Dealership Marketing

iMotors leads and my review and experience X2!!

Jeff Kershner
Posted onApr 7, 2007 at 3:29 AM
Updated onUpdated on Oct 25, 2019 at 7:13 AM

iMotors / Reply leads for your dealer interest sales department

Logo_imotors_clean_2

I “usually” keep my negative opinions to myself. BUT there are times where I find the need to take my voice above the boundaries.

When I first started here at Mercedes-Benz of Hagerstown, I quickly jumped on board with a few 3rd party lead vendors to get the ball rolling. For some reason or another I brought iMotors (division of Reply Inc.) on board. Two months using their service I found myself spending more time managing duplicates and bad leads then actually following up and selling to qualified buyers. I quickly realized that it was not making sense keeping iMotors (Reply Inc.) on board as a 3rd party lead provider for my dealer. So I axed them!!

Then last year, (Sept 2006) I started getting phone calls from one of their sales representatives again. I’ll have to admit, she had a sweet voice!! She called and called, convincing me that they had changed their “lead filtering software” since I had past used their services. Matter of fact, they even had a higher-up sales manager call to re-enforce the fact that they had made vast improvements in their process and software for filtering qualified leads. Now..I’m not a fool and I didn’t bite right away!! BUT “she” kept calling me! You know what it’s like to get that phone call that stimulates the ears. And I have to admit, I can be such a sucker. I’ll buy anything from a persistent sales person that can follow-up and be so convincing. Before I knew it I was signed up with iMotors..again.

So I don’t sound like such a sucker here, I’ll let you know that I worked the price down to a very persuasive cost per lead, AND since we wanted to have a strong end of the year push, I was biting on anything that made sense.

Before signing the agreement, I informed the sales lady that I ran a website and IF this time proved to be a flop, I would write about it (hence the reason for this posting). So…2 months back into using iMotors, it wasn’t setting the world on fire (but then again what 3rd party lead does?). I have an effective follow up process established here at the dealer so no one could accuse me of not following up with each and every lead. The end of the year was approaching and by then we had 1 credit sales for iMotors. The crazy part was; the gross was very considerably high, so I continued on with the service.

BUT by the end of February I found myself back in the same boat that I was in the first time using iMotors, too much time following up with duplicates and bullshit leads. I was getting leads for cars that no longer
existed in the Mercedes model line. Now, one could argue and say; “Jeff…you need to call every customer and ignore the car they are requesting a price quote on”. Well, I was and always do!! We were calling every customer and totally ignoring the vehicle of interest that was quoted on the lead. BUT the problem was most of the phone numbers were bogus or no longer in service. Complete total CRAP!!

Throughout the course of Jan, Feb and March, we sold 1 more credit sale for iMotors (again a decent gross), but it came to a point where it was not worth the time and effort to keep them around. The ROI on paper was making sense, but when you factored in my time and energy, my sales peoples time, the confidence in the service, it was not justifiable. So I AGAIN axed them!

The positive points were; the customer service was nothing less then great. They willingly credited every lead I asked to have credit for. The 2 cars that I sold during the period of using iMotors (again) were very lofty. BUT, it became too much for me to manage every month. The time that I spent following up with bogus leads and getting credit for these leads was costing me too much time and money at the end of the month.

I’m not saying iMotors will not work for your dealer. I’m merely pointing out that it didn’t work for my dealer on 2 separate occasions. I’ve taken the liberty to post my last 3 months of leads I received from iMotors (erasing the customer last name) with the current “status” each customer was in at the time of this posting. You can see most of them are marked “Bad Lead” and believe me I’m being generous. Several of the leads are in limbo/working status and I’m still not sure if they are real people or not.

Sorry iMotors, but I gave you fair warning.

Imotor_leads_screenshot

Jeff Kershner
Founder of DealerRefresh - 20+ Years of dealership Sales, Management, Training, Marketing and Leadership.
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    Warren Newland
  • April 7, 2007
I had the exact same experience with IMotors. Thank God my contract expires today.

I had already decided to drop them, but just last week something interesting happened.

I received a lead from the guy that does our phone systems here. I called and asked him what site he went through (since it's a big secret where the leads come from) to submit a lead.

The suprise. He didn't know anything about it. He received an email asking him if he wanted to know what his trade was worth and filled out that form. And then it came through as a lead. Is this terrible or what?

