Should I cancel Cars.com? I heard Carmax has.

[Kelly Wilson]

We get more traffic from a pitch-free, in my "free-time" Facebook page and from Cars. Yes (Doug) I know those aren't leads, just visits; but a click from one or the other to my site is about as complicated as the other. Given the cross-dealer emails and an overall lack in conversion from cars-I see their only hope with my dealer tied to their relationship w/our local paper. With rates the almost doubled and taking on a new store, I will be pulling as much data as I can use to present my DP with a full picture of the cars.com landscape. Educated decisions are key-I'm glad to see 2 sides forming on this topic!

 

[joe.pistell]

We measure our 3rd party vendors pretty closely. What we have averaged over 2012 and the 1st quarter of 2013 has been:
Cars.com averages 2 1/2 times the number of email leads compared to autotrader.
Autotrader.com averages 2 times the number of *unique* phone calls compared to cars.com.
Autotrader.com averages two times the number of chats compared to cars.com.
Autotrader.com is 2 1/2 times the cost of cars.com, after all co-op credit.
Autotrader.com gets about 2 times the search pages than cars.com
Cars.com averages about $.30 per VDP while autotrader averages about $.33 per VDP.. (Our websites average of about $.23 per VDP)

We don't source our walk-in traffic specifically or give specific credit to any 3rd-party vendor. Instead, we compare our entire marketing budget and strategy (increase/decrease/changes) to our walk in traffic counts and sales numbers.

Josh,

Consider that in your area, AutoTrader has 2X more cars listed than Cars.com. Less competition has the potential to make for higher profits and possibly greater lead to show ratio.

AT = 533 cars in 10 mi
Cars.com = 266


Find Your Car: Listings Near Carrollton, OH 44615 - AutoTrader.com


Used Cars - in 44615 Area - on Cars.com

I wonder how much traffic goes from AT to cars and vice versa.

 

[joe.pistell]

my $0.02 from an earlier post on this topic: http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f46/used-car-leads-3160-2.html#post28362

Google 2011 survey:
"Average Car Shopper visited 18 automotive web sites prior to purchace".
"50% of auto shoppers were in market 3 months or longer".

Shoppers donot follow a linear path to your store. They start shopping then dissapear, 2 weeks later they start again and tear it up for 3 days straight, then vaish again. While your shopper is taking random stabs at product discovery (aka shopping), your shopper gets stimulus from traditional ad sourses that include your dealers ad spend, your OEM spend, your competitors ad spend.

What happens is multiple PATHS are built to your dealership. I caution from putting too much weight to assigning a sale to a single ad source because it does not reveal their journey to your store.

just my $0.02
Joe
​

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I know it's not #bumpittuesday (BTW that was @Alex Snyder idea...) but I was reading the "Read Similar Discussions" that are below each thread...



...and this one was included when I posted "CARMAX TV ADS SUCK" so I figured I would #bumpit.

The last post on this thread was over 4 years ago!! Wow. Yet, as usual uncle @joe.pistell was ahead of the curve #attribution (but then again maybe he was just reading my posts on the blog from back when )

It's 2018 and Cars.com has made some a lot of changes since then. Mr. @Alex Vetter is now the CEO, and they have made some very strategic acquisitions... like:

Cars.com buys DealerRater

Cars.com buys Dealer Inspire

From my recent searches, CarMax is back on Cars.com

So where do you think Cars.com stands now?
How far have they come since 2013?

 

[Alexander Lau]

Having worked in web traffic and sales attribution over the last two years, I'll say this.

1. It's worth trying each all of the large third party auto listing groups. (Cars, AT, CarGurus, etc.)
2. Give it some time, at least six to eight months, otherwise it's too small a sample size.
3. Using an attribution tool, measure them against each other (*preferably), see which one works for you.
4. It depends on your demographic, what works in Seattle, might not in Miami. I've seen dealers crush it using some of the aforementioned products and then not as much.

*My advice when a vendor product isn't working out, reallocate your money to another product. Do this until you figure out what works for your area.