Kelley Blue Book Alternative for Car Dealerships

Shoppers will keep looking up values. What your store needs is the shopper and the owner in your own zip codes, delivered to you alone, with the CRM to work them.

Kelley Blue Book is one of the best known names in American car buying. Consumers know it for the values they look up before they walk into a store: what a trade in is worth, what a fair purchase price looks like, and how one model stacks up against another. Its reviews, ratings and research pages sit in front of a very large share of shoppers early in the process, and the phrase blue book value is simply part of how people talk about cars.

For dealers, Kelley Blue Book shows up in two places. The first is the conversation on the lot, where a customer arrives holding a number from the site and expects the appraisal to land near it. The second is its dealer products: advertising and listing placements that put a store's inventory in front of research traffic, and an instant cash offer program built around trade ins. It is part of the Cox Automotive family alongside Autotrader, so listing and advertising packages are often discussed together.

Products, packaging and pricing change over time. Confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly before you plan a budget around any of it.

Most stores that search for this are not unhappy with the brand. They are looking at an advertising invoice and asking what it bought. Research traffic is valuable, and it is also early. A shopper comparing trims and checking a trade value may be months from a purchase, and the contact that reaches your store is often reaching several others at the same moment.

The second reason is the gap after the click. A listing or an advertising placement delivers a contact and stops there. What happens next depends entirely on the tools your team already has, and in a lot of stores that means a web lead email, a desk phone and a salesperson's memory. The third reason is supply. Used car managers want cars from local owners, and a research site's trade tools are built around the site's own program rather than your appraisal lane and your follow up.

So the question dealers are really asking is where a dollar of lead budget does the most work. LeadLocate answers it with leads that belong to your store alone and a platform built to turn them into appointments.

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.

Features change on both sides. Confirm anything that will drive your decision with each vendor directly.

The first gain is exclusivity. In Leads Manager you draw your territory in the zone editor, choose the campaign type and the prescreening questions a shopper answers before the lead reaches you, and preview sample ads with See Samples. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan. 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, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

The second gain is both sides of the used car business in one account. Inbound buyer leads arrive as a mix of VIN specific interest and open shoppers describing what they want. Opt in seller leads come from local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request and asked a dealership to contact them. The Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan runs both lines together, so the owner who wants an offer and the shopper who wants that kind of car land in the same inbox.

The third gain is the workbench behind the lead: texting with MMS pictures and RCS with automatic SMS fallback, click to call through the browser softphone, call recording and call transcription, voicemail drop, email sent from your own authenticated domain, Follow Up Processes, Automated Templates that send the first text the moment a lead arrives, and a phone validator and email validator whose results show right on the lead. It is one platform, one login and one timeline per customer.

Every customer who has looked up a value arrives with a number in mind. The stores that close those deals talk about the number early and in writing, instead of waiting for the moment the appraisal lands. LeadLocate is built for that conversation.

The lead record holds up to five vehicles of interest plus trade in lines, so the salesperson sees what the customer drives before the first call. The DealTracker trade in form captures photos and a trade VIN scan, and document AI reads the VIN and the paperwork so nobody retypes seventeen characters in the appraisal lane. When the customer is ready for numbers, EZ Desking builds cash, finance and lease structures in a multi pencil grid, and the customer deal page puts the proposal on the customer's phone with PIN access and e-signature.

Deal chat lets the customer ask about the trade number right on that page, with photo drops both ways, and every revision is kept. A trade conversation that happens in writing, with the vehicle photos attached, is a calmer conversation than one that happens across a desk. For the appraisal side in more depth, see trade in appraisal software, and for the cash offer comparison, the KBB Instant Cash Offer alternative page.

A trade in arrives when a buyer does. Seller leads arrive on their own schedule, from owners who want to sell whether they buy from you or from anyone else. With the Marketplace Acquisitions plan, the owner fills out a vehicle offer request on one of our landing pages, answers the prescreening questions you set, and reaches your CRM with the vehicle details attached.

From there the work is phone work, and the platform keeps it fast. Round robin assignment or your distribution rules put the request in front of a buyer, the first text goes out automatically, and Manager Lead Copies can give your used car manager a copy of every request beside the rep who owns it. Call Alerts check transcribed calls for the words you choose, such as payoff or trade in, so a manager hears about the calls that matter without listening to all of them.

A car bought from a local owner carries no buy fee and no transport, and it arrives with a history the owner can tell you about. The vehicle acquisition strategy guide lays out how the strongest used car departments build that supply line.

The switch runs without a gap in coverage. In the first week the account is set up for you, usually the same day. Import your contacts, set your zone, campaign type and prescreening questions in Leads Manager, and connect your website forms so every request from your own site lands in the same inbox as the new leads. Training is included with every plan through the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training on the top bar.

In the second week, turn on Automated Templates for each lead feed and Follow Up Processes for buyer and seller leads, and give each source its own custom source feed so the numbers stay separate from the start. If you run inventory, Inventory Link ingests your feed or imports inventory from your website, and the vehicle button in every text and email composer attaches a unit with photos and price.

From the third week, compare sources the way an owner would: cost per delivered lead, time to first response, appointments set and shown, and units sold. When the numbers speak, move the budget. The marketing attribution page shows how to keep that comparison clean.

The Inbound plan for buyer leads starts at $799 a month, Marketplace Acquisitions for seller leads starts at $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan runs both from $1,599. Every plan with leads includes the CRM, because the platform is what receives and delivers them. If you want the software for lead sources you already have, CRM Only starts at $199. Every plan is month to month with no long term contract, and current details live on the pricing page.

Measure it with your own reports. The activity, company and management reports show what your people did, what each source produced and how the store is trending, and because the calls, texts and emails happen inside the platform, the activity numbers are recorded rather than remembered.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, close rates or results, and no vendor can, because those depend on your market, your inventory and how quickly your people respond. What LeadLocate gives you is exclusive supply, the tools to work it and the numbers to judge it. Call 844-376-2274 and we will map a zone around your store.

Does LeadLocate replace Kelley Blue Book?

LeadLocate replaces the lead spend. Shoppers will keep looking up values, and your team will keep hearing those numbers. Dealers moving budget to LeadLocate get exclusive buyer and seller leads inside their zone and a full CRM with texting, calling, desking and reporting to work them.

Are the leads shared with other dealers?

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

Where do the seller leads come from?

From local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request on one of our landing pages and asked to be contacted by a dealership. Our team runs the campaigns from the zone, campaign type and prescreening questions you choose in Leads Manager.

Can a customer see our trade number before coming in?

Yes. The customer deal page shows the proposal, including the trade, on the customer's phone with PIN access, e-signature and deal chat, so the trade conversation can start in writing before the visit.

Do we need an inventory feed or a DMS connection?

Neither is required, which is why brokers and single point stores run on the platform. If you have a feed, Inventory Link ingests it, or imports inventory from your website, and puts your actual units in front of shoppers.

What does it cost?

Inbound buyer lead plans start at $799 a month, Marketplace Acquisitions at $999 and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan at $1,599, each with the CRM included. CRM Only starts at $199. All plans are month to month and built for US dealerships.

We will map a zone around your store, set your prescreening questions, and show the CRM working real lead flow. Month to month, no long term contract.

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