Customer reviews drive higher intent to buy for Cars.com

September 10, 2008

Visited by more than 10 million car shoppers each month, Cars.com is a leading destination for online car shoppers. Cars.com offers credible and easy-to-understand information from consumers and experts to help buyers formulate opinions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay for a car. Cars.com puts car buyers in control of the shopping process with the information they need to make confident buying decisions.

Cars.com does not sell cars directly, but offers vehicle advertising to dealers and private sellers across the country. We wanted to examine the impact that Ratings & Reviews had on their customers' intent to buy, which is measured via seller contacts ("leads") and other "ready-to-purchase" activity metrics.

For each metric below, we compared visits that included review content to visits that did not include consumer reviews.

Lead conversion increases 16%

Lead conversion for visits including customer reviews is on average 16% higher compared to non-consumer reviews visits. In this case, we used the number of page views for lead-related Thank You pages to calculate Lead Conversion.

Customer reviews lead to doubling of click-through to dealer maps

In inventory listings, visits that included consumer reviews were twice as likely to click to see Dealer Maps compared to visits that excluded consumer reviews. For Cars.com, a visitor who clicks on "dealer maps" indicates that they may plan a visit to the dealer to purchase a vehicle. While not as concrete as a request for a quote, this does indicate that someone visiting customer reviews is more likely to plan a dealer visit, versus those who did not read customer reviews.

Reviews lead to 45% increase in visitors seeking financing options

For visits including customer reviews, 45% more visitors clicked on the Finance and Loan calculator in inventory listings, compared to those who did not read reviews. This could be an indication of "intent to buy."

Overall, the research shows that ratings and reviews on Cars.com directly and indirectly impact the metrics that indicate a shopper's intent to buy.

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