Announcing the 5th annual CarGurus Top Rated Dealer Awards
Congratulations to the dealers that were recognized in the 5th annual CarGurus Top Rated Dealer Awards today!
Based on reviews from car shoppers across the country, these annual awards celebrate a select group of car dealers for their exceptional service and commitment to customer satisfaction. The winning dealers have the highest average review ratings from shoppers on the CarGurus platform.
A dealer’s guide to car photography
There is no underestimating the value of high-quality car photography. Customers can tell a lot about your dealership from your advertising images, which are often the first impression a customer gets of a car.
New models benefit from polished manufacturer stock shots, while used vehicles do not enjoy the same luxury and require a bit more effort. Get it right though, and you immediately showcase the car’s best qualities in plenty of detail, immeasurably boosting your chance of a sale.
However, photography is easy to get wrong–and a lot of businesses do exactly that. A lack of know-how or the scramble to get images online frequently leads to poor-quality shots that leave the viewer unclear about what they’re looking at and questioning the dealership’s professionalism. If you want to sell more cars, then you can’t cut corners with photography. If you have the budget for a professional snapper then go for it–but handling your pictures in-house is perfectly doable whether you’re a veteran photographer or a newbie with a smartphone.
Recognize returning customers to grow trust and sales
How you manage each potential customers’ experience with your dealership is critical to closing the sale
Customers in the market for a car don’t just follow a straight line from wanting to buying. They shift between on and offline resources an estimated four times, but it’s the dealership that almost always closes with an average of 2.4 visits per sale. It’s clear: how you respond to repeat visitors clearly matters.
How to handle negative reviews
A bad online review can be a golden opportunity for a dealer to shine
One day you decide to see what people are saying about your dealership online and you’re appalled at what you find: someone left a scathing one-star review! You immediately feel enraged and want to lash out at the reviewer because they’re giving people a false impression of your business.
But before you do anything hasty, take a moment to consider the best course of action. Bad reviews are a fact of life in today’s digital world where anyone can leave one on platforms such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Yahoo – not to mention auto shopping sites like CarGurus. There’s a smart way to handle the situation, and when done right you can improve your company’s reputation.
Once again, CarGurus wins two “Highest Rated” DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards
For the third year in a row, CarGurus is proud to have won top honors in the DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards for both Used Car Advertising and New Car Leads.
What sets great dealers apart: 3 social media metrics you need to track to understand your campaign’s success
Maintaining a strong social media presence is essential in today’s business world. While it might seem simple to figure out how well you’re doing, there is more to it than just looking at how many likes and followers you have.
Likes, shares, and comments all contribute to social media success, but on their own, they don’t tell the full story. When we boil it down, there are three key areas to look at when we talk about social media metrics. In this article, we’re going to give you the rundown on all of them: what to look at, which numbers to pay attention to, and how to improve those numbers if they aren’t where they should be.
CarGurus dives into car shopping journey in new 2018 Buyer Insight Report
What goes into the car buying journey for the average auto shopper?
At a time when consumers are more indecisive than ever about key decisions, from what vehicle to purchase to which dealership to buy from, this question is crucial. The 2018 CarGurus Buyer Insight Report, released today, provides an answer. The report analyzes the digital purchase paths of more than 3,000 auto shoppers, giving an in-depth look at today’s complex car shopping process. Key findings include:
5 tips for writing compelling copy for online automotive ads
In the past several years, there’s been a surge in digital advertising spend in the automotive industry. Last year, for the first time, digital advertising made up more than half of total ad spending—and eMarketer forecasts that consistent, double-digit growth in digital ad spending for the auto industry will continue through 2019.
Yet all too often, dealerships treat the copy in their advertising as an afterthought. They toss in a few keywords, check the grammar, and hit publish. But copy is important—words matter!—and it should be treated that way.
We’ve put together some of the top tips for writing ad copy to help your dealership get the greatest ROI from online ads.
CarGurus’ 2018 in review: company milestones, dealer events, top content, and more
2018 was a banner year for us here at CarGurus: we officially became the #1 auto shopping site in the US, our Gurus held and attended dealer events in 30+ cities, and we launched lots of new content to help you sell more cars—and it didn’t go unnoticed!
We took a moment to reflect on everything we did in 2018, and here are some of the highlights.
How trim and options data factor in CarGurus rankings
Andrew Grochal here, Head of Dealer Products for CarGurus. I wanted to provide some additional information to answer some questions that have come up from dealers on how we use trim and option data in our ranking and rating algorithms.
First, I want to be very clear that we understand how critical it is for vehicles to have accurate trim and option info. From our point of view, it’s a win for both consumers and dealers for us to get this right, and we’re constantly improving our ability to get this right while giving you the tools to identify and quickly fix any issues.