What Lead Sources are Truly Working?

[Catie.B]

Hey guys!

I haven't bee too active in a while but I have an age old question yet again.
What lead sources are you using and what's truly working?

We have used many over the years but I am now going through a buy/sell and I'm looking to have some fresh new ideas.
We plan to keep AutoTrader and CarGurus, we also utilize Facebook Marketplace inventory.
TrueCar was an absolute waste of money for us.

Just looking for any opinions, input, and maybe some new things I haven't heard of yet!

 

[Alexander Lau]

Hey guys!

I haven't bee too active in a while but I have an age old question yet again.
What lead sources are you using and what's truly working?

We have used many over the years but I am now going through a buy/sell and I'm looking to have some fresh new ideas.
We plan to keep AutoTrader and CarGurus, we also utilize Facebook Marketplace inventory.
TrueCar was an absolute waste of money for us.

Just looking for any opinions, input, and maybe some new things I haven't heard of yet!

Welcome back, thanks for your post.

It really does depend on the demographic that's being attacked. A vendor's service or product might work in Seattle, but not in Miami, etc. There isn't a real panacea "line-up" for traffic or leads, but there are best practice services out there (that can work for your demographic, which potentially could include the vendors that you had mentioned and quite a few more). Obviously, it takes analysis, money (which at times might not live up to a dealer's expectation of ROI = profits-costs x 100 / costs or ROAS = revenue from ad campaign / cost of ad campaign) and time.

Attribution modelling is a good way to understand what works and there are plenty of automotive solutions out there.

Web Traffic
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1662518?hl=en
An attribution model is the rule, or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touchpoints in conversion paths. For example, the Last Interaction model in Analytics assigns 100% credit to the final touchpoints (i.e., clicks) that immediately precede sales or conversions.

First and last-click attribution are the most commonly used attribution models. While widely used, these models give poor results and a skewed picture of what sources truly influence customers in their decision to buy at the dealership. Last interaction models are not best practice (regardless of what you've heard), it's all about Multi-Touch Attribution.

Sales Attribution
https://fulcrumtech.net/resources/sales-attribution-optimizing-marketing-roi/
An attribution (marketing related) involves the determination of which media are successfully driving a company’s sales. Prior to making a purchase, consumers are exposed to a variety of marketing touch points. For example, depending on individual campaigns, these touch points could include email marketing, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), organic search, paid advertising, and direct website visits. By using sales attribution, businesses can assign a value to each touch point throughout the customer journey that leads to a conversion or purchase.

 

[John Colascione]

It also depends greatly on the type of inventory; new or used.
And if used, what price range. You will see much different values on lead providers if your inventory is $20K and under, verses the more expensive units. CarGuru seems to be taking over the planet when it comes to the cheaper stuff these days, and Craigslist is still leading too.

 

[Tom davies]

How about eBay? Have you tried eBay?

 

[Steve Stauning]

It is a Make/Market question, certainly, but the dealers I inspect that maintain good processes and enjoy above average closing rates are seeing success (and measurable ROI) with CarGurus, AutoWeb's full suite, Craigslist, Facebook (marketing, not Marketplace), and various website add-ons. Also, they've wrestled control of their SEM from their OEM and can now target that giant budget properly.

Of course, the dealers who struggle to close their website leads above 10% have zero success with any of the third-party offerings.

Finally, there are now more than a few dealers who allow their salespeople to drive their own opportunities by encouraging lots of social selling. (I know that's probably off-topic; though for some of these dealers, it means an incremental 20-30 units per month.)

 

[Alexander Lau]

It is a Make/Market question, certainly, but the dealers I inspect that maintain good processes and enjoy above average closing rates are seeing success (and measurable ROI) with CarGurus, AutoWeb's full suite, Craigslist, Facebook (marketing, not Marketplace), and various website add-ons. Also, they've wrestled control of their SEM from their OEM and can now target that giant budget properly.

Of course, the dealers who struggle to close their website leads above 10% have zero success with any of the third-party offerings.

Finally, there are now more than a few dealers who allow their salespeople to drive their own opportunities by encouraging lots of social selling. (I know that's probably off-topic; though for some of these dealers, it means an incremental 20-30 units per month.)

I'm glad you said "Facebook (marketing, not Marketplace)." I think that throws off a lot of unbeknownst dealers and even agencies.

 

[Dave Lemmon]

I'm glad you said "Facebook (marketing, not Marketplace)." I think that throws off a lot of unbeknownst dealers and even agencies.

Marketplace has me intrigued. I've had countless clients ask if we could do it, but none tell me they're selling cars there now. We are about to add LetGo to our platform and its the opposite. We've only had a few clients ask about it, but all of them asked because they are actually converting there.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Marketplace has me intrigued. I've had countless clients ask if we could do it, but none tell me they're selling cars there now. We are about to add LetGo to our platform and its the opposite. We've only had a few clients ask about it, but all of them asked because they are actually converting there.

Yeah, I use LetGo personally and I've sold tons of stuff on it. I like the platform and why not Used Vehicles? At least give it a whirl, right?

 

[john.quinn]

Does the source really matter? At least among the "reputable/known" vendors. They're all in the business of sucking-in eyeballs, converting eyeballs to names on forms, and selling those names to dealers.

I've always been of the mind that it's the process, the Customer Service, that's much more important. The eyeballs are gonna find their way to your store without you having to perform intricate lasik surgery to get them there... what you do with them is what makes the source "good or bad."

 

[Alexander Lau]

I could see this working. Whether they are in Google's partnering network, I don't know. I would think they would close that off, since implementing this ad platform mechanism.

Quora introduces Broad Targeting, says audience hits 300 million monthly users
Broad Targeting relies on machine learning to optimize ad delivery to reach users most likely to take the desired action.
https://marketingland.com/quora-int...udience-hits-300-million-monthly-users-248261

It’s worth noting that Quora’s ad business is just over a year old. The company has staffed up with ex-Facebook and Google advertising folks who have quickly built out Quora’s ads platform with relatively sophisticated features for a new platform, including multi-event conversion tracking, retargeting and lookalike targeting. Other targeting options include Topic, Question and Interest targeting.

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For a while, I've been saying that an Automotive Q&A platform would have great reach, especially with the way Google's Algorithmic mechanism works, wanting to answer questions. It's never been done very well.