I set the hook deeper I race past the DMS stuff and I go for the close. Cha' Ching. Nuthin' to it. Read this post "Who is making all the profits? You've been warned. The fox is in the chicken coop! Jeff, I love your article and agree wholeheartedly with your main point regarding our data.
What I have been trying to say, and what I don't think you can grasp until you deal with these customers directly, is that buyers do not care about Edmunds the way they care about organizations of which they are a member. You would not believe the zealous loyalty people have to USAA - the lead source where the highest volume of Zag leads come from.
I have two years of lead data at my store which show that when these people show up, they close at nearly 3 times the rate of manufacturer leads that show. These customers are similar to manufacturer plan buyers. We're talking about 8 million proud members here who really like and trust their organization. No comparison between these people and Edmunds. Sure, there are other avenues of marketing with better potential ROI, but most small stores lack the resources to leverage that kind of marketing.
It may not be a bad idea to make these avenues the focus of the next few Dealerrefresh articles. You've got 4, dealers on Zag that need to be persuaded to get off of it. Thanks for chiming in Patrick. I've experienced this for myself. I'm not in any way questioning the quality of the leads. I'm not knocking USAA or the membership services. My point is, in order for dealers to play on this field, they are to give up private transactional data to Zag that us then then handed to the consumer.
Don't get me wrong, I believe the new car sales model needs adjustment. But if I had a dealer or any business, there is no way I would allow come company to have my private data. That's my business, my data - its that black and white. Amen Unlce Joe! As a very small part of a fairly large group, I was shocked to learn that there was a DMS polling component to this deal issue was never discussed at my humble level.
I mean, why would there be? We're paying for a territory and for leads, right? After reading through this for a few days, and seeing only one weak explanation as to WHY Edmunds describes this as a value to dealers, my question is still: WHY?
Are we really that desperate for those leads.. But aside from that If I was a dealer, or owner -- and I'm not, please don't misunderstand -- but if I was, I would probably realize that my database is a very, very valuable entity.
Anybody disagree? So if someone comes to me with a deal where I'm going to PAY for a territory and leads, and I'm also going to GIVE them my precious data, at the very least after I'm done scratching my head at the utter audacity of the proposal , I re-negotiate.
In other words -- if you're a good dealer, competitive, reasonable marketing mix -- you'll be found. We're paying them, AND giving them our data I don't think that's the type of negotiations that have kept the T3 space "strong.
Shame on me. I've signed up for both of these companies at one time or another over the years. In my haste to get leads and sell cars I just glazed right over the boilerplate. Needless to say we're done with both. Reading through these posts has raised a couple thoughts.
What's to keep TrueCar or Edmunds from juicing the numbers? While it's a slightly different model, Costco and AAA's new online modules have done the same thing. Month after month they keep telling us we have to come down on our pricing in order to get the requests, because, " At some point they'll be competing to see who's site shows the lowest value.
How long will it take for the newbie on the block to realize they need to take on the big dog, and jockey the pricing accordingly.
None, they're going to want to be somewhere under this number. So of these models are sold in your district this month, and the TMV adjusts. If you're really looking for opportunities to sell cars check out companies like AutoRevenue and AutoAlert.
These companies are using our data for us, not against us. Thanks for adding your comment Chris. These 2 companies could careless about the dealership. They've said it themselves in so many words. I'm NOT against our industry changing. I'm not against edmunds and TrueCar sorta , I am against how they are acquiring our data. And it kills me that dealers are so clueless. Hence the reason for me writing this.
This is the dealers private data and shouldn't be shared with anyone, especially a company that's posting it for everyone to see and use. Interesting you say "What's to keep TrueCar or Edmunds from juicing the numbers? You're right, who's to stop them? This question has caused us to review all of our existing agreements with vendors, and it's frightening what we're finding.
I'll never just glaze over the boilerplate again. It's amazing what these guys slide under our noses, fully expecting us to do exactly what we've done Do I really need a 3 page contract to buy a vendors service? I do if they're asking for the keys to the palace. So this begs the question, where is KBB getting they're numbers from?