Anyway. Thanks for the article and have a great holiday.


-Warren


Warren Newland, E-Commerce Manager
Clair Auto Group, Clair Acura
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Hmm... from the screen shot it looks like you are working in two separate systems. Are you not automatically importing the leads into your CRM and then having the CRM validate the phone number, email (via domain) and then setting up some logic to validate the user input through Bayesian classifier... etc. Granted this should have been done on iMotors.com end...

It is not really a secret how these lead generators are really getting the leads... it is mostly done through PPC... I think autos.reply.com (carclub, openauto) runs ppc program that contains about 3400 keywords... see www.keywordcompete.com

Regards,
Farooq


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    David Greene
  • April 9, 2007
Hello Jeff,

Thank you for your feedback on your recent experience with leads from iMotors and the opportunity to respond. Our account records for your dealership show you were provided with 51 leads over 90 days. Of those leads you requested and were given credits on 25 of them. Your account manager indicates you were successful developing 2 of the 26 leads you actually paid for into sales. I agree you had some duplicates. Most dealerships are well aware that many online consumers will attempt to get dealer quotes through multiple sources and duplicate prevention is difficult to do. That being said, as you experienced we are happy to issue credits when duplicates occur.

So if I may summarize your articles critique of iMotors:

 You spent less than $500 for 26 leads
 You sold 2 vehicles that held very good gross
 You received friendly and professional client service that happily accommodated your service requests

I regret this did not represent enough ROI to retain you as a customer. Our objective is to deliver each of our over 1,000 dealer clients the best online sales opportunities possible. The great majority of these dealers have been happy with their ROI and their experience with iMotors and I hope none of them feel like “suckers”. We will continue to work hard for our valued dealer clients and recognize that the dealers ROI combined with great service is essential for our success. We wish you the best in your ongoing search for those perfect leads that all answer your first call and actually want the vehicle you have in stock, we will continue to try to develop the same.

Good luck Jeff!

David Greene
EVP, Sales & Service Operations
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    Jeff Kershner
  • April 9, 2007
Farooq,

The screen shot I have posted is an actual report from my CRM (eLead evolution). My leads do automatically import and the emails are validated.

Other validations need to be done at the vendors level. That's what I'm them paying for.
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    Jeff Kershner
  • April 10, 2007
David,

Thank you for reading DealerRefresh and for your comments.

As I had mentioned and you re-enforced, iMotors customer service was never less then great. My customer service rep willingly credited each and every lead I asked for.

You stated; "Our objective is to deliver each of our over 1,000 dealer clients the best online sales opportunities possible." I think we'll to have to agree to disagree on this. If you research on how some of these leads are generated, I think you will quickly see why, as an Internet sales manager, it would be hard for me to agree.

Yes, we did sell 2 cars from 26 good leads and the ROI on paper did make sense BUT 25 out of 51 leads is more then a "few" bad leads. When I say bad leads, I'm not referring to duplicates, I'm talking about bogus numbers, invalid emails and leads from more then a few customers that stated to me that they never requested information for a Mercedes-Benz (don't get me wrong, many customers do lie or just forget what they sometimes inquire about on the internet but this happened more then a few times).

My point being, filtering through all the bad leads became very discouraging and was taking too much valuable time (many times not finding out if a lead was truly a BAD LEAD until the 7th or 10th follow-up phone call). After so many bad leads anyone would eventually become discouraged.

As I usually state and will reinstate, what works or does not work at my dealer does not mean every dealer will have the same outcome. I'm only here to share my experiences.

Thanks again David for your comments.

-Jeff
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    Gilbert A. Chavez
  • April 11, 2007
Jeff,

I agree with you 100% about imotors. I experienced the same exact results with them.

They are too much brain damage to deal with for sure.

Gilbert

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Great article Jeff.

While I have not used iMotors, I suspect most any 3rd party lead provider that is not a marquee player like AutoUSA, Dealix, etc have the possibility (likelihood?) of being an operation trying to cash in on the Internet fever.

