602% rate increase - Cargurus

[ChrisR]

I believe, unless things have changed since I worked there, that you can put a limit on the radius so that you won't receive leads from people that are more than X amount of miles away.

Back out the leads that came from more than 100 miles away from your store and push back with the actual quality lead info.

(be cautious sharing your cost per month, like Jim said below CG has it written into every contract that dealers can't share that info)

@Chris - Obviously you cannot pay what they're asking, but if you stay consistent in the negotiations, hopefully you can arrive at something that works for both parties. Don't give up because they don't want to lose your business.

Colin - I find that funny (about the not sharing what is paid) - sounds like the "don't share your income" threats at some employers. I get it, CG rates are like car insurance, each person's will vary greatly based on inventory count, etc - they don't do the same flat rate type pricing of the AT, Cars, etc based on inventory size.

Jim - Our rep doesn't seem too interested in that, I brought up multiple times with him that our inexpensive cars (that he admitted were a large chunk of our traffic & were un-rateable) generated a lot of traffic.

 

[Dan Sayer]

@ChrisR What is your cost per VDP? How many referrals to your site each month? How many assisted conversions from those referrals? What is your conversion rate on the leads right now? At 3 sales per month, guessing you have 20 (15%), 30 (10%), 43 (7%) leads? No, I wouldn't accept a $800 to $5000 jump BUT if my consideration of other KPI's are good, I would take a price increase to stay. We can either get "emotional" about a vendor asking for more money or go into "geek mode" and understand the ROI or fall somewhere in-between but don't cancel without full consideration of all data. For instance:

 

[Tallcool1]

@ChrisR What is your cost per VDP? How many referrals to your site each month? How many assisted conversions from those referrals? What is your conversion rate on the leads right now? At 3 sales per month, guessing you have 20 (15%), 30 (10%), 43 (7%) leads? No, I wouldn't accept a $800 to $5000 jump BUT if my consideration of other KPI's are good, I would take a price increase to stay. We can either get "emotional" about a vendor asking for more money or go into "geek mode" and understand the ROI or fall somewhere in-between but don't cancel without full consideration of all data. For instance:View attachment 5352

Where did this graphic come from. Is this GA or out of a CRM?

I like the idea of tracking the "client path" or whatever it is called, but don't understand how to go about getting that data.

That is really interesting (I know, I am the only guy in here that has never seen this) to me.

 

[Dan Sayer]

Where did this graphic come from. Is this GA or out of a CRM?

I like the idea of tracking the "client path" or whatever it is called, but don't understand how to go about getting that data.

That is really interesting (I know, I am the only guy in here that has never seen this) to me.

In GA. Conversions > Multi Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths.
From the "Secondary Dimension" drop-down (left side, top of column), select "Source/Medium Path" by typing "Sourc...." and it'll come up to select.
Then on the right side above the columns you'll see a Search field. Click the "Advanced". Click the green "MCF Channel Grouping Path" and switch to "Source/Medium" and enter "cargurus" into the search field for "Containing". Click Apply.

This is merely one measurement to be taken into consideration. I also look at Referrals to the sites in GA. Keep in ming true attribution is really really difficult so making a decision on any one item, like "how many I sold that were leads directly from CarGurus", can be misguided if we only look at last click attribution.

 

[ChrisR]

@ChrisR What is your cost per VDP? How many referrals to your site each month? How many assisted conversions from those referrals? What is your conversion rate on the leads right now? At 3 sales per month, guessing you have 20 (15%), 30 (10%), 43 (7%) leads? No, I wouldn't accept a $800 to $5000 jump BUT if my consideration of other KPI's are good, I would take a price increase to stay. We can either get "emotional" about a vendor asking for more money or go into "geek mode" and understand the ROI or fall somewhere in-between but don't cancel without full consideration of all data. For instance:View attachment 5352

Cost per VDP, of course, is going to be pretty miniscule - around .06 each on pre-owned. If I can figure a way to filter out the "event" cars (mechanic's specials, $500 OTD, etc), that will help get a more beneficial metric. That inventory is also what, I feel, is skewing our performance metrics. We receive a TON of leads on the super cheap cars (need transmissions, have 5 different colors of paint, etc) - from all across the country, so far, nobody has been willing to buy a $1,000 vehicle, and spend another $1,000+ in transport to get it to where they live.

