Car Dealer Website Platform

Edit the site from your CRM, keep your own domain, show inventory from your feed or your current website, and turn every form, chat and call into a lead.

The phrase covers more ground than most vendor pitches admit. A car dealer website platform has six working parts, and you can buy them from six companies or from one:

• The site itself: pages, design, editing and publishing.
• Inventory display: the listings and vehicle detail pages, fed from your inventory.
• Lead capture: forms, chat, credit applications, appointment requests and calls.
• Campaign landing: pages built for one offer rather than for browsing.
• Measurement: which page produced which lead, and which lead produced which sale.
• The follow up system that receives all of it, which is where most of the value is created or lost.

Dealers usually shop the first two and then discover the last four decide the results. A beautiful site with a slow contact path and nothing behind it produces less than a plain site with a fast one. That is an argument for buying the whole path, not just the front of it.

LeadLocate builds the whole path into one system. Independent and used car stores, buy here pay here lots, RV and boat dealers, auto brokers and individual salespeople can run their public site on it, and franchise stores add its pieces beside the website their manufacturer program names.

The site lives inside LeadLocate CRM, under the Website menu, so the manager who works the leads can change the page those leads come from. The website editor is organized in tabs:

That is the whole dealership website builder. Changing the hero for a sales event, adding a menu link to a new offer or turning on Shop by Payment takes minutes, and nobody files a ticket with a web developer to do it.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

Ownership is the question that catches stores at the worst possible moment, so here is the plain answer.

• The domain is yours. The Domains screen lets you search for and buy a domain, then edit its DNS records yourself. A domain bought there stays your dealership's, and our team handles a transfer out whenever you ask. The custom domains and DNS page walks through it.
• Publishing is part of the platform. Sites you publish from the website editor and from Inventory Link go live without a separate hosting account to manage.
• The content and the leads are yours. Your text, photos, forms and every lead they produce sit in your store's account.
• People change, the site stays. When a salesperson leaves, switching off their user hands their open leads and tasks to a successor, and their history stays with the dealership.

Whoever your vendor is today, check one thing this week: look up who the registered owner of your domain is. If it is not your dealership, fix that first.

Inventory is the heart of any car dealer website software, and the hard part is keeping it accurate. Inventory Link is the part of LeadLocate that handles it.

• Two ways in. Connect your inventory feed, or have Inventory Link import your inventory from your current website when there is no feed. It recognizes 28 website platforms.
• Clean data. VIN decode fills in the specs, stock number overrides fix what the feed gets wrong, and promo photos cover units still waiting on a photographer.
• A full inventory site. The inventory website builder builds a vehicle site, publishes it when you are ready and regenerates it as units arrive and sell, with AI assisted copy.
• Inventory anywhere. The embeddable inventory widget puts your units on any website, including a manufacturer program site.
• Ways to shop. A vehicle finder lets a shopper describe the unit they want. Brand pages carry offers and lead forms, OEM incentives cover more than twenty makes, and Schedule a Visit sheets on brand and inventory pages book a visit in a few taps.
• Brokers with no lot get brand offer pages connected through auto broker inventory mode.

None of this requires DMS access. A feed is welcome, and a website is enough.

The best car dealer website platform is the one whose leads never sit in an email box. In LeadLocate every path ends in the CRM inbox:

• Website forms. Every account has its own form intake link. Any form that posts to it, on your LeadLocate site, a manufacturer program site or a WordPress site, creates a lead with the name, phone, email and message mapped, assigned to a salesperson, and the first text can fire right away. See website forms to CRM.
• Campaign pages. Lead Pages gives each campaign its own page, address and form, and labels its leads by page.
• Chat. The website chat widget runs on your site and your lead pages, so a shopper who would rather type than call can.
• Credit applications. Your SecureWebX apply link lets a shopper apply securely in English or Spanish.
• Visits and requests. Schedule a Visit and request sheets on inventory pages land in the Inventory Link Requests inbox.
• Calls. A tracking phone number on the site makes every call countable, recorded and transcribed.

Here is how different stores set the platform up. Each is a pattern, not a promise of results.

An independent used car store. The manager buys a short domain in Domains, sets the logo, hero and hours in the website editor, and has Inventory Link import the 60 units from the store's old website. Shop by Payment is on, the Credit App URL points to the SecureWebX apply link, and chat runs on every page. Every form posts to the form intake link.

A franchise store. The manufacturer program site stays. The store connects that site's forms through the form intake link, builds a Lead Page for each campaign, and gives each salesperson an inventory site from one template for their own social posts.

