How to Get More Leads From Existing Dealership Website Traffic
Before you spend another dollar on ads, Mike Crothers explains where your dealership website is losing the shoppers you already paid to bring in.
Before buying more ads, check whether the traffic already reaching your website is quality, in-market traffic.
If the traffic is good, judge your website tools on whether they work on mobile, push shoppers down the funnel, and enrich your leads.
A shopper who isn't ready today should get a branded, automated vehicle value tracking email every month so your store stays top of mind.
Unconverted leads sitting in your CRM, customers in your service drive, and your salespeople's social traffic are all sources of inventory and sales you already have.
Mike's view: give shoppers the most valuable information they want, what their car is worth, and they will buy from you. If you don't send it, someone else probably will.
Most dealers have the same instinct when leads slow down: spend more on ads. Before you do that, figure out how to get more leads from existing dealership website traffic. You already paid for those shoppers. The real question is whether your site does anything with them once they land.
Here is the order I would check things in, and what I would want my website tools doing for me.
Start by checking whether it's quality traffic
Whatever is driving shoppers to your site, ads, SEO, or anything else, the first thing I would check is whether that's quality traffic. If the wrong people are showing up, no tool on your website is going to fix that.
Your agency should be able to show you where visitors come from and what they do once they arrive. If it's real in-market shoppers, the problem is downstream, and that's where a lot of stores leave leads on the table.
How do you get more leads from existing dealership website traffic?
Once you know the traffic is good, look hard at the tools on your website. I would ask three questions:
Are they built for mobile? If a customer pulls up your site on their phone and the trade tool is clunky, they're gone. A mobile trade-in tool for your dealer website is the baseline.
Are they built as funnels? A good tool pushes the customer down the buying funnel so you get more leads and sell more cars.
Are they enriching your leads? A name and email is a start. A lead with a vehicle, a value, and a firm offer request is something your team can actually work.
Here is what that looks like in practice. A customer goes to your website on their phone and gets a trade valuation in under 30 seconds. Right there, they can request a firm offer, which tells you they're serious and gives your used car manager real information to act on.
That's the idea behind selling more cars without more ad spend: same traffic, better tools. When the tool is built for the consumer, your dealer website conversion rate becomes something you can move without buying more clicks.
Stay top of mind until they're ready to buy
Not everyone is buying today. That's fine, as long as you stay in front of them. A shopper who doesn't buy should get a vehicle value tracking email every month, fully branded to your dealership and fully automated.
In today's world, there are something like 62 touch points a customer goes through before deciding to buy. My view: if you give them the most valuable piece of information they're looking for, what their car is worth, they're going to buy from you. And if you're not sending that email, someone else probably is.
Reactivate old CRM leads
Think about all the traffic your marketing agency sent to your website. Thousands of leads submitted, and a lot of them never converted. They're just sitting in your CRM.
You can reactivate those leads with the same monthly value tracking email until they buy. For past sales and service customers, MOTO(retain) sends their vehicle's value every month, and those emails have a 36% open rate and 99.5% deliverability.
Capture trades from the service drive
Your most loyal customers are already in your building for service. With MOTO(drive), as soon as an RO opens, the customer gets a text asking if you can give them a value on their car while they're there. When they say yes, the process takes off from there, fully automated and customizable.
MOTO(drive) uses DMS data, pushes VIN and miles to your inventory tools, and alerts your sales team when a customer is ready. MOTO(drive) stores consistently buy about 1% of their repair orders without dedicated service acquisition hires.
Give your salespeople their own landing page
Your sales staff are out there creating content every day. With MOTO(social), each person posting on social gets their own link, and leads that come through it are attributed in your CRM back to that salesperson. Nobody misses anything, and that traffic gets captured instead of lost.
Where MOTO(convert) fits
MOTO(convert) is the website trade tool behind the first half of this: instant valuations, firm offer requests, and monthly value tracking. It also includes the free buying power tool. It works with the traffic your dealership already has, so the goal is more trades and more leads from shoppers you've already paid to reach.
For more on this topic, our Dealer Website Conversion videos cover how dealers get more out of the traffic they already have. Hundreds of dealers use MOTO(acquire) to acquire more inventory and sell more cars from that same traffic.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to spend more on ads to get more leads from my dealership website?
