CarGurus - significant drop in traffic?

[kevinfrye]

Had a visit with CarFax and they shared this graphic below, which indicates that recent changes to the Google algorithm has created a huge drop in traffic with CarGurus (competitor A) down to the level of AutoTrader and Cars.com. Source is SEMrush. Not sure how accurate this is - curious as to everyone's thoughts - especially in light of the 30% rate hike that CarGurus has been hitting dealers with in the first quarter of this year.

 

[Alexander Lau]

See https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/thr...lers-seo-rankings-since-march-12th-2019.6447/ and knowing CG that's not going to last for long, regardless of hikes.

 

[joe.pistell]

Using Driven Data Consulting's Third Party Classified report, the conversion rate and avg gross is very average. So, CG rate increases lives or dies on lead volume.

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http://content.drivendataconsulting.com/3rd-party-classified

It'll be interesting to see how CG counters a dip in organic. Look for higher spending in SEM.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Using Driven Data Consulting's Third Party Classified report, the conversion rate and avg gross is very average. So, CG rate increases lives or dies on lead volume.

View attachment 4106​

http://content.drivendataconsulting.com/3rd-party-classified

It'll be interesting to see how CG counters a dip in organic. Look for higher spending in SEM.

Now that's very useful. I've been boasting about DD myself.

 

[ChrisR]

I'm just jealous of *only* a 30% increase for Q1. They tried to hit me for 60%.

 

[Colin Rodger]

I haven't been at CG for a while now, but I think the CarFax slide may be a little misleading, in that the chart only shows the traffic for the top 20,000 keywords, whereas CG, if I'm not mistaken, bids on millions and millions of keywords. The CarFax slide may be accurate for those top 20,000 keywords, but when looking at the whole picture (ie millions of keywords) the traffic hit may not be significant.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Can someone help me interpret/compare these two graphs? They both show a dip for CG, but I'm having trouble matching the other lines. The lower graph is a smaller date range, but the relative position of competitors doesn't seem to be the same.

(the lower graph was posted a few days ago here: https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/thr...lers-seo-rankings-since-march-12th-2019.6447/)

 

[ryan.leslie]

@Colin Rodger, Thank you. I think you may have partially answered the question I hadn't yet asked. I love DealerRefresh!

Similar results on the graph despite a smaller subset of keywords doesn't feel misleading to me, so long as the smaller set is relevant. That appears to be the case since the dip for CG looks consistent in both.

If I'm wrong someone please correct me. I'm here to learn.

 

[jon.berna]

It's important to establish a distinction in the reports between a percentage of change compared to a prior period versus the variable trended. Say for example you hear a city's murder rate is up 266% versus last year, at first glance it sounds like a war zone right?

That could be 3 in 2017 and 11 in 2018, so in this case the percentage of 266% over-emphasizes the change versus the underlying values.

This makes a provider starting from a lower prior period look better in YOY change when the totals are a different story. It it feels like data spin...

 

[Alexander Lau]

It's important to establish a distinction in the reports between a percentage of change compared to a prior period versus the variable trended. Say for example you hear a city's murder rate is up 266% versus last year, at first glance it sounds like a war zone right?

That could be 3 in 2017 and 11 in 2018, so in this case the percentage of 266% over-emphasizes the change versus the underlying values.

This makes a provider starting from a lower prior period look better in YOY change when the totals are a different story. It it feels like data spin...

Absolutely, it can be spun to make themselves look fantastic.