CarGurus Leads and Connections

Dealer Resource Center

Best Practices

CarGurus Leads and Connections

Accessing Your Leads

CarGurus Lead Best Practices

To successfully convert your CarGurus leads into sales, follow the three P’s of lead best practices – no matter what type of lead it is.

Promptness

Personalization

Persistence

Phone Leads

CarGurus phone leads come from shoppers who click the tracked phone number on your listings to call your dealership. Whether you answered the call or not, you’ll receive a phone lead record. Phone leads have a 44% higher close rate than email leads.

Always call back within 10 minutes of receiving a phone lead. Leave messages that are clear, short, and to the point. Keep calling – and emailing – for 60 days, then switch over to weekly emails. Learn more phone lead best practices.

CarGurus Leads can be accessed in 3 ways:

Accessing your CarGurus Leads:

Dealer Dashboard

Dealers with supported CRM platforms can have their CarGurus leads pushed to their CRM system instead of receiving email notifications. If you would like your leads sent to your CRM, contact your account rep at 1-800-CARGURUS. CarGurus Pre-Qualified Leads will appear in your CRM with “CarGurus Pre-qualified” as the lead source. You can take advantage of this by filtering leads from Lead Source = “CarGurus Pre-qualified” into a higher priority queue for outreach and faster sale process.

CRM

Email

Lead Enhancements

1-800-CARGURUS

Sources 1. CarGurus paying dealer leads vs nonpaying dealer leads, Q1 2019-Q2 2020. Includes content supplied by IHS Market; Copyright © IHS Markit 2021. All rights reserved. (https://cargurus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MAR/pages/2297593977/2021+IHS+Polk+Attribution+Data) 2. CarGurus 2019 Buyer Insights Report https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/2019%20Buyer%20Insight%20Report.pdf 3. 2017 Conversica Lead Follow Up Report https://info.conversica.com/rs/221-UQO-143/images/2017%204Ps%20Report%20-%20final.pdf 4. Authenitcom 2018 Q3 https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/US%20Phone%20Lead%20Best%20Practices.pdf?utm_source=drc 5. CarGurus 2020 Covid-19 Sentiment Study https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/USNov_Covid19-Survey_CarGurus.pdf 6. CarGurus 2020 Buyer Insights Report https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/CarGurus-2020-Buyer-Insight-Report.pdf

Personalizing email communications, such as including the consumer’s name in your greeting and vehicle details in the email, can significantly boost lead engagement. Personalized email messages improve click-through rates by 14% and conversions by 10%.

Making one or two attempts to follow up with a lead is almost never enough to be effective. Research proves that an increased number of attempts yields increased conversions: attempting contact three times instead of once doubles response rates. Even after you close the sale, stay in touch with the consumer to collect feedback, drive referrals, and encourage positive reviews.

Consumers can interact with your vehicle detail pages (VDPs) in more ways than submitting a lead. Click on the CarGurus Connections below to learn more about them.

CarGurus Leads and Connections

CarGurus Lead Enhancements

Dealers who work with our finance partners or who have purchased certain additional products will receive even lower-funnel leads with enhancement labels to make them easy to identify.

Dealers who sign up for Area Boost increase shopper connections by showing their listings to consumers outside of their local area. Consumers who submit a lead on these listings are qualified as delivery leads. The lead report on your Dealer Dashboard will indicate which leads are interested in a delivered vehicle. • View Area Boost best practices. • Learn more about Area Boost.

CarGurus Area Boost Leads

Accessing Your Leads

Lead Enhancements

CarGurus Leads and Connections

Best Practices

4. Authenitcom 2018 Q3 https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/US%20Phone%20Lead%20Best%20Practices.pdf?utm_source=drc 5. CarGurus 2020 Covid-19 Sentiment Study https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/USNov_Covid19-Survey_CarGurus.pdf 6. CarGurus 2020 Buyer Insights Report https://dealers.cargurus.com/rs/611-AVR-738/images/CarGurus-2020-Buyer-Insight-Report.pdf

CarGurus email leads come from shoppers who submit their contact information via your VDP and give their email address as their preferred method of communicating.

Best Practices

Send your emails from a personal email account rather than a generic ‘sales’ or ‘info’ address. Follow up multiple times (2-3 emails per week). Use CarGurus’ templates for responding to email leads. Be sure to respond as soon as possible, use an open-ended question to drive appointment-setting, link to the vehicle the customer is interested in, and call out the vehicle price and deal rating – getting a fair deal is one of the main factors driving a consumers’ dealership selection!

EMAIL Leads

CarGurus text and chat leads come from shoppers who use the fully managed communications program offered to dealers with Enhanced, Featured, or Featured Priority Listings packages. Our messaging experts respond shopper inquiries 24/7, then pass the transcripts and lead information to you. Text & Chat leads are highly valuable – they are 9% more likely to purchase than email and phone leads.

