AutoUSA Inter­net Sales Solu­tions reached a mile­stone recent­ly, based on the total num­ber of leads the com­pa­ny has deliv­ered from inde­pen­dent auto shop­ping web­sites and the aver­age clos­ing per­cent­age col­lect­ed from Auto­Na­tion.

AutoUSA’s Inter­net leads have con­tributed to the sale of an esti­mat­ed 1.3 mil­lion vehi­cle sales since the year 2000.

“The demand for our leads has stayed pret­ty con­sis­tent over the years, mir­ror­ing the mar­ket but demon­strat­ing that inde­pen­dent leads con­tin­ue to offer proven results and add rev­enue to the bot­tom line,” said Phil DuPree, Pres­i­dent of AutoUSA.

In a sur­vey that AutoUSA recent­ly con­duct­ed of more than 180 deal­er­ship Inter­net mar­ket­ing per­son­nel, 89% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that their deal­er­ship pur­chas­es Inter­net leads from at least one inde­pen­dent (third-par­ty) provider; and 31% of respon­dents report­ed that more than 30% of their total Inter­net leads come from inde­pen­dent (third-par­ty) providers.

In addi­tion to an improv­ing econ­o­my, DuPree observes that more deal­ers are invest­ing increased time and bud­gets into online mar­ket­ing, staff train­ing and process improve­ments. “The invest­ment is pay­ing off as Inter­net sales met­rics con­tin­ue to improve,” said DuPree. “More deal­er­ships are embrac­ing new tech­nolo­gies that help to increase their show and close rates, and dri­ve more traf­fic to their web and social media sites.”

AutoNation’s deal­er­ships have been using leads deliv­ered by AutoUSA since before the auto retail­er pur­chased the com­pa­ny in May 2000. Mark Tay­lor, Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at Auto­Na­tion, says: “Our com­pa­ny is very focused on results-ori­ent­ed mar­ket­ing with mea­sur­able results, and AutoUSA’s leads have always deliv­ered proven ROI.”

Phil Dupree is pres­i­dent of AutoUSA. Read the full arti­cle here.