NATDA Magazine Mar/Apr 2017 | Page 22

On December 1 , 2016 , Craigslist , the 16th most popular website in the United States , changed how the trailer industry listed ads by enacting a $ 5 charge / ad . Now , dealers must allocate a budget and determine if there is an ROI for Craigslist .
Prior to the market being paid , dealers could list as many ads as they wanted for free . A dealer could post 500 ads and only a fraction of those would remain live on the site due to flagging and ghosting . Now that Craigslist is paid , flagging and ghosting are no more .
Dealers who posted 500 ads at $ 5 each would now need to spend $ 2,500 to see those same results right ? Wrong ! The data we analyzed will help you understand how many ads you should list to ensure your dealership reaches its revenue goals .
Why did Craigslist go paid for Trailer dealers ? When Craigslist was free , dealers tended to spam the marketplace by posting the same Trailer multiple times , cross posting to too many marketplaces and posting in the wrong categories . Now that Craigslist is paid , those days are gone and ads are valid for 30 days . The user experience for consumers has become more friendly and cleaner with a true representation of local dealer inventory .
Let ’ s Analyze the Data When dealers heard the news about Craigslist going paid , they either embraced it and pulled out their checkbook or they shut it down and decided to no longer post ads .
We looked at the data from our Trailer dealers who use LotVantage to post on Craigslist and found very positive results .
October 2016 - Free Marketplace Trailer dealers posted 3,380 Trailers using the LotVantage software on Craigslist . Those ads generated . 20 leads per ad .
December 2016 - Paid Marketplace Trailer dealers posted 613 Trailers using the LotVantage software on Craigslist . Those ads generated 1.55 leads per ad .
Once Craigslist went paid , Trailer dealers saw exponentially better results and the reason why is simple . The number of Trailer ads posted through LotVantage went from 3,380 to 613 . The dealers that decided to stay on Craigslist really benefited because consumer behavior didn ’ t change . Craigslist had fewer ads and each ad was generating an average of . 1.55 leads / per ad .
What budget should you dedicate to Craigslist ? Figuring out what budget to dedicate to Craigslist takes some simple math , knowing what your close ratio is and what sales volume you are looking to accomplish . We ’ ll use the LotVantage posting data we analyzed to give you an example .
In December 2016 , Trailer dealers posting through our software saw 1.55 leads / ad .
Let ’ s say your dealership closes 5 % of leads that come in and your dealership needs to sell 6 additional trailers a month . You would need to post 78 ads , costing your dealership $ 390 .
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