CarGurus stock exploding this am by 17% with a P/E of 450. Crazy but shows how much confidence investors have in both current products and future product pipeline as well. Good sign to all using CarGurus and the future of CarGurus. Big shoes to fill!
CarGurus or CarsDirect
- Thread starter benstewart
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- Jul 6, 2010
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- Baron
For bad credit, I have a 30-day process and attach it to those sources. I find that even more than regular lead source leads if you don't get them right away you are not going to do anything with them. Usually, you hear from bad-credit people after they've already been to 3 or 4 stores and any possibility you had with them is completely shot. So I think 30-days is a good amount there.
I also do different schedules and templates for used cars under $10k and over $10k. I have another schedule, with individualized templates, for Truecar alone; new and used both get their own. Edmunds, the same. Website, the same. And here's the kicker: RETAIL equity mining tools (AutoAlert, DealActivator, xStream, whichever you use), I have different schedules and templates integrated in to the CRM, instead of just hitting someone hard then moving to the next. So the equity tool generates the customer list and we push it to the CRM where possible. As it runs every day it's not a huge amount of people added, but just a few day-by-day-by-day. All those opportunities (rate, payment, warranty, term, payment, etc.) are in the regular lead rotation, to be worked by everyone, which forces them to take those opportunities seriously because otherwise they won't get paid. I've never had much luck with a dedicated person on those, except for Service. So far, it's been HUGELY successful because you can hit the customers first, then do a more gradual introduction over 30 days if they reject you to start. I don't even concentrate on the payments or money as the central focus, but instead talk about safety and technology upgrades first. THEN, later I hit the money aspect and the possibility of either reduced payment, reduced rate (but not necessarily payment), and possibly more equipment and new warranty for the same money . They are each on their own schedules but each is identical on the contact schedule. It's the attached templates that are different.
My lease process I keep completely separate from the equity programs. I don't care if they have equity or not. The average customer moves out of their leased vehicle with 8 months remaining so I start at 13 months with a flexible schedule based on the experience and ability of the Lease Rep (it cannot be worked by a newbie without a serious amount of training and baby-sitting). SO I am going to hit those methodically regardless of anything else.
- Jul 6, 2010
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- Baron
Cargrus, as of right now, seems to be a better option all the way around. That doesn't mean Auto Trader or Cars.com can't be useful. Generally, if the cost per sale (cost of the source divided by number of sales - personally I don't take total gross in to the mix, although I know places that do. I don't do it because it's up to the store to hold gross, not the vendor. If you don't like the gross, don't take the deal, then go back to the original formula to see if it's worth it.) is under $400 I'm on board with them. Auto Trader is starting to fade because their billing is so high that it becomes difficult to sell enough cars to get the average to $400.
If you do cut Auto Trader, or any vendor, don't try to make it a savings on your monthly advertising budget. Use that money for other purposes, to drive traffic. I'm watching too many stores work so hard to cut the fat that they are carving off pieces of the meat instead.
- Feb 11, 2015
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- Alex
I've said this a number of times in reference to any automotive vendor wares. What converts well in one neck of the woods might not in another (been highly studied). Everything needs to be tested. We can look at gross averages and what not, but still it needs to be tested.
Multi-touch attribution sounds exciting and much like the solution needed to prove the value of third-party wares, however, there are major holes in that model (proven to be flawed and privacy issues coming down the pipeline in the near future).
What do the major automotive syndication players know? They know, damn well, they need only a decent percentage of the 20,000 to make a fortune. Dealer in; dealer out. Dealer in; dealer out. It's a dynamic game / est a ludum dynamic.
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