Carfax CTA on your used VLP

[Mico Silver]

Check your dealership website used cars vehicle listing page: do you see a Carfax logo link/CTA? Did you authorize Carfax and/or your website provider to put it there?
A random sampling of various franchise dealer websites shows these CTA on ALL websites:



Here is what happens when a customer clicks on this link:

• It does NOT convert your customer to a lead/phone call
• It opens a Carfax domain browser window, which improves Carfax SEO while hurting yours - on your dime
• Once Carfax gets your customer - they are free to market any cars they want and convert them to 3rd party leads, which they then will sell back to you
• Carfax captures the customer's data, which they will use for targeted marketing to the best customer you could get to your website.

Did you agree to Carfax do this to your website?

 

[garbe]

The higher-level question with anything on a VDP is: Does it help the customer make a purchase decision that leads to a sale?

One could make a decent case that a Carfax badge/button contributes. I clicked on this Carfax from a VDP and I think (1) there's a lot of helpful info for shoppers and (2) it's not immediately apparent that they are trying to harvest leads.

Now, if it dumped people onto a lead form... that's a different story!

 

[Rob]

Check your dealership website used cars vehicle listing page: do you see a Carfax logo link/CTA? Did you authorize Carfax and/or your website provider to put it there?
A random sampling of various franchise dealer websites shows these CTA on ALL websites:

View attachment 9199

Here is what happens when a customer clicks on this link:

• It does NOT convert your customer to a lead/phone call
• It opens a Carfax domain browser window, which improves Carfax SEO while hurting yours - on your dime
• Once Carfax gets your customer - they are free to market any cars they want and convert them to 3rd party leads, which they then will sell back to you
• Carfax captures the customer's data, which they will use for targeted marketing to the best customer you could get to your website.

Did you agree to Carfax do this to your website?

Time to calm down. While I agree that Carfax logos / report links don’t belong on the SRP - they absolutely belong on the VDP.

Having a link to a Carfax report doesn’t hurt your SEO. That’s not how this works.

The link opens the Carfax report - it doesn’t punt you to Carfax classified listings. No competitor cars are shown.

There are a ton of reasons to be concerned in life. This isn’t one.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

To turn the deal rating badge feature off on your SRP and VDPs on your website, simply go into you carfaxonline.com account. Go to My Account> Dealership (View Profile). Scroll to the lower section for Settings and then toggle off the CarFax Value Badge. Normally takes about 48 hours for it to fall off.

On a side note, I'm not a fan of this badging. It can be misleading. I don't need Carfax telling my customer / website visitor that my car possibly has a crappy price. They're not taking into account the reconditioning time and money that has been invested into the vehicle to make it FLR. Ex: They could be saying my truck is priced fair in the marketplace and could possibly be overlooked because of the "Fair Price" badging but, the real value is that we've added 4 new tires, completed the next major service to the vehicle and did a oil, filter and air filter change. Alot of customers see value in this and this is something that a price badge doesn't give you.

Just my .02 cent.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Hello @Mico Silver, Shift Digital Rep,

It does NOT convert your customer to a lead/phone call

Viewing a CarFax report is actually an indicator of an engaged user with a higher propensity to submit a lead. Ask @joe.pistell.

It opens a Carfax domain browser window, which improves Carfax SEO while hurting yours - on your dime

This is inaccurate - the vast majority of website providers use a nofollow link on CarFax links.

Once Carfax gets your customer - they are free to market any cars they want and convert them to 3rd party leads, which they then will sell back to you

How is CarFax "getting" our customer? The report is dealership co-branded, and there’s no navigation or options to view another dealership’s inventory.

Yes, CarFax could potentially retarget our customer, but so could the 20+ other scripts that OEMs and their various partners install without our consent.

Did you agree to Carfax do this to your website?

Yes, dealers pay thousands of dollars to partner with CarFax. Should we limit CarFax vehicle history reports to an in-showroom benefit rather than offering them upfront and transparently online?

It's worth noting that Cars.com has also chosen to install it on their SRP because they too see value in it:


If this was truly hurting conversions, a marketplace with millions of website visitors (whose entire business model depends on demonstrating value to dealers through leads) would be the first to eliminate an external CarFax link on their SRP and VDPs.

 

[Mico Silver]

The higher-level question with anything on a VDP is: Does it help the customer make a purchase decision that leads to a sale?

