Straight answers, from the floor.
Practical guides for dealers, written by an operator rather than a marketing department. Grouped by what you came here to figure out.
Running the store
The numbers a GM and an owner watch, and how often.
The dealership KPI dashboard: 12 numbers to watch daily
Units against pace, front and back gross, PVR, closing ratio, show rate, aging and response time — what belongs on one screen every morning, and why the month-end report arrives too late to change the month.
Read the guideWhat is dealer intelligence software?
The plain-English definition, what it is not (a DMS, a CRM, another add-on), and the five questions to ask any vendor who uses the term.
Read the guideDealer group reporting: one number across rooftops
Three stores, three different answers to "how many did we sell" — and all of them correct. Why rooftops disagree by definition, and how to get one board-ready number without migrating everyone onto one system.
Read the guideDealership close rate: the four-stage funnel
You don't have a 6% close rate — you have a 63%, a 42%, a 58% and a 41%. The four stages behind the headline number, which one is costing you the most units, and why it usually isn't the one everyone shouts about.
Read the guideDealership software built for Canadian dealers
Most dealer tools are built for the US and shipped north unchanged — the marketplaces, the appraisal book, the tax, the regulators all assume an American store. What's actually different about running a dealership in Canada, and what an intelligence layer has to get right.
Read the guideUsed car days supply: why your number is wrong
Sold units never cleared, duplicates from a second feed, cars in recon nobody status-changed. The ghosts on your lot list inflate days supply and pad the aged report at the same time — the arithmetic, worked, and how to reconcile it.
Read the guideWhere the money goes
Attribution, cost per sale, and what a listing site is really worth.
How to measure CarGurus & AutoTrader ROI
Lead counts and cost-per-lead don't tell you which listing site actually sold cars. A neutral, source-to-gross framework for deciding what your third-party leads are really worth.
Read the guideCar dealership marketing attribution, honestly
Only about 8% of vehicle sales are traceable in the average CRM. Why the source field is wrong, what the walk-in blind spot really costs, and what it takes to follow ad spend all the way to sold gross.
Read the guideDealership cost per sale, by channel
The cheapest lead is often the most expensive car. The real formula — spend ÷ units a channel actually sold — the cheap-leads trap, and why you can't compute it until spend, source and sold gross live in one place.
Read the guideWhy your CRM's lead source is wrong
The lead-source field is a recollection, not a measurement — typed days late, from a dropdown that mixes real channels with catch-all buckets. Why it's wrong, what it costs in misspent ad budget, and the two fixes that make it true.
Read the guideLeads and the floor
Response time, after-hours coverage, and the ups nobody logged.
How to track walk-in traffic at a dealership
Paper logs, spreadsheets, camera counters and CRMs all miss the same thing. Here's how to capture every walk-in — and why your close rate is lying to you.
Read the guideLead response time in car sales, decoded
The research is brutal and consistent: the first dealer to answer usually wins, and the odds collapse after five minutes. What the studies say — and how to never lose a lead to the clock.
Read the guideDealership after-hours leads: who's watching at 9pm?
More than half your leads arrive after the desk goes home. Why an overnight reply is already too late, why an answering bot is the wrong first move, and how to make unanswered leads visible and owned.
Read the guideRather see it than read about it?
Every guide here describes something GhostDrive already does in a live dealer group. Book a walkthrough and we'll show you the screens instead.