Best Practices

Review the transcript before contacting the consumer. If the customer leaves both a phone number and an email, call them first, then follow up with an email. Reach out to the consumer as soon as possible after receiving their contact info. Learn more about Managed Text and Chat leads.

Managed Text and Chat Leads

By clicking ‘Map & Directions’ on your VDPs, consumers show their interest in visiting your store and may walk in without submitting a lead. It’s important to give consumers access to your dealership’s location – 35% of shoppers don’t contact dealerships before they visit. Shoppers who have submitted a lead and also clicked on a map are 68% more likely to purchase than shoppers who have only submitted an email, phone, text, or chat.

Map Views

Consumers can click a link on your CarGurus VDPs to navigate directly to your website, where they can explore your other vehicles without viewing competitors’ inventory. Bringing consumers to your website is important – it should have the highest conversion rate of all your marketing assets.

Website Clicks

Shoppers can print a copy of your VDP directly from the CarGurus site Leads who also printed the VDP are 128% more likely to purchase than shoppers who have only submitted an email, phone, text, or chat lead.

Print Clicks

Consumers can click the save button on your VDP to add it to their list of saved vehicles for quick access later on. When consumers save your inventory, they'll also receive Price Drop notifications from CarGurus, to stay engaged with your vehicles.

SAVES

Best Practices

CarGurus Pre-Qualified Leads submitted a lead on your VDP and pre-qualified for financing with at least one of the lenders you work with. Since these consumers took the time to fill out an online application in the lead submission process, you know that they’re very ready to buy. In fact, CarGurus Pre-Qualified Leads are 64% more likely to purchase than regular leads, and close faster. Pre-Qualified leads allow the consumer to shop the way they want – 52% of consumers prefer to finance their purchase online, up from 36% before the coronavirus pandemic. Best Practices • Ask them to share a copy of the pre-qualification certificate, either digitally from their email or a physical printed version. • Treat them as a partner when you discuss vehicle and financing options, since they’ve invested themselves in the process. • Focus on the vehicle they’ve made the effort to get prequalified for, but also have vehicles of similar styles, ages, and mileage in mind to discuss. Learn more about Pre-Qualified Leads.

CarGurus Pre-Qualified Leads

CarGurus Convert jump-starts the deal making process by allowing shoppers to build a personalized deal, complete with trade-in, credit check, and dealership-specific F&I products. If you have CarGurus Convert, you’ll receive those lower funnel leads in your CRM with the lead source “CarGurus Digital Retail” and in your Dealer Dashboard with the “Digital Retail” enhancement label. 60% of consumers would like to conduct more steps online before getting to the dealership. Learn more about Convert.

CarGurus Convert Leads

Leads provide you with direct contact information from shoppers. These leads go directly to your CRM or inbox.

If you don’t have your leads pushed to your CRM, you’ll automatically receive an email anytime a new lead is submitted. The email includes the consumer’s contact information, any comments they added, and details about the listed vehicle. You can edit the Financing Notification Email Addresses section in the settings of your CarGurus Dealer Dashboard to make sure the right contacts at your dealership get notifications when you receive a Pre-Qualified Lead.

Connection types that only customers have access to (phone, text, and chat leads, as well as web, map, and print clicks) see a

Consumers can interact with your CarGurus listings in many valuable ways, each one being a step towards a purchase and an opportunity to engage with the shopper. Learn about these different interactions that your dealership can receive on CarGurus and where to access them, and get some best practices on lead follow up to increase the chance of conversion.

41% higher conversion rate than email leads.

Additionally, dealers on our paid packages close leads

42% better than those on our non-paid listings.

The Dealer Dashboard provides a concise report of all your CarGurus leads. It includes customer contact information and the car’s details, as well as whether or not the lead is pre-qualified.

CRM

Dealer Dashboard

Email

Connections give shoppers other ways to learn more about your vehicles and your dealership. You’ll see this activity in your CarGurus Dealer Dashboard's VDP Activity tab.

Click the arrows to view Pre-Qualified Leads, Area Boost, and Convert Leads

To give yourself the best chance of converting a lead, it’s critical that you reach out to the consumer promptly. The odds of qualifying a lead increase dramatically when the you contact the consumer shortly after they submit their lead: contact in the first hour increases qualification rates by 60 times, compared to waiting 24 hours or longer.

If you have any questions about your CarGurus leads or account, call 1-800-CARGURUS

CarGurus email leads come from shoppers who submit their contact information via your VDP and give their email address as their preferred method of communicating.

Best Practices

EMAIL LEADS

CarGurus helps dealers connect with shoppers

The CarGurus Shopper by the Numbers

They’re Big Researchers

Transparency Drives Their Search

Best Practices