One could make a decent case that a Carfax badge/button contributes. I clicked on this Carfax from a VDP and I think (1) there's a lot of helpful info for shoppers and (2) it's not immediately apparent that they are trying to harvest leads.

Now, if it dumped people onto a lead form... that's a different story!

Good discussion to have, except that the badge in question is on the VLP, so the customer can open it without going into the VDP. It is an accepted and expected practice today to offer a free Carfax report, my question was about Carfax giving out the information without even going into the VDP. I don't see how this will help the dealer to increase traffic conversion.

 

[Mico Silver]

Time to calm down. While I agree that Carfax logos / report links don’t belong on the SRP - they absolutely belong on the VDP.

Having a link to a Carfax report doesn’t hurt your SEO. That’s not how this works.

The link opens the Carfax report - it doesn’t punt you to Carfax classified listings. No competitor cars are shown.

There are a ton of reasons to be concerned in life. This isn’t one.

I will try to match your condescending tone: please enlighten me on how SEO works, and how sending a customer to a third party site after you spent thousands to get them on your website does not hurt your SEO.
And for those with reading comprehension issues: the topic is a badge on VLP, not VDP.

 

[Mico Silver]

To turn the deal rating badge feature off on your SRP and VDPs on your website, simply go into you carfaxonline.com account. Go to My Account> Dealership (View Profile). Scroll to the lower section for Settings and then toggle off the CarFax Value Badge. Normally takes about 48 hours for it to fall off.

On a side note, I'm not a fan of this badging. It can be misleading. I don't need Carfax telling my customer / website visitor that my car possibly has a crappy price. They're not taking into account the reconditioning time and money that has been invested into the vehicle to make it FLR. Ex: They could be saying my truck is priced fair in the marketplace and could possibly be overlooked because of the "Fair Price" badging but, the real value is that we've added 4 new tires, completed the next major service to the vehicle and did a oil, filter and air filter change. Alot of customers see value in this and this is something that a price badge doesn't give you.

Just my .02 cent.

That is very helpful, thank you!

 

[Mico Silver]

Hello @Mico Silver, Shift Digital Rep,


Viewing a CarFax report is actually an indicator of an engaged user with a higher propensity to submit a lead. Ask @joe.pistell.



This is inaccurate - the vast majority of website providers use a nofollow link on CarFax links.



How is CarFax "getting" our customer? The report is dealership co-branded, and there’s no navigation or options to view another dealership’s inventory.

Yes, CarFax could potentially retarget our customer, but so could the 20+ other scripts that OEMs and their various partners install without our consent.



Yes, dealers pay thousands of dollars to partner with CarFax. Should we limit CarFax vehicle history reports to an in-showroom benefit rather than offering them upfront and transparently online?

It's worth noting that Cars.com has also chosen to install it on their SRP because they too see value in it:
View attachment 9201

If this was truly hurting conversions, a marketplace with millions of website visitors (whose entire business model depends on demonstrating value to dealers through leads) would be the first to eliminate an external CarFax link on their SRP and VDPs.

It is great that Carfax gets an indicator of an engaged user, too bad that the dealer will not know about it.

A simple test shows that the Carfax links are NOT "nofollow".

There are at least two links on the report to Carfax.com, where they list cars and solicit leads, which then they sell back to dealers.

If Cars.com or your dealer group chooses to have the badge on your VLP - it is literally your business. My concern is that nobody was asked. The badge was implemented without dealers asking for it, agreeing to it, or knowing about it.

 

[Ryan Everson]

It is great that Carfax gets an indicator of an engaged user, too bad that the dealer will not know about it.

The dealer can be notified of a CarFax link click via a GA4 ASC event, similar to tracking a user clicking through a vehicle's photo gallery.

@joe.pistell has created an excellent report demonstrating how events like these are early indicators of lead submissions and sales. These events can also be used to optimize advertising campaigns to drive higher-quality traffic.

If Cars.com or your dealer group chooses to have the badge on your VLP - it is literally your business. My concern is that nobody was asked. The badge was implemented without dealers asking for it, agreeing to it, or knowing about it.

I think you may be overthinking this though - if a dealer has a serious issue with it, they can simply submit a support ticket to have it removed.

It’s ultimately not a dire issue harming dealers if it's left installed, especially considering that a marketplace with millions of visitors and a dedicated data team focused on conversion rate optimization has found it valuable enough to feature on their search results page.

Honestly, there are far worse things that regularly get added to a dealer’s website - many at the dealer's own request! lol