For example, there are many SEO/SEM companies relying on the customers' ignorance of what services they provide and the value of SEO/SEM. A friend who runs his own SEO/SEM business is constanctly finding some of his competitors are quoting 5 figures a month for an SEM campaign for a plumbing or roofing service or a doctor's practice, simply because the customer doesn't know better. Point of the story is these people are cashing in on the ignorant for a quick buck, and I suspect many lead providers are doing the same thing.


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    Mitch
  • April 12, 2007
One of the primary reasons autoresponders do nothing for a consumer is that the sheer volume of emails hitting an Up's inbox from different dealers simply numbs their interest.

Jeff, I don't know if you've ever mystery shopped through iMotors.com, but if you try it out, you'll find that they send their own promotional crap at least once a day to consumers; that's 14 emails in the first two weeks just coming from the place you submit your lead to... not to mention all the emails you're getting from competing dealers. Here I am shopping their site on purpose for market research, and even I got sick of opening the emails.
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    Jeff Kershner
  • April 12, 2007
Mitch,

I know exactly what your talking about. I somehow got on their Reply real estate email list and I would get emails from them at least once a day. It was annoying as hell and it took awhile to for my opt out request to go through. We live and learn.

-Jeff
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We used iMotors a long time ago in some sort of freebie trial. I think we also had something coming in from them through Isuzu - when we were selling Isuzu's. I do recall there being a high amount of bad leads, but it was too long ago to remember the factors that made them bad.

Before reading this thread I had already decided not to use their services again. Unfortunately, there are quite a few lead providers out there like this. As more pop up they will only degrade the reputation of 3rd Party Lead Providers further.....with us and our customers.
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    Tara Gibson
  • April 24, 2007
Hello,

I am a sales representative at iMotors.com and I had a couple questions for you. I notice some of you are concerned that you receive too much e-mail "junk" through our company. Basically, e-mails are sent to customers who visit our website to remind them of local dealerships in their area willing to help them out with their future car purchase. Now isn't this similair to the same e-mail they would get from you when someone visits a dealership website and receives an automatic response after they insert their information in your personal dealer website? Yes, those e-mails sent from dealerships can get annoying, yet they also remind the consumer that someone is there willing to help them with their future car purchase.

Also, I noticed Jeff saying he sold 2 cars out of 26 valid leads (about 10%), which is industry average for most dealerships, which could be classified as good! Also, he made a high gross from those 2 vehicles sold and he also received great customer service along the way.

From the looks of the article it seems like the only thing Jeff was concerned with was his time and energy spent working the leads being sent to him. I'm sure we can all agree that hard work equals great success. I have been the top sales person at reply for the past year and its because of my hard work, never giving up, persistant sales skills is what allows me to be rewarded! I suggest if you want a lead provider to work for you, that you remain consistant with the leads received, regardles if there are bad names or bad numbers (which get credited anyways) because sorting through the bad, you are sure to find a gem.

I spoke with an internet sales managers in CO recently who told me he was happy to receive a duplicate lead from another provider because it indicated the customer who he already was dealing with was interested in another car. So he called him and asked if he was interested in this other car and the customer told him he was being pushy, but that he had changed his mind and he ended up purchasing the new car he was interested in. Psychologically, being a persistant sales person will help you out in the long run.

Basically, we (lead providers) are very similiar, yet different. The main thing that can separate any company would have to be their service. If we are willing to help you out any way possible and credit you for anything that is unworkable, why wouldn't you want to try our service out.

Jeff, there is no such thing as a perfect lead provider and no we are not selling "magic" leads, if this was the case, I'm sure we would be charging at least $500 per lead if we knew for sure the lead would turn into an automatic sale, but we do have an excellent service, with excellent people, and we try our hardest to make our dealerships happy. Some people do well with our program and some people don't, but what it really boils down to is the internet process of the dealership and how each lead is being handled.

Each lead is like a bomb, if handled incorrectly, the lead will explode and go elsewhere.
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Tara, to answer your questions;

I notice some of you are concerned that you receive too much e-mail junk through our company.

What myself and Mitch are referring to are all the emails that Reply Inc. send out on the consumer side. I one time got onto the Reply mailing list and I would get emails at a minimum of once a day. It took weeks to get off the mailing list. We are merely pointing out that Reply Inc. is very heavy with their email distribution.

"Also, I noticed Jeff saying he sold 2 cars out of 26 valid leads (about 10%), which is industry average for most dealerships, which could be classified as good! Also, he made a high gross from those 2 vehicles sold and he also received great customer service along the way."