Found this on KBB after digging further, "The Fair Purchase Price is not a number influenced by dealers or manufacturers -- it is actual transaction data representing a range of what people actually paid for specific vehicles. Good for you Chris. That's the exact purpose of this article. Dealers, double check your agreements.
Audit your DMS polls bi-yearly. If your going to allow your transactional data to be scrapped, know who's doing it and have an understanding on why and how's it's being used.
I just wish there was a way of making sure every dealer in the US was able to read this article. So I ask everyone to please share, email and tweet it out. I am sitting here reading all of these responses and I can't for the life of me figure out why you would let a third party, much less a third party like Edmunds have access to your DMS.
For a few internet leads. How about this do marketing, prospecting, SEO, PPC if you need to and leave these parasites like edmunds, autotrader alone. If you are a dealer go into your DMS and pull every deal from the internet and then compare that to deals from Radio, Direct Mail, referral, walk in and prospecting to see what your true ROI is. Nice article Jeff. And your trusted allied TrueCar vendor just posted this on their blog.. We have 7 dealerships all on Zag and we do not let them have access to our database we do have to give them a custom report of sold units so they can match up customer info but that is all they get.
It is possible not to give them your transactional information and still get the leads. If dealers are doing that currently I urge you to STOP change the password and access to your DMS and tell Zag or any other provider that your will give them a a custom report of only the sold info no transactional information and start protecting yourselves!!!
Jon Sherrell. The best part of this program is what's coming down the pike. Remember folks, you are only paying for the New Car part of the program at this point. Used cars and CPO's are coming so get ready to dig into your pocketbooks because Edmunds wants it all.
Get ready to send Edmunds your cancellation. Wake up! Edmunds gets a lot of traffic, there's no disputing that. Great insight Jeff. I've been approached several times by ZAG and still try to figure out how I will be coming out ahead with their leads. Chances are, I will have a lead from that customer anyway and they would want to double dip me and increase my cost per vehicle sold.
Why should us dealers give Edmunds and truecar any more transparancy in this business. Guess the car business is just different.
I believe it is actually in Zag's terms and conditions that you may not offer USAA customers financing if they've been pre-approved.
Certainly a rule we won't be following. We do get two or three alright deals out of them per month. We get around 30 leads on average.
Maybe it is just that not many dealers close to us are signed up with Zag. It's just a matter of getting someone willing to pay our price. The other factor is that the customer builds up the vehicle rather than picking one from our inventory. Rarely is that exact vehicle in stock so it's easy to work around "the quoted price. Then drop the service and place the budget and resources into something higher producing. My 7 dealerships have been on the program for 90 days.
Anywone else on the program with better results? Brad, are you referring to Edmunds or Zag? Love to hear you answer. If you are referring to Edmunds Edmunds leads are no better than the average 3rd party lead coming from AOL Auto, Yahoo Auto and several of the other auto-centric lead driven sites.
This is something that I was asked to not talk about, being privy to years of behind the scene lead scoring data tied into transactional registration data. Emunds leads are not going to close any higher and if they so it's not worth the percentage and ROI. Nor is it worth what they want from your DMS.
PLEASE - what company in their right mind would get into the antiquated lead business without having an alternative motive?? The Perpetual Contract for your transactional data! I'm already hearing dealers are disappointed with the lead counts. Being over promised on the lead they were to receive VS the leads they are getting. Dealers can shoot themselves in the foot as much as they want, for God's sake at least learn to use proper grammar and punctuation when arguing.
You need one question mark for one sentence and I hope you aren't yelling at everyone in your posts. However funny it might be to read through the majority of "reactions", it is also a bit disheartening.
I do don't go to a grocery store and argue a price for groceries, I pay what is listed on the shelf which in most cases is pretty fairly priced and in-line with all other stores across the country. Nor do I pay the grocery store directly for the time the items sat on the shelf.
Come on, get real and move with the future, everything is moving online and open to a consumer. People enjoy being lazy, but they also demand information and want it quickly, thus the internet. Another request maybe, just maybe, stop making annoying commercials on TV, most dealer's commercials can be made by high school students in an intro video production class.
I found this post through Google, maybe they will get into cars one day? They enjoy buying consumer research databases, fully opening them, and using the data for their own profit advancement through advertisement and royalties. Them and Microsoft of course. And they aren't all that forgiving of corporations when it comes to data mining and acquisition.