I have another call with our CG rep, at some point, as they essentially keep going back to "talk to the manager" and see what they can do for us.

 

[Dan Sayer]

Cost per VDP, of course, is going to be pretty miniscule - around .06 each on pre-owned. If I can figure a way to filter out the "event" cars (mechanic's specials, $500 OTD, etc), that will help get a more beneficial metric. That inventory is also what, I feel, is skewing our performance metrics. We receive a TON of leads on the super cheap cars (need transmissions, have 5 different colors of paint, etc) - from all across the country, so far, nobody has been willing to buy a $1,000 vehicle, and spend another $1,000+ in transport to get it to where they live.

I have another call with our CG rep, at some point, as they essentially keep going back to "talk to the manager" and see what they can do for us.

Yeah, you need to filter out those cheap cars. FB Marketplace all day but probably not on 3rd party sites.

 

[ChrisR]

Yeah, you need to filter out those cheap cars. FB Marketplace all day but probably not on 3rd party sites.

Agreed, working on that with our rep. They will see if they can limit the range the listings will show.

The joys of a multitude of 3PL providers, with different target demographics, etc.

 

[John V.]

Not for nuthin' - our group fully cancelled Cargurus in March 2020 and we went as far to not allow them to scrape our inventory - told them to take their free leads and shove it......as of this post I have 1,458 cars listed on Cars.com and Autotrader between four stores for less than what CG just asked for from you for one. Not sure your inventory size but I would bet a free lunch that you would sell just as many used cars without CG as you would with them.

 

[Dan Sayer]

Not for nuthin' - our group fully cancelled Cargurus in March 2020 and we went as far to not allow them to scrape our inventory - told them to take their free leads and shove it......as of this post I have 1,458 cars listed on Cars.com and Autotrader between four stores for less than what CG just asked for from you for one. Not sure your inventory size but I would bet a free lunch that you would sell just as many used cars without CG as you would with them.

@John V. First, what kind of fish is that in your bio? Everything that doesn't look like a bass or a crappie or a bluegill looks like a carp to this Nebraskan.
Second, do you think a dealer only needs two major classified vendors in order to cover the majority of the market? Regardless of price, would you guess whether Cars and CG, or CG and AT, or AT and Cars that a dealer would cover enough to avoid having a third vendor? In my region, the price of AT comes close to my Cars and CG combined. I figure I'm covered and wouldn't see an increase by adding a third.
In full disclosure, I also have some legacy Edmunds accounts (like $399/month) and I just signed back up with CarsForSale.com at $89/month so I technically have four classified vendors...

 

[John V.]

@John V. First, what kind of fish is that in your bio? Everything that doesn't look like a bass or a crappie or a bluegill looks like a carp to this Nebraskan.

Carp?!! Ewwwwwww - Its a Red Drum. They have a breeding run in the fall, very fun....

My personal belief is that every used car is a unicorn - there is not another one like it. If people are in the market for it - they will find it if you put it out there. No need for super duper Executive Premium Diamond Premier listing status. Yes, you will be on page 2 or not at the top but since we have a fairly large used car inventory - last time I checked we were around the 5.5 to 6% market share in our AT/Cars regions - I do not see the need to spend anything more than the bare minimum then negotiate down from there. I have heard good things about CarFax - whats Edmunds? lol - but AT and Cars are the classics and still show up on page one of the SERPs so I would list my cars there.

Its personal between CG and I - after they told me that the reason my CPO accord that was the only one in 500 miles with less than 12K miles was $5k over a fair deal and displayed that to my customers comparing it to some car farm down in Texas - its was lights out for me. When you start at 110% PTM the last thing you want is your vendor you pay a buttload to telling your customer how bad of a deal they are getting.