Question: What is the best automotive website platform for franchise automotive dealers?
That is a common question which I have been asked hundreds of times over my 20 year career in automotive marketing and technology. One of the reasons why dealers ask me to recommend the best automotive website platform is because automotive dealers do not have objective KPIs to measure performance. It is also true that freedom of choice often ruins great website designs.
Two Hyundai dealers can use the same website provider and have drastically different conversion rates. This is why 20-group composites can be so frustrating. They don’t account for the impact of CTA buttons and retail tools which are not from the website company.
Answer: the one that provides the highest levels of customer support and one which exceeds benchmarks for online conversion.
In the 2025 Automotive Website Survey, over 700 dealership executives said that customer service was extremely important. However, their top request from their website partners was to generate more leads. Let me be clear. Dealership leaders asked for more lead forms over phone calls or text messages.
Delivering Great Customer Service
Question: Who has the best customer support among automotive website vendors?
That is an easier topic to address, because it is a reflection of the website company’s culture, organization structure, and staffing levels. In the area of customer support, two companies stand out. I have also watched website support go from great to terrible due to acquisition and or budget cuts. The cuts are not a surprise to me because automotive websites have high support costs and a very low margin compared to selling other automotive software.
Answer: Dealer eProcess and Team Velocity websites consistently receive top scores from dealers according to the 2025 Automotive Website Survey.
In regards to customer support, since not all website companies qualify for specific OEM programs, dealers have commented that while they are not happy with customer support, they feel that their current vendor is the best from among the choices they have to pick from.
Give Me More Website Leads!
Question: Which automotive website platform has the highest conversion rates?
The issue of generating more leads is complicated. In the end, dealers want to sell cars faster which they relate to the number of leads they have in their CRM. I bring this up because dealers tend to take a great website design and mess it up by adding multiple vendor tools which slow down load times, complicate the sales process, and lower form conversion rates.
I recently published an article on the topic of dealers adding confusing and conflicting CTA buttons on VDPs and the response from industry leads has been very strong. Most website designers agree that less CTA buttons will increase conversion. The maximum CTA buttons I recommend on a Vehicle Detail Page (VDP) is four: payments, trade, credit pre-qualification, and schedule a test drive. But why do dealers ignore conversion optimization recommendations?
I’ve jokingly said that dealers hate whitespace on a VDP. If there is whitespace, they want to fill it with a button or a banner. When common sense is ignored, then conversion rates drop. When good design practices are followed and technology is implemented properly, conversion increases.
Answer: The Dealer eProcess Everest website platform leads conversion rates when their native tools are leveraged and CTA buttons do not exceed the four primary buttons which help consumers find the right vehicle for their needs. Another high performer in website conversion rates are websites from Dealer Inspire.
What About AI?
One of the growing concerns from automotive dealers is how AI will transform automotive retail sales processes. Already many dealers are using AI to communicate with consumers in sales and service, but what about on their websites? As dealers invest in Customer Data Platforms (CDP), their centralized data can be used in conjunction with identity resolution tools to deliver a personalized shopping experience without the need to log into a backend system.
Question: Which website platform can best personalize the online shopping experience using AI?
The key to answering this question is to define what is meaningful personalization. For years website companies have offered some level of personalized images or banners based on a past shopping visit but I have never been convinced that these small changes had an impact on increase conversion rates in any meaningful way.
Answer: It is difficult to pick a winner since the race has just started. The Sherpa AI from Dealer eProcess shows great potential but all website companies and communication tools are racing to deliver solutions which can move the needle on sales.
Redefining Website Performance KPIs
In the coming year we will release the results of the 2026 Automotive Website Survey and we will be adding more specific questions to help us understand how dealers measure the performance of their website platforms. As the use of CDPs and AI personalization grows, there could be new leaders in automotive retail platform for car dealers.
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