Across the automotive industry, many dealers are utilizing a CarGurus third-party endorsement badge on their dealership’s website. According to CarGurus’ website, third party endorsement badges help dealers, “close more sales by showing customers your best deals.” What dealers don’t know, is an endorsement badge is actually a lead form that CarGurus is using to “capture”, “steal”, and remarket YOUR leads, FROM YOUR website to YOUR competitors.
As shown in the linked video, minutes after submitting an inquiry through the endorsement badge the customer receives an automated email prompting them to view “similar cars.” Clicking “similar cars” takes the prospect to cargurus.com where your competitor’s vehicles are listed. For the next two weeks, the customer will also be aggressively retargeted by CarGurus.
Additionally, when the initial prospect’s lead is delivered to your dealership’s CRM, the leads are sourced as a CarGurus lead when in fact the prospect originated on YOUR website.
Not only are 3rd party scripts and widgets diluting your website’s attributions, but they are also negatively impacting site speed. I encourage dealers to evaluate every 3rd party scrip on their website and remove old or unnecessary scripts. Many scripts and widgets do more harm than good. As it’s been said many times before… Less is more.