Google Vehicle Listing Ads Alternative for Car Dealerships

Search ads send a shopper to a vehicle page. LeadLocate sends the shopper to you, exclusively, and gives your team the platform to answer, follow up and close.

Search is where shoppers go when they already know what they want, so vehicle listing ads make obvious sense on paper. The search for an alternative usually begins after a few months of reports. Clicks went to vehicle detail pages, the cost per click moved with every other dealer bidding in the same market, and the path from a click to a sold unit was hard to see. A click is a visit. A sales manager needs a name, a phone number and a conversation.

The second reason is the work behind the ads. Someone has to keep the vehicle feed approved and accurate, manage bids and budgets, watch for disapproved listings and make sure the vehicle pages convert. That usually means an agency fee on top of the media or a manager who spends evenings inside an ad account.

The third reason is what the store wants to own. A dealer who buys clicks rents attention for one session at a time. A dealer who buys exclusive leads in a territory builds a pipeline of named shoppers the team can text, call and desk for weeks. LeadLocate is built for that second model, and it is why dealers who compare the two move their budget to it.

Vehicle listing ads, often called vehicle ads, are a Google ad format for dealerships. The dealer or its agency supplies a vehicle inventory feed through the Google merchant tools and links it to a Google Ads account. When a shopper searches for a vehicle, the ads can show specific units from that feed with a photo, price, mileage and the dealership's name, and a click takes the shopper to the vehicle detail page on the dealer's website.

The appeal is intent. Shoppers who search for a make and model near them are often further along than people scrolling a social feed, and seeing a real unit with a real price is a strong prompt to click. Stores with a well built website and a large inventory often use the format to show their units at the moment of search.

Availability, formats, feed requirements and pricing are set by the platform and change over time, and ads are bought in an auction against other advertisers. Confirm current pricing, terms and policies with the vendor directly before you plan a budget. The rest of this page covers what a dealership gains when it moves that budget into LeadLocate.

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 buying a lead rather than a visit. 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, included with every plan. No feed approvals, no bid strategy and no agency invoice for your managers to decode.

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 are a mix of shoppers 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, which gives the used car manager inventory without the auction lane.

The second gain is that every lead arrives in the CRM with its source attached and an owner assigned by your distribution rules. If you keep some search spend, those leads land in the same inbox, and Google ads for car dealerships covers how to run that search spend alongside your zone.

Search traffic produces phone calls as often as form fills, and a call that rings out is a sale handed to the store down the road. LeadLocate's phone system is built into the CRM. Tracking phone numbers per source show which campaign made the phone ring. The IVR call flow builder sets options, revisions and uploaded audio, the Forward Calls To ring list is built from your own users, and business hours routing covers evenings and weekends. Caller ID name lookup shows who is on the line before anyone picks up.

Every call is recorded with call transcription, and the transcript sits on the lead record beside every text and email. Call Alerts check each transcribed call for the words you choose, such as trade in, payment or cancel, so a manager sees the calls that need attention without listening to all of them. Missed call text back sends the caller a text right away, turning a missed ring into a conversation.

For form leads, Automated Templates answer the moment the lead lands and Follow Up Processes run the cadence you approve. Texting covers SMS, MMS and RCS with automatic SMS fallback, and the vehicle button in every composer attaches the exact unit the shopper searched for, with photos and price.

A search shopper wants to see the car. Inventory Link ingests your inventory feed, or imports inventory from your website when no feed exists, and puts every unit into the CRM, the phone app and the vehicle button in every text and email.

The inventory website builder publishes inventory sites for the store and for each salesperson from a template, and the embeddable inventory widget places your live units on any website you 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. OEM incentives for more than twenty makes appear beside the vehicles they apply to.

Lead Pages, the landing page builder in the CRM, gives each offer its own page with its own URL settings. Custom domains with self service DNS let those pages live on your own domain. Your website forms connect to your account's form intake link, so every submission becomes a lead with its fields mapped. Website visitor analytics show sessions, sources, search traffic and top pages inside the same login, so you see which visits turned into conversations.

Ad platforms change formats and rules often, so confirm each vendor row directly. The LeadLocate column is what your store runs from its first day, with training included.

When the shopper is ready for 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 shopper complete a credit application from a phone, and the secure Send to Lender share passes it to the lender you choose.

Week one sets the foundation. Map your zone in Leads Manager, choose your prescreening questions and offers, and connect your website forms to your form intake link. Put each existing source, including any search campaigns you keep, into Lead Feeds Manager as its own custom source feed, and assign a tracking phone number to each so calls are counted rather than guessed.

Week two is response. Write the Automated Template for each source, turn on a Follow Up Process for new shoppers, and put a manager on each feed with Manager Lead Copies. Set business hours routing and turn on missed call text back so every call gets an answer.

Weeks three and four are measurement. Compare sources on cost per delivered lead, time to first response, appointments shown and units sold. The activity, company and management reports, together with marketing attribution, line those numbers up by source. If your store wants campaigns under its own ad accounts, our team sets them up for your store on request, and those leads land in the same inbox. Keep the spend that sells cars and move the rest.

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, and the webXintel Ads Network comes with every plan. See each plan on the pricing page.

Training is included: a video training library, Live Training sessions and Schedule Training on the top bar. Jax, the bilingual AI assistant in the CRM, helps your team in English or Spanish. One login launches the CRM, Inventory Link and SecureWebX, and the mobile app puts texting, calling, inventory and desking on every salesperson's phone.

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.

Can we keep some search spend with LeadLocate?

Yes. Any search campaign can stay in place as its own custom source feed in Lead Feeds Manager with its own tracking number, so its leads and calls land in the same CRM and you can compare cost per sale by source.

Who runs the LeadLocate campaigns?

Your store makes the selections in Leads Manager: zone, campaign type, prescreening questions and offers, with sample ads to preview. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan.

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.

How are phone calls from shoppers handled?

Tracking numbers per source, an IVR call flow builder, business hours routing and a Forward Calls To ring list route every call. Calls are recorded and transcribed, and missed call text back texts anyone the team could not reach.

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.

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, and your account is set up for you, usually the same day.

See your zone mapped, exclusive leads arriving and every call recorded and transcribed on one screen. Month to month, so we earn your business every month.

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