Edmunds Alternative for Car Dealerships

Give your store leads that belong to it, inside a territory you choose, and one platform that answers, follows up and desks every one of them.

Most searches for an Edmunds alternative start with a monthly invoice and a question from the dealer principal: what did that produce? Research sites put a store in front of shoppers who are reading reviews and comparing prices, and that audience has real value. The question that follows is harder. How many of those shoppers became appointments, how many became sold units, and how many other stores were talking to the same person that afternoon?

The second reason is what happens after the contact arrives. A shopper who submits a request on a research site expects a quick answer with a real price on a real vehicle. If that contact lands in a shared email box, or in a CRM nobody opens after six o'clock, the store paid for attention and let it cool. The stores that win on internet leads answer in minutes, text as well as call, and keep following up for weeks.

The third reason is supply. Many stores want a lead source that belongs to them: a territory they chose, leads nobody else receives, and a platform that works those leads from the first second. That is exactly what LeadLocate is built to deliver, and it is why dealers who compare the two put LeadLocate at the center of the store.

Edmunds is one of the best known names in consumer automotive research. Shoppers go there for expert reviews and ratings, pricing guidance on new and used vehicles, comparison tools and listings of vehicles for sale at dealerships. For dealers, the site is a place to be seen by shoppers who are in research mode, with paid programs that typically include inventory listings and shopper leads sent to the store.

That positioning serves a large audience near the top of the funnel. A research site is built for the shopper first: the reviews and the price guidance are what bring people there, and dealer visibility sits alongside that content. A shopper on a research site is often comparing several vehicles and several stores in the same session, which makes response speed the deciding factor for the dealer who receives the contact.

Programs, packaging and pricing change over time for every listing and lead vendor, so confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly and get the answers in writing. Ask how contacts are distributed, what a lead includes and what reporting you receive. The rest of this page lays out what a dealership gains when LeadLocate becomes the platform the store runs on.

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.

The first gain is ownership of the lead. In Leads Manager, your store draws its territory with the zone editor, checks zip stats and a market scan, chooses the campaign type and the prescreening questions you want answered, sets Custom Offers and previews 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.

Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you chose, and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing. Inbound buyer leads bring in market shoppers, a mix of people asking about a specific vehicle and open shoppers describing what they want. Opt in seller leads bring local owners who asked for an offer on their vehicle, a supply line built for the used car manager who is tired of paying auction fees for every unit.

The second gain is that the leads arrive inside the platform that works them. There is no export, no forwarding rule and no second login between the lead and the salesperson. The source is on the record, the owner is assigned by your distribution rules, and the first message goes out on its own. For a full explanation of what exclusivity means day to day, see what is an exclusive lead.

Speed decides most internet deals, and LeadLocate is built around it. Automated Templates answer each new lead the moment it lands, with a message written for that lead source. Follow Up Processes carry the customer through a multi step cadence of texts, emails and calls that you approve once and every salesperson runs the same way. Round robin and distribution rules put a named owner on every lead, and Manager Lead Copies put a manager on the feed so every lead is seen at the desk too.

Texting covers SMS and MMS with pictures, RCS messaging with automatic SMS fallback, delivery status on every bubble and trackable short links that show who clicked. The vehicle button in every composer attaches a unit with its photos and price. Calling runs through the browser softphone with click to call, tracking phone numbers per source, an IVR call flow builder and business hours routing. Every call is recorded with call transcription, and Call Alerts flag the calls that mention the words you choose, such as trade in or payment.

The Phone Validator and the Email Validator mark each contact with a validity dot, so reps spend their time on numbers that ring and addresses that deliver. Every call, text, email and voicemail sits on one timeline on the lead record, which is what a manager needs to coach a deal the same afternoon it happens.

A research site is one place a shopper sees your cars. Inventory Link gives your store its own. It ingests your inventory feed, or imports inventory from your website when no feed exists, and puts your units into the CRM Inventory menu, the phone app and the vehicle button in every text and email.

