Top 5 Ways Dealerships Can Use Autotrader to Gain Visibility

First off, you’ll want to register with Autotrader.com and set up your dealership information. This will ensure that potential customers can find your dealership when they search for it on the site. This seems like a simple first step, but many dealerships neglect to include as much information as they should during the initial setup, which makes it harder for them to consistently show up in customer searches. So make sure to include anything relevant to your dealership in your profile.

Next, you’ll want to add as much information as possible to your listings. The more information you include, the more likely a customer is to find your listing when searching for a specific vehicle. As you’ll see above, many dealerships just add this information to their “comments” section, but you’ll ideally want this in the actual listing itself for searchability. This is especially important for used vehicles because things like condition, specific features, aftermarket add-ons and more can distinguish one vehicle from another in important ways for customers. In short, being more descriptive is always your best bet.

Keep your listings up to date. If a vehicle sells or is no longer available, be sure to remove it from your listings so that customers aren’t seeing inventory that you no longer have on the lot. Many dealerships have established platforms that automatically handle this, but those that don’t should be aware of it. That said, there are some cases where listing new cars that you might not have ready for purchase can be a good thing (if you’ll be getting more of them in quickly or they’ll be ready soon), so consider this when optimizing your listings. But generally speaking, you want to keep everything updated at all times to reflect reality.

Take advantage of Autotrader’s pricing tools wherever possible. Autotrader has a few different pricing tools that dealerships can make use of to get an idea of what used cars are selling for in their area.

The first tool is the pricing barometer, which gives dealerships a ballpark idea of what a car is worth in their region (you may already have this locked in, but it’s a useful tool if that’s not the case). The second is the pricing trends tool, which lets dealers see how the prices of specific vehicles have changed over time. This can be helpful for setting a price point for a vehicle that you’re looking to sell especially when the market is shifting quickly.

Finally, the pricing calculator can help dealers determine how much they should ask for a vehicle they’re trying to sell. It takes into account things like reconditioning, mileage and other important factors to give dealers a better feel for the going price and competition in place. All of these tools are important to make use of when trying to get the best price for the vehicles on your lot.