Could you tell me about Dealix? What do you like about them? What do you not like about them? You say good things about AutoUSA. Are there others you like? And why? Thank you for being there for us buddy!
-M Curry
M. Curry,
Thanks for your feedback. I often wonder how many people are out there visiting my site. So when I get an email from someone such as yourself, I know what I have here is helping others, and that’s what is all about.
I don’t endorse ANY 3rd party lead vendors. I think you need to test them all to see which ones work best for your dealership. I have found that demographics, the make of cars you’re selling and your cliental can have a huge effect on which 3rd party lead vendors can send you the most qualified customers.
For example; I was at a Subaru dealer and was buying leads from Jumpstart. We were closing an average 20% of the leads each month. So when I accepted the position here at the Benz dealer, I brought Jumpstart on board right away. I was really disappointed to fine that the quality of leads I was now getting from Jumpstart were nowhere near what I was getting for the Subaru dealer.
One thing you have to do before you can blame a 3rd Party lead vendor is to be honest with yourself; are you maximizing every lead? Are you calling that customer as soon as the lead comes in? Are you making the number of phone calls and emails it takes to get the customer to interact with you? You do have to be fair if you’re going to hold the vendor liable.
Something else to consider; are you not only tracking the cost per lead, cost per sale but also the overall ROI of that lead source. Maybe your only closing 5-6% of a vendors leads but you’re getting a higher average gross from that customer.
Returning to your question, “Could you tell me about Dealix”. I’m sure you are aware that Dealix is now owned by The Cobalt Group and they do more in-house SEO then the other vendor. They have several sites (invoicedealers.com) they use to generate leads. One that is strong in the search engines right now is their www.dealernet.com. If you scroll to the bottom of the homepage you will see it’s owned by The Cobalt Group. Dealernet.com is doing what many sites are, converting 1 consumer into several leads by funneling the customer into a process to get a “price quote” for more then one vehicle (and sometimes as many as 6, automotive.com is guilty of this). You can see evidence of this in the photo below.
Another irritating factor, these websites encourage the customer to apply for financing, extended warranties and insurance; taking away the dealers opportunity to make money in the F&I department.
Something that I have tried to do in the past, but with no luck, before signing up with a lead vendor, ask to get a copy of each and every website they are buying their leads from. Many of these lead vendors are buying leads from:
- carpricesecrets.com (a personal favorite)
- carsbelowinvoice.com
- whypaysticker.com
- newcarinsider
- localcarprices.com
and several other websites. It’s your decision to decide if you think these websites are producing valuable leads. For me..No..but again, the demographics for the vehicles I sell can be different then yours. I’m sure these websites produce a decent lead for volume dealers with a good second chance credit department.
