Yago Paramo

Automotive Entrepreneur

Category: Craigslist

CraigsList integration FREE

The CraigsList reporting tool is now available in the website’s back end. Log in your DealerLab.com account, click on the marketing tab then click on CragsList report. The report also provides (not shown on screenshot) the phone call records and email transcript. We also provide a link to the live ads or in case you work in multiple areas, links to the ads on these. The Craigslist reporting is part of an effort to get as many systems integrated during 2014 and make dealer’s log ins easier then ever. Interested in Craigslist for car dealers. Auto Classified Solutions has a posting platform that is integrated with our Dealer Lab back-end.

CraigsList Website Integration

The CraigsList posting report system, now integrated with your dealer website backend: (AutoClassifiedSolutions.com) has been integrated with the back end of the DealerLab.com websites. In short: Now you can access all your CL posting budget, expense, call reports, email reports, etc from the website’s back end. “I know that what we did here looks easy but these systems are completely different. A lot of work went into this and I want to that Dustin Moore–lead programer in the Seattle office and Dan Whiten–lead programer in the Chicago office for putting their teams together and get this done for our dealers” – Yago Paramo, CEO of PGI Digital. Our goal with this integration is to have more and better systems integration so dealers can access information faster and from one point of log in. We have not linked the new reporting system to the back end yet! so there is no direct access until we test it for a few days. If you want to take an “early pick” you can log in your DealerLab.com account and you will see something … Continue reading

CraigsList posting method analysis

Case Studies: In this study, I’m going to show information for dealers on the daily posting method and the monthly posting method. DAILY POSTING METHOD The daily method, is posting a set number of vehicles every single day. This can be any number, though I think at least 5 per day would be best at minimum. Best when paired with an initial upload so that the dealer’s inventory is immediately available and then augmented every day. PROS: – Inventory Up Every Day – Some inventory always at or near the top of the search – No drop-off (expiration) day for entire inventory. CONS: – It can be cost prohibitive – If not paired with initial upload, it can take a week or more to get a dealer’s entire inventory posted. MONTHLY POSTING METHOD The monthly method is setup so that all the cars post at the beginning of the month (or when the dealer signs up) and as new inventory arrives in the dealers feed, that inventory is posted to CL. PROS: – Easier to manage Cost. – Inventory up … Continue reading

CraigsList Changes

I wanted to gather a few thoughts about the 1st week in Craig’s List for the dealers. This is a near-perfect ad: 2010 Acura MDX 1) Up to 24 photos per vehicle. 2) No HTML (so no links, color text, etc) 3) Formatted text is available (lists, bold, larger font, etc) What would make this ad perfect (which we are working on as we speak): Adding the state disclaimer (DOC fee, etc). Adding a URL (can’t hotlink, so I have doubts about the value of this) Inventory view: http://bellingham.craigslist.org/search/ctd?userid=10808959 Notice that in the inventory view Craig’s List now identifies your dealer with an unique ID, in this case 10808959 Be careful having 2 companies or even an employee postings ads if you already have the entire inventory posted. Several dealers have called stating that their ads got put on hold for having the same VIN posted several times. The accounts (you as a dealer since they have your tax ID number) will be on hold for one year (this is the time that they have always used in the past … Continue reading

CraigsList Changing Postings

The change is finally here, today is the first day of CraigsList charging for postings in the automotive by dealer section. You have several choices for posting; Post one car at a time; build the template, add the car, pay the $5. For this you don’t need one of the new accounts with Craigslist, you can post with the old accounts. The only change is that at the end of the process you need to pay the $5 fee. PGI Auto offers a tool that will automate the ad creation and data pushing making the manual process as easy as possible. Our tool is $200/month and you can post as many cars as you want (still have to pay CL the $5 per car). Your second option is to have a posting account with CraigsList. For this you will need to set up a credit card with them, add your tax ID number, address, etc and buy a bulk group of ads (lets say 100 ads for $500). With this type of account we can semi-automate the process so for … Continue reading