CarGuru's 100% Rate Increase!! 2nd time in 2 years

[Ryan Everson]

I've heard that in some regions, CarGurus is testing out Pay Per VDP.

After "VDP cap" is reached all customer "lead" data is anonymized (no phone number and no email address).

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This would be awesome because cost / vdp view is already one of the most important metrics I look at when evaluating a third party's performance.

Nationwide our cost / vdp view is lowest with CarGurus, then Cars.com, and finally AutoTrader being the highest cost by far.

 

[jscole86]

This would be awesome because cost / vdp view is already one of the most important metrics I look at when evaluating a third party's performance.

Nationwide our cost / vdp view is lowest with CarGurus, then Cars.com, and finally AutoTrader being the highest cost by far.

Cost per VDP is important, I agree. What happens when you merchandise and price well? Naturally, doing those 2 things will drive up VDP's, and subsequently your spend.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Cost per VDP is important, I agree. What happens when you merchandise and price well? Naturally, doing those 2 things will drive up VDP's, and subsequently your spend.

The other primary metric I look at is VDP / SRP % (number of VDP views divided by number of SRP impressions).

This helps me determine whether my VDP views are up / down because of my merchandising or simply because of the market / popularity of the site.

 

[bcarlton]

Jeff hit me up on LinkedIn and asked that I share this. Guessing Jimmy gave you that photo of my desktop

CarGurus subscription is now pay per VDP?!

5,000 VDP = $950/mo (Knoxville, TN)

According to CarGurus we received 7,200 VDP's from January 1-5. - NOT POSSIBLE -

After "VDP cap" is reached all customer "lead" data is anonymized (no phone number and no email address).

1: How are they measuring VDP's? 70 advertised units cannot produce 7,000 true VDP's (consumer clicks) in 5 calendar days on any medium. It's impossible that a site which receives less traffic than its largest competitor can claim more VDP's on a given inventory size.

2: Where is the value proposition? A true value prop is: "I'm spending the same as my competition and outperforming them."

3: How are values determined? When digging into the CarGurus backend tool vehicle options must be manually edited to show fair pricing. I've seen that clicking the "Bluetooth" option has changed the advertised vehicle value as much as $3,000 to move from "overpriced" to "great deal" on a certain piece of inventory. The same holds true for noting "leather" on a luxury vehicle; all have it, but the valuation can swing wildly by simply pressing a button.

How long can such a flawed service simultaneously misinform the consumer, undermine its main profit center (the dealer client), and continue to operate?

 

[jscole86]

This helps me determine whether my VDP views are up / down because of my merchandising or simply because of the market / popularity of the site.

For merchandising and marketing analytics that's great info to look at, but in either scenario your total spend will still increase if you pay per VDP.

 

[Chris Leslie]

The other primary metric I look at is VDP / SRP % (number of VDP views divided by number of SRP impressions).

This helps me determine whether my VDP views are up / down because of my merchandising or simply because of the market / popularity of the site.

Yep, that conversion rate is key.

 

[Ryan Everson]

For merchandising and marketing analytics that's great info to look at, but in either scenario your total spend will still increase if you pay per VDP.

I'd rather pay for results (vdp views) over a fixed arbitrary amount any day.

Our AutoTrader VDP views have been consistently declining over the past 5 years as they become less relevant (thanks to sites like CarGurus) yet our monthly bill has stayed flat. Paying for results would change the entire dynamic.

 

[bcarlton]

I'd rather pay for results (vdp views) over a fixed arbitrary amount any day.

Our AutoTrader VDP views have been consistently declining over the past 5 years as they become less relevant (thanks to sites like CarGurus) yet our monthly bill has stayed flat. Paying for results would change the entire dynamic.

You are both correct in your statements, however, you're both assuming that the VDP numbers are all measured the same way.

Several years ago both Autotrader and Cars.com stopped measuring spider and bot traffic from inflating their VDP numbers.

Point being, we the dealer clients are meant to simply trust that VDP numbers are accurate. So when, in my experience, Gurus is claiming more than triple VDP's than their major competitors something seems fishy.

Now we are supposed to pay extra for a VDP that may or may not actually be a real consumer clicking the listing.

If you have 100 cars and get more views than I do on my 100 units, then you win because you know how to buy and market inventory. Does that mean you should be charged more for the same inventory size?

 

[Alexander Lau]

You are both correct in your statements, however, you're both assuming that the VDP numbers are all measured the same way.

Several years ago both Autotrader and Cars.com stopped measuring spider and bot traffic from inflating their VDP numbers.

Point being, we the dealer clients are meant to simply trust that VDP numbers are accurate. So when, in my experience, Gurus is claiming more than triple VDP's than their major competitors something seems fishy.

Now we are supposed to pay extra for a VDP that may or may not actually be a real consumer clicking the listing.

If you have 100 cars and get more views than I do on my 100 units, then you win because you know how to buy and market inventory. Does that mean you should be charged more for the same inventory size?

Attribution companies that have their tracking pixels on 3PAs like Autotrader, Cars and Car Gurus get the exact number right. With multi-touch attribution you'll know.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Several years ago both Autotrader and Cars.com stopped measuring spider and bot traffic from inflating their VDP numbers.

This sounds like something my Autotrader rep would tell me to try to take the attention off their declining performance lol

You are correct though, the data is only as good as how much we can trust it. To be fair, I'm sure if I asked CarGurus they would say they don't measure spider or bot traffic either.

So when, in my experience, Gurus is claiming more than triple VDP's than their major competitors something seems fishy.

I'm not seeing this at any of my stores so something definitely seems off and you're right to be skeptical. We still typically receive the most VDP views on Autotrader with CarGurus and Cars.com relatively tied for a close second. Granted every market is different, these are just nationwide averages.

If you have 100 cars and get more views than I do on my 100 units, then you win because you know how to buy and market inventory. Does that mean you should be charged more for the same inventory size?

I can see both sides here. Typically the more VDP views I have, the faster I will sell the car so my cost per car will remain relatively the same but my monthly cost will be higher because of a faster inventory turn.

However it would be nice if they implemented some sort of Google Adwords-esque Quality Score system that rewards dealers with a lower cost / vdp view who provide a better experience (better inventory, pictures, prices, etc) to their users instead of the same flat cost / vdp view for every dealer.