Yes you are right, 10% is the average for most dealerships and making a high gross is a great thing if it happened every month. However, you are overlooking the fact that I also had to go through 25 BAD leads to get to that sale. If you add the 25 bad leads into the percentages, you're far from a 10% closing ratio.

"From the looks of the article it seems like the only thing Jeff was concerned with was his time and energy spent working the leads being sent to him."

Now your getting me a little fired up! It's obvious to me that you did not actually read my posting. My concern was all the BAD leads and the time I and my sales people were spending trying to contact people that didn't even exist. We were working each lead to the bone, but many of those leads never got past the bogus number. It's only a matter of time before ANYONE would become discouraged with the quality of the leads.

"I suggest if you want a lead provider to work for you, that you remain consistent with the leads received, regardless if there are bad names or bad numbers (which get credited anyways) because sorting through the bad, you are sure to find a gem."

I don't have time for gem mining. I pay for a service and expect some level of quality to the leads I'm paying for.

"Basically, we (lead providers) are very similar, yet different. The main thing that can separate any company would have to be their service. If we are willing to help you out any way possible and credit you for anything that is unworkable, why wouldn't you want to try our service out."

As mentioned in the original post, everyone at iMotors was very gracious and accommodating when it came time to getting credit for the bad leads. But come on, with so many bad leads, there is a deeper problem here then just capturing the occasional bad lead.

"Some people do well with our program and some people don't, but what it really boils down to is the internet process of the dealership and how each lead is being handled."

We have a process well above the average and all I'm asking for are leads that have a legit phone number or email address before it is sent to me. This was something I was not receiving from iMotors.

"Each lead is like a bomb, if handled incorrectly, the lead will explode and go elsewhere."

As will a 3rd party lead vendor if dealers deny their low quality leads. I've been doing this for a long time, I'll admit I'm not perfect but don't question my ability.
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    Jeff Larsen
  • April 28, 2007
Excuse me waiter, can you get my friend Jeff an ice water...

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!
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iMotors = "Punch the Monkey Leads"

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
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I guess my question to the iMotors Reps here would be this: if it's true that people do well with your program, where are those people? I haven't seen a positive comment yet from an iMotors client or ex-client. I also don't know any industry counterpart of mine who would promote iMotors as a vendor.

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.
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    Seth
  • June 27, 2007
We've been using iMotors for awhile, a bit over a month. We've so far had little if anything in the way of success. I will give them credit for their customer service, they've always been helpful, but the leads are pretty much all duds. The problem is most leads don't qualify for credit due to their circumstances.

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.


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Ok, I just couldn't help weiging in. I know I should be working right now, but I got sucked into Jeff's blog - darn you! Tara, Tara, Tara, your obvious failure to understand Jeff's email was frustrating and you are lucky I am not Jeff, because I have a blazing temper and I would have unloaded. But, in respect for Jeff's blog, I will refrain, since I personally have no experience with iMotors, but can certainly empathize. Our group has 64 dealerships in the Mid-Atlantic and we have cut almost all of our third party leads except for two providers. The frustration our internet teams have with bad leads and the time spent chasing them is a concern that stretches all the way to corporate where I sit.

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
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    Tara Gibson
  • January 8, 2008
Hi Erica,

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.
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    Jeff Kershner
  • January 9, 2008
Tara, you said "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."

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.
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    Scott
  • February 8, 2008
We used iMotors on a two-month trial with the same general negative experience as the others have. The issue is not about the ability to credit off the bad leads (where there service was always great), it was the fact that we were getting such a high volume of bad leads in the first place - people with absolutely no intent on buying a car submitting invalid phone numbers and invalid mailing addresses that were obvious at first glance. We spent much of our time doing the filtering that should have been built in to the iMotors system in the first place. As one other writer said, that was what we were paying them for.
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    Interested
  • April 18, 2009
This is a question. I'm asking about Autobytel
the lead source provider and wondering how it works for dealerships. Have any of you had experience with them and are you happy?
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I'm so glad I found this posting because I was just contacted by these guys and are trying to get us signed up. Now that I see the BS involved with them I'm letting the VP of sales for our group know. I already get enough bad and no response leads with autobytel and edmunds as it is.....
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