In many cases you are correct. However, this was not the case with my experience. Also, many times it depends on the make of car you are selling and the region you dealer is located. Consumers have different shopping and buying habits across the US.

Reply / iMotors leads did not work for a Mercedes Dealer in the Mid Atlantic region. No matter how great the process for contacting and following up with consumers.

I fully understood Jeff’s complaint about iMotors, but the problem with dealerships today seems to be that no one wants to work for their money. Many dealerships sign up with lead providers thinking that they will be receiving buyers from every lead sent, when in reality thats just not the case. If you want to sell a car to a lead you received from a provider then you must remain persistant with the customer. Most Internet Sales Departments know that they must develop pipelines with their leads, its not a mystery that you would of course work harder with the leads that seem more interested or more willing to buy now then later, the push back leads of course you would follow up in the coming months. I’m sure you already know this.

What I’m trying to get at is this…why do some dealerships excel with iMotors and others fail? Simply because I believe the successful one’s already have a well rounded system in place and know how to handle the leads as they come through. I would be happy to mention some dealerships that have been doing business with us for over 4 years. Why would they continue to “waste money” if this wasn’t a good program? Clearly they know how to work a lead into a buyer.

I guess you can call it the gift of a good sales person.

The last thing we want our internet teams doing is chasing their tail, which is the very thing you callously skipped over and called “hard work.” No, that is stupid work. Work smarter, not harder is what we say and we do our best to provide our teams with tools and leads to help them do just that and you can believe, iMotors will never be one of them.

Erica Sietsma
Manager of CRM Systems
Mile One Automotive

I wouldn’t recommended this service based solely on that It’s better to use AutoTrader or cars.com as they acquire their leads from people who are legitimately looking for a car (at least sometimes) Those looking with iMotors (and any of the smaller pay per lead groups) are usually just tire-kicking. This is a problem not exclusive to iMotors, so you must be careful. Not saying they all are like this, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I give iMotors a pass, go for the more well-known sources that cater more to people who are seriously looking for a car.

I was just pitched the iMotors program again yesterday (wouldn’t take a whole lot of research on their part to know I’m the same ex-client who axed their program within 2 months and subsequently posted my displeasure on DealerRefresh)… I almost felt bad for the guy, as it seemed he was new to the company, or at least the region.

If I were iMotors, I’d be calling up some of those successful clients I supposedly have, and bribing them to surf over to DealerRefresh and leave some love. If said dealers are successful with the program, I’m sure they wouldn’t be fazed by the negativity of the other comments.

Before becoming the Sales Director for CarSpot, I was the eCommerce Director of the Boucher Automotive Group in Wisconsin (18 dealerships). We pretty much tried every lead source… well at least once.

iMotors was the cheapest leads out there; I guess you would say we got what we paid for. These leads became to be known as “Punch the Monkey Leads”… since many of the customers that we called would tell us that they weren’t in the market for a car, but they “Punched the Monkey” to get a free Xbox and were required to sign up for credit card and submit multiple leads for various products.

The big kicker was when we contacted the customers, they wanted to know when they would get their Xbox? Even after we explained how we had received their information, they would call us back looking for their “earned” goods.

If there is anything that I can say, we left iMotors and transferred more of our business (spending) to Dealix and were much happier. Dealix is more expensive, but their lead sources are better screened and the leads are filtered and cross checked. Dealix also does a follow up survey that helps track where a customer is in their buying process.

-JoE Drosen
National Sales Director, CarSpot

http://www.carsgofaster.com

Well versed, and so true! I have not experienced this with iMotors but have with another vendor.

A month before arriving at a dealer group a few years ago as Internet Director, a BDC dept was put in place with a 2 day crash course on a ILM tool, with nothing but an auto reply and a few email templates to handle leads. Out of 6 BDC personel, only 2 had any internet experience.

With good intentions, the COO also signed on with a pay-per-lead service across 4 main locations relying on promises of quality leads.

As we all know, most upper management is not as knowledgeable as us in the trenches to the tricks of this trade, one of them being putting a monthly LEAD CAP on a new service such as this.

Two months later the controller is asking me about bills for $2500-$3500 per location per month and what we got back from it. Finally getting time to dig the reports out of the ILM tool (besides overseeing BDC I was also selling across 8 rooftops with 12 manufacturers), I about had a heart attack!

Every location was receiving 100-200 leads from just the one vendor, most getting only an auto response and nothing else.

Obviously not all is the vendors fault, but as I suggested when asking the vendor for a “little help” with the first two months of billing, almost $20,000…

“When selling a vehicle to a customer, I don’t want to just sell them a car today, but also their next vehicle, friends and family for a lifetime. Hurray for your sales rep that got the big hit, but now you lost a customer for a lifetime. Had he eased us into your service (25 leads per account/month) and we could experience how quality your leads supposedly are, then raise the lead cap and we would all continue to benefit for years to come.” Win Win.

What happened to morals, integrity, and honesty? Was the sales rep that desperate for money, ignorant, or just didn’t care? I like to think if it had been myself seeing the situation, I would have made some suggestions to start slow and build up.

Better yet, on a 2nd round of trying the vendor months later (not my choice) and them promising how this is the “premier” package in which all customers are called by them to confirm before passing the lead on… Yeah, I put in three leads personally and no one called to confirm any of them and most leads were coming from over 100 miles away.

Waiter, an ice water for me please!