AutoUSA - Something isn't kosher!

[Jeff Kershner]

Phil said "All three of these leads were individually entered on the Yahoo! Autos website."

"Can you confirm or deny that, Jeff?"

I used this alias profile 1 time and 1 time only to shop for a Mercedes-Benz. That was the lead that I received on 10/13/2006. A truly appreciate the fact that Phil DuPree took the time to comment and also took his time to look into this particular situation. I doubt most vendors would have the guts to comment on a situation like this.

However, there is still something wrong here.

Fact: I used the Alias 1 time and only 1 time to shop for a Mercedes-Benz
Fact: I received the same lead 2 more times over a 3 month period
Fact: I received it each time from AutoUSA

Phil says that Yahoo! Autos confirmed that they never resend lead and each is uniquely entered by users.

I'm very confident that I submitted the lead on Edmunds and not Yahoo but I can not confirm that 100%. My initial testing was not intended for this purpose, therefore I didn't track this information. If I didn't manually submit these leads, then who did? Could Yahoo! be fibbing? Did someone hijack my alias information (using the exact address, phone number and vehicle of interest each time consistently)?

Something still isn't kosher. The next time I decide to do this, I will be sure to track my request and response from beginning to end.

 

[Corey Salzano]

I'm sure you won't be the only one testing this time around. Great story.

 

[Lao Shi]

Most of the 3rd party lead providers state they will not charge for duplicate leads as well as the OEM's I work with.

We are lucky that we use salespoint as our LMT and they have a great solution on ferreting out duplicate leads.

I audit this monthly and send the duplicate leads back to the provider for full credit.

I have noticed that the majority of the leads originate from the OEM sites consistently over the course of the months business. This is month after month. So the OEM leads are still the most valuable.

Some of the web site company's state they will increase the site activity and increase the sales however they usually want the dealer to funnel all the leads including the OEM leads which they are paying $15-20.00 or more per lead into their LMT and this will distort the numbers and skews the reports.

Dealers if they wish to track true; the leads, they need to keep the OEM leads separate so these company's cannot use the leads they generate to bloat their figures. Some of these company's charge $5-6,000 per month and the dealer is also paying $15-20.00 per lead, plus many duplicates so the cost could increase 3-fold. Then they wonder why they are losing money. Some of these dealers are getting the royal fleece.

Jeff has got a great site (no cookie cutter here) and I will bet the website cost is not costing $5- 6,000.00 plus per month.