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602% rate increase - Cargurus

ChrisR

Boss
Oct 12, 2015
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Christian
I think this is the biggest one that Gurus has tried to slam a store I've been at with. Needless to say, I let them know that I appreciate the offer, but won't be continuing my patronage of their service.

Alternatively, I was also offered only an option with a 525% increase, or a completely stripped down offering at a 340% increase.

Guess that's 3 deals per month I will have to make up for, somehow, without their assistance.
 
$795, and they wanted us to go to nearly $5,000 for the recommended option.

He was positive we were on the right account, funny part was when he said new dealers signing up would be at $3,200 per month, and was going to talk to accounting to see if we could get a better rate.

Apparently, they thought "better rate" was strictly for CG, not for us.
 
$795 to nearly $5,000???? Wholly shit. That's a "slight" increase.

What kind of stats are they showing you to prove such an increase is warranted?

That our average CPL should be below the average, given our last 90 days worth of leads.

Our average SOLD per month is 3.17, over the last 6 months.

We have a lot of cheap, cash cars, which get a TON of leads, from across the country - yet none are "real" - as the number of people who are going to spend $1,000+ in shipping, or however much travel would be, to buy a sub-$2,000 vehicle has been 0, thus far. This has lead to our lead count being out of whack, and thus "justifying" their rate increase amount.
 
I get what they are saying about how they believe their product should be priced. The problem is that the numbers alone are never the story, they are the teaser. Numbers show us where to look.

One thing I have learned about CG...they are not afraid to ask for the money!
 
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That our average CPL should be below the average, given our last 90 days worth of leads.

Our average SOLD per month is 3.17, over the last 6 months.

We have a lot of cheap, cash cars, which get a TON of leads, from across the country - yet none are "real" - as the number of people who are going to spend $1,000+ in shipping, or however much travel would be, to buy a sub-$2,000 vehicle has been 0, thus far. This has lead to our lead count being out of whack, and thus "justifying" their rate increase amount.
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)
 
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Dan Sayer took a survey in October of 2020 of what dealerships around the country were paying for Cargurus and what their average monthly results were in terms of SRP totals and VDP views. He didn’t get a huge response back (likely because it’s in every Cargurus contract that dealerships cannot divulge their monthly rate), but Dan kept the results anonymous and it does provide some very helpful insight allowing you to compare your situation to other dealerships.

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