Not necessarily. Mike's first step is checking whether your current traffic is quality traffic. If it is, the bigger opportunity is usually the tools on your site: whether they work on mobile, act as funnels, and enrich your leads.
What should a mobile trade-in tool on a dealer website do?
It should let a customer get a trade valuation on their phone quickly, Mike points to under 30 seconds, and then request a firm offer in the same flow. That gives your team an enriched lead with a vehicle and a value instead of just contact information.
Can I reactivate old leads sitting in my CRM?
Yes. Mike's recommendation is to send those unconverted leads the same monthly vehicle value tracking email until they buy. For past sales and service customers, MOTO(retain) sends their vehicle's value every month, with a 36% open rate and 99.5% deliverability.
Does MOTO(drive) work with my DMS?
MOTO(acquire) integrates with all major DMS platforms and many others, including Tekion, Dealertrack, CDK, Reynolds, and Auto/Mate. If your DMS isn't integrated yet, MOTO(acquire) will build the integration.
How do salespeople get credit for leads from their social posts?
MOTO(social) gives each person posting on social their own link. When a lead comes in through that link, it's attributed in your CRM to that salesperson, so they don't miss anything.
See how many trades your website is missing
Get a walkthrough of MOTO(convert) on your own site, with instant valuations and firm offer requests in one flow. Ask for a Dealer Website Trade-In Audit.
More on Dealer Website Conversion
Full transcript
...ads or your SEO or whatever it might be that's driving the traffic there, is that quality traffic? That's the first thing I would check. If you actually have quality traffic, I would then start looking at the tools on your website and seeing, are they built for mobile? Are they actually built as funnels to help push your customers down the buying funnel so you can get more leads and sell more cars?
And are they enriching your leads as well? I know of a great tool out there. It's called MOTO(acquire), and it's helping some of the largest dealerships in the country not only sell more cars, but acquire more inventory. And this tool is known for doing this all with the same traffic the dealership already has. You don't have to spend any more on ads because the tool just works.
It's built for the consumer. The customer can go to your website on their phone and get a trade valuation in under 30 seconds. And right there, they can enrich themselves by requesting a firm offer. And if they don't want to buy today, they're going to get a value tracking email every single month, fully branded to the dealership itself and automated.
So when your customer is doing research, your brand and your dealership stay top of mind. Because in today's world, there's like 62 touch points a customer has to go through before they decide to buy. And if you can give them the most valuable piece of information they're looking for, they're going to buy from you. Because if you're not sending that email, someone else probably is.
On top of this, MOTO(acquire) has a few other tools as well. They have a tool that allows you to reactivate your customer list sitting in your CRM. So all that traffic that you just paid for through your marketing agency, they send over to your website, and they've submitted thousands and thousands of leads. A lot of them haven't converted.
They're just sitting in your CRM. Well, you can reactivate them with that same value tracking email I just talked about every single month until they buy. And MOTO(acquire) doesn't stop there. MOTO(acquire) has a tool for the service drive. So when your most loyal customers come in for service, as soon as an RO opens, they're going to get a text message seeing if you can give them a value on their car while they're there.
When they say yes, the entire process takes off from there. It's fully automated, fully customizable, and it's helping dealerships acquire more inventory and sell more cars straight from their service drive every single day. And you're probably thinking right now, wow, these are a lot of tools, and I would love to acquire more inventory and sell more cars from the traffic I already have.
But I'm not done. MOTO(acquire) has another tool, and it's for your sales staff, the people out there creating content every single day. Imagine if they could have a landing page they could send all that traffic to, and it could be fully attributed to your CRM and back to that salesperson, so they never miss anything. So if someone submits a lead through that website, the salesperson is going to be tagged in that lead in the CRM, and it's fully attributed back to them.
It's a great place to funnel in all that traffic to make sure you can capture it and sell more cars from the traffic your dealership is already getting. So you get it. If I'm a dealership out there, check out MOTO(acquire). It's helping the largest dealerships in the country acquire more inventory and sell more cars from the traffic they already have.