work For You
Also, I did have AutoTrader do a sourcing study for our Toyota store and the results was very positive. The sourcing study was free of charge to us and AT paid a 3rd party survey company to survey our sold customers and really dig in and see what really brought them into our store.
AT offers alot of good programs like this. You really need to get in tune with your rep and find out what AT can offer you other than a subscription.