An RV dealer. The inventory website builder publishes the inventory site, brand pages carry the current offers, and the Schedule a Visit sheet books walkthroughs that land in the Requests inbox for the sales desk.

An auto broker. No lot and no feed. Auto broker inventory mode connects brand offer pages, a personal site carries the broker's name, and every inquiry becomes a lead in the CRM.

A salesperson. A personal site at their own My URL, their own inventory link in every text, and a Design Studio business card that sends people to the site. See salesperson websites.

Nearly all of the loss happens in a few predictable places, and you can find them in an afternoon with your own phone:

• Load speed on a weak signal, not on the showroom wifi. Every second of delay costs a share of traffic you already paid for.
• Form length. Every extra required field costs completions, and most dealer forms ask three questions a salesperson would answer better in a ninety second call.
• The response gap. A form sent at 8:40 on a Saturday night that gets its first human contact on Monday at 10 has, in practice, been thrown away.
• A chat that demands a phone number before it answers anything.
• A detail page with two photos and no description.

Fix the response gap first. It is the cheapest fix and worth more than a redesign, and it is a CRM problem, which is exactly why the site and the follow up system belong in one place. Round robin assignment and Automated Templates put an owner and a first text on every form within the minute.

Website reports often bring good news that does not match the sales board: sessions up, units flat. That happens when the site vendor measures the site and the CRM measures the leads, and nobody joins the two.

LeadLocate keeps both in one place. Website visitor analytics in the CRM shows the overview, realtime visitors, sessions, locations, devices, traffic sources, site search and top pages, with the detail of each session. The leads those visits produce sit in the same CRM, and the activity, company and management reports follow them to the sale.

Watch four numbers rather than twenty: form completions by page, time to first response, appointments set and kept from web leads, and units sold by source. Cost per lead points dealers the wrong way more often than any other number, because a source with expensive leads that close well beats a cheap one that does not.

Take these into every website conversation, including the one with us. The answers separate vendors faster than a portfolio does.

1. Is the domain registered in the dealership's name, and can we transfer it out?
2. Who owns the content and the photos if we leave?
3. What is the contract length and the cancellation process, in writing?
4. Can we export our pages, our inventory data and our form submissions?
5. Where do form submissions go, how fast, and can they post straight into our CRM?
6. What are the load times on a real phone on a mobile network?
7. Which accessibility standard is the site built to?
8. How long does a change take, and who can make it?

What we need from your store: your logo and brand colors, your business details and hours, the domain you want or the one you own, your inventory source (a feed or your current website), and a list of the forms on any site you keep. What our team does: gets the account live, connects your inventory to Inventory Link, connects your outside forms to your form intake link, and walks your managers through the Website menu. Training comes with every plan: the video library, Live Training sessions and Schedule Training from the CRM top bar.

The cost comes in parts: your LeadLocate plan subscription, more user logins as an add-on, and usage credits for bulk texting, validation and voicemail deliveries. The pricing page lays out every plan, all month to month with no long term contract. LeadLocate works alongside your DMS, so accounting and the rest of the back office stay where your office already runs them.

Can we use our own domain?

Yes. Buy a domain on the Domains screen and edit its DNS records yourself, then publish your site and your lead pages on it. The domain stays your dealership's property, and our team handles a transfer out whenever you ask.

Do we need an inventory feed?

No. Inventory Link imports your inventory from your current website when there is no feed, and it recognizes 28 website platforms. If you have a feed, connect it. Brokers with no lot use auto broker inventory mode, and none of it requires DMS access.

How do website leads reach the CRM?

Every form that posts to your form intake link creates a lead with the fields mapped and an owner assigned. Lead Pages, Schedule a Visit sheets and the chat widget add more ways in, and a tracking phone number makes calls countable.

Can we keep our manufacturer program website?

Yes. Keep the program site and connect its forms to your form intake link, run Lead Pages for campaigns, and add the embeddable inventory widget or salesperson inventory sites where they help. Check your brand requirements with your factory representative before changing the program site.

Who edits the site, and how fast do changes go live?

Anyone your store gives access to edits it from the Website menu in the CRM. Changing the hero, a menu link, the hours or the inventory settings takes minutes, with no developer ticket in between.

Can each salesperson have their own site?

Yes. Each salesperson can have a personal website at their own address and an inventory site from the store's template, with leads routing to them. When someone leaves, their open leads hand over to a successor and the history stays with the store.

Watch the recorded demo for the Website menu, Inventory Link and the lead inbox, or talk to our team about moving your site and domain. Compare plans on the pricing page; every plan is month to month.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.