Read those contracts dealers! Reading through this, literally made me nauseous. I worked for one of the large groups and they don't allow anyone access to their DMS. I seriously doubt that they have changed. Blame the manufacturers. They started all of this when they decided to provide invoicing to third partys. I wish consumers could buy directly from the manufacturer.
Dealers charge too much for everything, especially maintenance and repairs. Writing a response kinda venting.. I worked for Autotrader. One down fall for Edmunds previous to was ATC fueled the used car search that was on their home page. Consumers would search for a vehicle many times mistakenly searching for a new car They were instantly sent to ATC of course not realizing they were not on Edmunds anymore Edmunds ended the Contract I believe some time last year around August.
ATC results have gone down severely since then. From my experience with what dealers told me, ATC had a higher conversation rate when they were partnered with Edmunds. Many sourcing studies were done and Edmunds. ALL in one now, right? To all 3rd parties defense it has become virtually impossible to perfectly track where all your sales are directly coming from.
That was in I saw a huge decrease in emails and phone calls in the last three years nationally by two thirds while maps to dealerships increased by the same. This backs up the studies that show there is less contact the dealer prior to the visit. One major merchandising issue is the custom comments and numbers in your ads.
Many listings end up with three numbers including your sales people requesting a text to their cell etc. Tracking becomes impossible. I did this for one dealership and had a good laugh when 41 sales were attributed to some random company the dealer was not using nor had I even heard of.
With that percentage being such a small amount of all sales it seems like an inaccurate way to determine where sales are coming from. Including v-auto, auto trader, cars, etc. Your data has paved the way for 3rd parties to keep growing their business in other ways like this site Not just from your dms.
It's really no different then me being on match. Merchandising is going to have the largest effect on sites working for you. For instance ATC has like 25 vehics and Cars has like 50 per page. So automatically you would think that cars has more views if you were simply comparing srp's to srp's. The layout matters too. More info shows up on ATC's srp custom comment so less people are likely to click through to the vdp vs they almost have to on sites like edmunds and cars.
So vdp's should be more. Keeping your vehicle facing the left side of the screen in a corner position where you can see the front two lights and the back rear light on driver's side is the most appealing to the consumer eye. A simple thin banner around your pic is better than trying to fit the car in front of your building sign. And a custom comment starting with why I would want your car vs the next one priced low VDP's are a virtual test drive.
Make sure you have videos of your dealership and a great response to negative reviews. There's a reason why ATC lowered all their prices including going from an A market to a C or D market in many large areas as of Feb If I didn't sell enough to make up for the loss it would impact my income for three months.
So basically sales reps were paid to over sell their dealers and pray to god not to lose your business or they couldn't pay their mortgage for three months. I'm happy for Edmunds now that they parted. Glad I quit ATC before the parting because it was one of my selling points. Edmunds does send qualified buyers who have been researching what car they want for over two months on average. If your salesperson enthusiastically fetches that piece of paper, it could mean there are some behind-the-scenes kickbacks missing from the invoice.
Your naked eye might see a clean sheet that suggests no foul play. Or the complex jargon could make it difficult to decipher at all. The bottom line? We offer one low price upfront on every new or used vehicle, and we show you exactly how we arrived at that price.
Our only mission is to help you drive off in a car you love. We wish every dealership made car shopping this easy. But not all do. Posted in Shopping Tips 1 Comment ». My husband and I are trying to find a new SUV that will hold our growing family. Name required. Mail will not be published required. Values are at an all-time high. Find out what your car is worth. What is dealer invoice price? There are many reasons why. TrueCar obtains and processes data from well-known data aggregators within the automotive space to ensure that we present the most accurate pricing information available.
To be clear, this is not a bad way to get data. Most of the information about vehicle pricing comes from dealership transaction data. In statistics, a larger sample size leads to a more certain result. Sampling coin flips will probably show a chance of coming up heads.
But sampling 2 coin flips? That could give us some bogus data. To bring this back to cars, consider the Honda Civic Type R. This is a relatively rare car — Honda will only make a few thousand of them this year.
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