Cox Automotive Alternative for Car Dealerships

Keep the back office, wholesale and service tools your store relies on, and run the customer side on one platform that brings its own exclusive leads.

Cox Automotive is one of the largest companies serving car dealers, and most stores know it through its brands rather than its name. The portfolio has included Autotrader as a shopper marketplace, Dealer.com for websites and digital advertising, VinSolutions as a dealership CRM, vAuto for used vehicle inventory management and pricing, Dealertrack for dealer management and F&I, Xtime for service scheduling, and Manheim for wholesale auctions. Many stores run two or three of these at once, and some run more.

The appeal of a large portfolio is familiar: one company, many products, and tools that are built to pass information to each other. For a lot of stores that has meant a vendor relationship covering everything from the website to the back office.

Which brands are in the portfolio, how they are packaged and what they cost all change over time, so confirm current products, pricing and terms with the vendor directly before you plan around them.

A Cox Automotive alternative does not have to mean replacing everything at once, and for most stores it should not. Keep the dealer management system you run for accounting, deal posting and parts. Keep your F&I and lender workflow where it lives today. Keep your wholesale buying at the auction, your used vehicle pricing tool if your managers trust it, and your service scheduling in the service lane. Those jobs sit in the back of the house, and they keep running exactly as they do today.

The part worth moving is the customer side: where leads come from, who answers them, how fast, and what happens between the first text and the handshake. That is where LeadLocate lives. It is a lead generation platform with a full CRM built in, so new leads, your existing customers, texting, calling, email, desking and reports all sit in one system your salespeople work all day.

A practical order is to replace the CRM and add a lead source you control first, then decide over the following months which other front end tools still earn their spot. The VinSolutions alternative page covers the CRM piece of that decision in more detail.

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.

Every product in both columns keeps evolving. Confirm any row that matters to your decision with each vendor directly.

Leads that belong to the store. A marketplace listing puts your inventory in front of shoppers who are also looking at every other dealer on the same page. LeadLocate delivers leads that come to you alone. The Inbound plan brings buyer leads, a mix of shoppers asking about a specific VIN and shoppers describing what they want. The Marketplace Acquisitions plan brings opt in seller leads from local owners who asked a dealership for an offer. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review through Quality Control Requests.

Marketing decisions the store makes itself. In Leads Manager you set your zone in the zone editor, check zip stats and a market scan, choose the campaign type, write prescreening questions and Custom Offers, and preview sample ads with See Samples. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, which is included with every plan.

One login for the front of the house. The CRM, Inventory Link and SecureWebX launch from the same sign in, from the dock at the bottom of the screen, and the account portal handles billing, add-ons and support tickets. Everything is month to month, so the relationship is earned every month rather than locked in.

A lead lands and Automated Templates for its feed send the first text right away. Distribution rules or round robin assign it, the rep sees the vehicle of interest and the prescreening answers on the lead, and the Phone Validator and Email Validator show as validity dots so nobody dials a dead number. The rep calls from the browser softphone with one click, the call is recorded and transcribed, and Call Alerts flag the calls where a customer said trade in or payment.

Texting runs with RCS and automatic SMS fallback, pictures included, and the vehicle button in every text and email composer attaches a unit with photos and price. Follow Up Processes keep quiet leads warm with a multi step drip, Voicemail Drops reach the ones who never answer, and a booking link from Calendar Settings lets the customer pick an appointment time. In-Store Now flags the customer the moment they arrive.

At the desk, EZ Desking covers cash, finance and lease with a multi pencil grid, a 50 state tax matrix and three lease tax methods, and DealTracker sends a customer deal page with e-signature the buyer can review from home. When credit is part of the deal, SecureWebX sends a branded apply link, collects stipulations with upload to fulfill, and shares the application with a lender the store chooses through Send to Lender, a code gated, expiring share. The finished application exports to your lender or DMS in the format it expects, so the F&I tools you keep pick up right where the sales floor left off. The desking tool page covers the payment math.

If your store keeps its current website, connect your website forms to LeadLocate. Every account has its own form intake link, and any form on the dealer site, a landing page or a WordPress page that posts to it creates a lead in the CRM with the fields mapped, with the first text firing automatically. The Dealer.com alternative page walks through the website decision on its own.

LeadLocate also builds the pages that convert. Lead Pages is a landing page builder with per page URL settings, every salesperson can have a personal website, and a free live chat widget drops onto any dealer site. Custom domains come with a self service DNS editor, and website visitor analytics inside the CRM show overview, realtime sessions, sources and top pages.

For vehicles, Inventory Link ingests your inventory feed with VIN, trim, mileage, price and photos, or imports inventory from your website when there is no feed. It builds per salesperson inventory sites from a template and powers an embeddable inventory widget, and the OEM incentives engine covers more than twenty makes on the new car side. An inventory feed and DMS access are not required to get started.

Plan the move as a one week rollout for the sales team, with accounting, F&I, wholesale and service working exactly as they do today. The account is set up for you, usually the same day. Import your contacts in one pass, merge duplicates, validate the file, and set up the DNC Blacklist with its live do not call lookup. Build your Follow Up Processes and Automated Templates per lead feed, and add managers to the feeds they watch with Manager Lead Copies.

Connect your website forms, load inventory into Inventory Link from your feed or your website, and set tracking phone numbers per source so every call arrives tagged with where it came from. Call forwarding rings the users you choose, and the IVR call flow builder handles options and uploaded audio for the main line.

Then set your zone, campaign type and prescreening questions in Leads Manager and preview sample ads before anything runs. Training is included with every plan: the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training from the top bar, plus Jax, the bilingual AI assistant inside the CRM. Run it for a month and compare. The CRM migration checklist lays out each step.

Buyer leads come with the Inbound plan from $799 a month, seller leads with the Marketplace Acquisitions plan from $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan covers both from $1,599. The CRM is included with every lead plan, and stores that want the software on its own start with CRM Only from $199. Everything is month to month with no long term contract, and the pricing page has current details.

Measure the customer side on its own terms. Track response time, appointments set, shows and sales by lead source in the activity, company and management reports, and compare cost per sale across your marketplace listings and your LeadLocate zone. Visitor analytics show what your website contributes, and call logs with transcripts show how the phones are being handled.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, appointments or sales, because those depend on your market, your inventory and how fast your team answers. What LeadLocate gives you is a customer side you control, beside the back office you already trust. Call 844-376-2274 and we will show you your zone.

Do we have to replace every Cox Automotive product to use LeadLocate?

No. Keep the dealer management system, F&I workflow, wholesale buying and service scheduling you run today. LeadLocate runs beside them and handles the customer side: leads, CRM, texting, calling, desking and credit applications.

Can LeadLocate replace our dealership CRM?

Yes. LeadLocate is a lead generation platform with a full CRM built in: lead inbox, texting with RCS, browser softphone, call recording and transcription, Follow Up Processes, calendar, desking and reports.

Can we keep our current website?

Yes. Connect your website forms to your account's form intake link and every request becomes a lead in the CRM with the fields mapped. LeadLocate also builds lead pages and salesperson websites.

How do credit applications fit with our F&I tools?

SecureWebX collects the application through a branded apply link, gathers stipulations, and shares it with the lender you choose through Send to Lender. It exports to your lender or DMS in the format it expects.

Are the leads exclusive to our store?

Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

Is there a long term contract?

Every plan is month to month with no long term contract. The CRM is included with every lead plan, and current pricing is on the pricing page.

We will map your zone, import your customers, and connect your website forms so leads, texting, calling and desking live in one CRM. Month to month, no long term contract.

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