Outdated Practices Are Putting Dealerships at Risk. Are You a Sitting Duck?

Did you know that nearly 70% of car buyers feel misled by advertised pricing, and 1 in 4 would switch dealerships over trust issues? For many dealerships, the problem isn’t intentional deception—it’s the result of an outdated and fragmented technology ecosystem creating a perception of dishonesty.

According to a survey conducted by KPA in 2024, 76% of Americans don’t trust car dealerships to be honest about pricing. Additionally, the same survey found that 29% of consumers have left one dealership for another due to doubts about pricing honesty. These statistics highlight the significant trust issues consumers face when dealing with car dealerships.

State Attorney Generals and the FTC are cracking down on deceptive advertising practices, and your dealership could be next. Even if your intent isn’t to mislead customers, a fragmented approach to pricing and disclosures could make you an easy target.

If your dealership prioritizes “more leads at any cost”, this article may not align with your strategy. However, for those committed to transparency and compliance, read on.

Even if you think you are prepared, this would be a good exercise for you and your team.

Getting Started:

Gather your marketing team and ask them to take over your conference room for a few days. Pick your top 3 or 4 most popular models to use for the exercise.

As you go through gathering your materials, ask your marketing team to write down which vendor is responsible for each asset. This will come in handy later.

STEP 1: Audit Your Marketing

Collect Your Advertising Materials

Print out every digital ad for each of the models you selected. This includes search ads, vehicle listing ads, video ads, ODA banners, social media ads, etc.
Print every email that includes pricing.
Don’t forget to print all corresponding disclosures.

Collect Your Website Assets

Print out all website pages related to those same models, specifically anything related to pricing, including all VDPs.
If you’re using a digital retailing tool, take screenshots and print those out too, along with the corresponding disclosures.
Print any offer-based banners along with their disclosures.
Don’t forget to print your Specials pages with their disclosures.

Check Pop-Ups and Widgets

Include any pop-ups or widgets on your site related to the promise of a better price. For example, common pop-ups might say, “Get $1,000 off if you fill out this form” or “$500 off.” Print these with all related disclosures.

Review Pricing Promises

Print anything related to pricing, such as “Get Best Price,” “Get Today’s Price,” or “Click Here for Our Lowest Price.”
Ensure that any promise of a lower price other than what’s listed on your website is accompanied by all applicable disclosures.

And, as a reminder, make sure you’re writing down the names of the companies that provide all these services.

STEP 2: Analyze Recent Sales Data

Gather Sales Information

Print out the list of all customers who purchased the models you selected in the last 3–4 months.
Ask your team to calculate the average sale price for those models. This needs to be specific down to the trim level, etc.

Review Coupon and Pricing Offers

Print out the list of all customers who filled out a special pricing offer form. This includes things like claiming the “$1,000 off” coupon or providing their information to access special pricing like “Get Today’s Price” or “E-Price.”
Have your team calculate the average price paid by the customers who filled out one of these forms.

STEP 3: Identify Inconsistencies

Compare Pricing Between Your Website and Advertising

Highlight any inconsistencies between the price in your ads versus the price on your website and/or digital retailing tool. For many dealers, the discrepancies are significant.

Compare Average Sales Price

Analyze whether the customers who provided their information to claim a special discount or price received a different or better price than those who didn’t claim such offers on your website.

Insights and Challenges

By this point, you are likely to have a clear picture of what’s happening and come to the realization:

There are too many vendors managing all your advertising offers and disclosures. It’s not manageable.
The advertised offers are different from your website and/or digital retailing tools.
The disclosures are inconsistent and written by separate companies who have no liability and most likely are not educated on your state’s regulations.
In many cases, the prices customers actually pay differ significantly from what is advertised online and on your website.
In most cases, customers who provided their information about a “special price” did not get a different price than anybody else.
It’s quite difficult to decipher which strategies are driving revenue and ROI because disparate tech and data fragmentation provide an incomplete view of the customer.

Mitigating Risk

Here’s what to do.

Those of us in the automotive industry give dealerships the benefit of the doubt. We recognize that this fragmented technology ecosystem has evolved over the last 20+ years and is primarily based on lead generation, at all costs. The State Attorney Generals and the FTC will not understand any of this. From their perspective, such practices would likely be viewed as intentionally deceptive.

In reality, the issue often arises primarily because dealerships rely on 10–12 vendors, each with their own objectives, different methods of advertising vehicles and disclosing terms. These ads have little to do with the actual sale price of the vehicles or the sales process in the showroom.

Streamline Your Offers

Consolidate all your offers into a single, centralized location.
Write your own disclaimers and disclosures rather than relying on third-party vendors who have no liability.
Review your disclaimers with legal counsel to ensure it meets both federal and state regulations.
Ensure that your website and all advertising materials are consistent. While this can be challenging due to frequent inventory and monthly advertising changes, the effort to audit this routinely is worthwhile.

Review Pricing

Your website—not your 3rd party digital retailing tool—should serve as the single source of truth for the price of your inventory. That’s where the lawyers look first.
Avoid including conditional offers (e.g., requiring financing through a specific institution to receive a price). Even if most customers use that institution, such practices could make you vulnerable.

Reconsider “Better Price” Promises on Your Website

Revise language that implies customers can receive a better price or discount by filling out a form, unless you genuinely plan to provide them with a lower price.
This is a major area of liability, as pop-up widgets that act as lead generators often fail to actually deliver on the promise of a better final price.

Focus on Transparency

Many dealerships do not actually offer an “e-Price” or adjust pricing daily, making such claims appear deceptive.
Providing customers with a transparent experience eliminates the need for misleading tactics.
Many of the largest dealerships in the country succeed without employing these outdated lead-generation practices.

Evaluate Long-Term Impact

While some may argue that eliminating certain tactics will reduce the number of leads, this is smoke in mirrors. In fact, focusing on transparency often increases lead quality and conversion rates, leading to increased overall transactions.
Many common practices in the industry are outdated and potentially non-compliant at both federal and state levels.

At Team Velocity, our goal is to deliver a better customer experience. Our all-in-one platform Apollo uses data to personalize customer interactions across all touchpoints and includes a native desking system that ensures all pricing across all advertising mediums (digital ads, emails, etc.) is consistent with the website and digital retailing tools. This approach eliminates data fragmentation, improves the customer experience, and mitigates liability.

I hope this helps.