Top 10 free ways to maximise your performance on Auto Trader
Are you getting the most out of all the valuable resources and data available to you through your Auto Trader package at no extra cost? We work hard to support our retail partners, providing you with numerous tools and insights to help you improve your performance. Our top retailers are already taking advantage of these resources, make sure you’re not missing out and find out how you can get ahead of your competition. Here are our top 10 free ways to maximise your performance:
Data & Insight
Webinars
We run bi-weekly Insight Webinars to provide you with regular updates on the market, share our latest data and insights, and give you the opportunity to ask questions to our expert panel. These are your webinars; the content is based on your feedback and what you want to see. Is there a topic you’d like to hear about? Have you seen a lot of headlines in the media and want to know how they’ll affect you as a retailer? Let us know and we’ll run a webinar on it. And if we don’t have the answers, we’ll get an expert guest who does.
You can tune into the webinars live or watch them back on demand whenever suits you. Why not watch one of our webinars now and see what you think?
2. Insight Academy
Auto Trader Insight Academy is our new and improved e-learning hub, filled with bitesize masterclasses to help improve your performance and profitability. From sourcing to customer experience, we have a masterclass for every step of your selling journey. These courses are completely free and broken down into bite sized chunks you can dip in and out of them wherevers convenient for you.
To access your account, please use your portal login. If you don’t have a Portal login, please contact your Account Manager who can set you up with one.
3. Insight Clinics
If you’d prefer to come and learn from us in person you might like our insight clinics, hands-on workshops geared towards fine-tuning your forecourt targets and strategy. We share ways to more effectively and efficiently manage your digital forecourt, combining data along with your automotive experience with the aim of giving you the tools to achieve your business targets and maximise your Auto Trader investment. The clinics are held in Manchester, London and Hemel Hempstead.
4. Market commentary & reports
We use our data and insight to share reports about what’s currently going on in and around the industry.
Monthly Market Intelligence Report – Each month we share the latest insights from the new and used car and van platforms. The report includes a general market overview, the health of the Auto Trader marketplace, and market pricing.
Omnichannel report - Consumer sentiments and evolving car buying behaviours are fuelling an evolution in the traditional retailing model and sales processes. Digital journeys, combined with physical retailing is the new blended approach consumers are taking advantage of. We’re exploring how retailers are responding to these consumer changes, and how the most successful are driving efficiencies across their businesses.
The Road to 2035 report - The Road to 2035 Report is our regular industry report that analyses the complete state of the electric vehicle market including what we are seeing with consumer demand, brands performance and developments in charging.
5. Sales Insight
Sales insight is a data tool that gives you a view of how many of your sales have been influenced on Auto Trader and proves return on investment. This also gives you better insight into your customers – how many times they’ve viewed an advert, what other makes/ models they’re looking at, which competitors they’ve considered, and distance travelled – which can be used in future business decisions and to inform marketing campaigns. To get insight on your customers, please get in touch with your account manager.
Support
6. Dedicated account team
We have a dedicated team of over 250 specialists here to support you, our partners with all of your business needs. Our account teams don't earn commission, they are here to support your success. Armed with hundreds of data points and live market insight, they can help you with whatever you’re looking for, from getting the most out of your current package to discussing your long-term goals.
7. Forecourt Review
Discover useful insights tailored to your forecourt and build a competitive strategy for your business, all in just 15 minutes. Using our live market data, one of our dedicated account managers will help you to:
Understand your market and your competition
Quickly identify vehicles which require urgent attention
Turn your targets into a clearly defined strategy
Build your reputation
8. Retailer Stores
This is your ‘digital forecourt’ on Auto Trader for you to showcase your business, brand and stock. Build consumer confidence by customising your retailer store – you can add images and videos to the top of the page to bring your brand to life and add information about your business and services you offer to stand out from competitors. You can also pin your latest, top-rated reviews and showcase any awards you’ve won from Auto Trader, including Highly Rated and Retailer Awards. Your retailer store is customisable through self-serve capabilities in portal and will rank on google, and the more information you provide the better your page will perform.
9. Reviews
In today’s retailing landscape where omnichannel retailing is becoming more popular than ever, consumers are heavily influenced by reviews when deciding on where to buy their next vehicle. Did you know that 95% of visitors to Auto Trader believe it’s important to read reviews that have been left in the last 12 months? Make sure you’re collecting regular reviews from your customers to build confidence for new buyers, as only the reviews left in the last 12 months will show up on your review score on your adverts and your retailer stores page.
Tools
10. Products included in all packages
Retail check
Retail Check gives you an accurate view of the live market to help you make better, faster pricing decisions on stock you are considering buying and vehicles that are already on your forecourt. This can help you identify the fastest selling stock for your forecourt using our Retail Rating metric and gives a view of the Target Buy Price - the price you should aim to pay wholesale to achieve your desired profit margin when selling on the retail market. You can also quickly review competitor stock including length of time the car has been for sale, pricing history, optional specification and advert quality. Just hit the “Retail Check” button from the VRM lookup, stock list or vehicle edit page, or talk to your system provider about accessing Retail Check in your own system via Auto Trader Connect.
Valuations
Our valuations are purely data-driven, processing millions of data points and reflecting what’s happening in the market as soon as it happens. This means you can buy and price with confidence that our valuations represent today’s market. We’ve also recently introduced our brand-new trended valuations which model pricing over time, giving you a better idea of profit opportunity and helping you make the best sourcing, pricing and disposal decisions. This shows both historic and future predicted valuations, up to six months in advance.
Valuations can be found under the valuation & pricing tab in portal or integrated into your own system via Auto Trader Connect.
VIN Spec
Save time and create more accurate adverts with manufacturer sourced data on optional specification, available through portal or your existing stock management system through Auto Trader Connect. Did you know you could be missing out on an average of £361 of unrealised margin as a result of omitting value-adding specification from your vehicle adverts? With automatically selected optional extras, you can be confident that the valuation of a vehicle is accurate. It can also increase your day-to-day efficiency, build trust and optimise customer experience.