The inventory website builder publishes inventory sites for the store and for individual salespeople from a template, and the embeddable inventory widget places your live units on any website you already run. Brand pages carry offers and lead forms, the Schedule a Visit sheet rises from the bottom of a phone screen, and the vehicle finder lets a shopper describe the unit they want so your team can locate it. OEM incentives for more than twenty makes appear beside the vehicles they apply to.

Lead Pages, the landing page builder inside the CRM, gives each campaign a page built for its offer, with its own URL settings. Your website forms connect to your account's form intake link, so every web lead lands in the CRM with its fields mapped and the first text ready to fire. Website visitor analytics show the sessions, sources and top pages behind that traffic, inside the same login your salespeople already use.

Features change on every platform, so confirm each row marked for the vendor directly. The LeadLocate column is what your store runs from its first day, with training included in every plan.

When a shopper is ready to talk numbers, EZ Desking builds cash, finance and lease structures with a fifty state tax matrix, and the customer receives a deal page branded to your store with e-signature and deal chat. A SecureWebX apply link lets the customer complete a credit application on their own phone, and the Send to Lender share passes it securely to the lender you choose.

Moving lead spend never needs a gap in coverage. Start with a thirty day window where LeadLocate runs beside your current sources. Map your zone in Leads Manager, pick your prescreening questions, and connect your website forms to your form intake link on the first day. Bring your customer list in with contact import and let merge duplicates keep one customer as one record.

Next, set up every existing lead source in Lead Feeds Manager as its own custom source feed. Research site leads, website leads, calls on tracking numbers and your LeadLocate zone leads then sit in one inbox, each with its source attached and each answered by the Automated Template you wrote for it. A store that keeps another CRM for a period can use Instant Push to forward LeadLocate leads there at no change in the subscription price, and the full CRM stays included either way.

Then measure four things per source over the same weeks: cost per delivered lead, time to first response, appointments shown and units sold. The activity, company and management reports, together with marketing attribution, turn those numbers into a comparison you can put in front of an owner. Decide with your own numbers and move spend to where it sells cars.

Every plan is month to month with no long term contract. CRM Only starts at $199 a month for stores that bring their own lead sources. Inbound buyer leads start at $799, Marketplace Acquisitions seller leads at $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid Plan at $1,599. Every plan with leads includes the CRM, because the CRM is what receives and works them. Details are on the pricing page, and Skip A Month lets a store pause lead delivery for a month while the CRM stays active.

Training comes with every plan: a video training library, Live Training sessions and a Schedule Training button on the top bar. Jax, the bilingual AI assistant inside the CRM, helps your team in English or Spanish while they learn the screens. One login launches the CRM, Inventory Link and SecureWebX.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, close rates or results, and no vendor can. What we can do is show you the whole platform working on a real store. Watch the demo, or contact us and call 844-376-2274 to map a zone around your store.

Do we have to stop using Edmunds to use LeadLocate?

No. LeadLocate can run beside your existing listing and lead sources from the first day. Each source becomes its own feed in Lead Feeds Manager, so you can compare cost per sale by source and move spend to where it sells cars.

Can our third party leads come into the LeadLocate CRM?

Yes. Each third party source can be set up as its own custom source feed in Lead Feeds Manager, so those leads sit in the same inbox as your zone leads, with the source on every record and an Automated Template answering each one.

Are LeadLocate leads shared with other dealers?

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.

Do we need an inventory feed or a DMS connection?

Neither is required to operate. Inventory Link ingests a feed if you have one or imports inventory from your website, so your units appear in the CRM and behind the vehicle button in every text and email.

What does it cost?

CRM Only starts at $199 a month. Inbound buyer leads start at $799, Marketplace Acquisitions seller leads at $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid Plan at $1,599. Every plan is month to month with no long term contract.

How fast can we be live?

Your account is set up for you, usually the same day. Map your zone in Leads Manager, connect your website forms to your form intake link, and your team can text, call and desk from the first login.

See your zone mapped, leads arriving and the CRM working them on one screen. Month to month, so we earn your business every month.

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