Years ago, craigslist made a change to its posting system that shook up the landscape of the “cars & trucks – by dealer” section. They started charging $5 for every vehicle ad that you wanted to put up.
While this news was originally frowned upon by many dealers, they quickly came to realize there was a very positive side effect: gone were the days of dealers spamming the same vehicles hundreds of times a week. The “cars & trucks – by dealer” section was transformed over the next 30 days, as spam posts were moved down the list, to the more user-friendly ad space it is today.
However, the “cars & trucks – by owner” section remained free. While this was understandable from an individual’s perspective, it created an unfair advantage for users posting in that section.
They could continue to spam posts on an hourly basis, and since craigslist defaults to show vehicles from both owners and dealers when users navigate to the cars and trucks section, that spam pushed dealership ads down the list.
That’s all changed now. craigslist is now charging users the same price to post in the “by owner” section as the “by dealer” section:
With this change dealers are going to get the same benefit as years ago: less competition with fewer spam posts pushing their listings down. Factor in that the dealership won’t be spending any extra money, and that is a win-win.
Do you need to talk to an expert about how to best use craigslist to market your vehicles? Feel free to give us a call today.
