8:00 am, November 4, 2025
Auto Trader will soon be able to tell car dealers how likely leads are to convert into a sale with a new data product.
Called Buying Signals, the product will flag leads sent to Auto Trader customers with the likelihood a buyer enquiry will convert into a sale.
Coupled with the advertising marketplace’s Deal Builder product, which will soon be rolled out to all Auto Trader customers, dealers will be told if a customer has ‘high intent’ to buy when they get a lead.
The firm’s COO, Catherine Faiers (pictured), told Car Dealer this information was taken from learnings the company has observed through millions of interactions on its platform.
The roll out will be free of charge to begin with, but Auto Trader has not ruled out that the products will be charged for in the future.
Buying Signals will be available from mid-November and delivered alongside Deal Builder leads.
The latter enables used car buyers to reserve cars, get part exchange prices and apply for finance on the Auto Trader platform and this information is then packaged up and sent to dealers.
‘We know all leads are important to retailers,’ explained Faiers.
‘But this will give them an idea of how to prioritise leads when they get in in the morning and work out which are the highest value.
‘Our data and observations of customers has got better and better over time and we can now predict when a sale is most likely to occur because of the way customers have been using and interacting with our platform. This product is about sharing that information with our retailer partners.’
Deal Builder is currently live on 6,000 car dealer accounts and is being rolled out to all customers imminently.
Faiers said that these new products would ‘go into our thinking’ when the firm reviews prices for car dealers in April.
‘Deal Builder will become the way all buyers interact with Auto Trader so we will work to get all retailers on it in waves over the coming months,’ she added.
Dealers will not be able to opt out of Deal Builder and, when asked, Faiers said that there was currently no plans to charge dealers separately for these types of leads. However, that has not been ruled out completely.
Faiers said that she had also listened to some concerns from car dealers about Deal Builder which suggested some thought a £99 reservation fee was too low and that others didn’t want to have their cars taken off sale with a reservation.
However, she countered that with data that more than 80% of customers who reserved a car go on to do a deal and that they believe they are among the strongest leads the firm sends to its retailer partners.
She also explained that some 84% of customers who build a deal do not submit a lead anywhere else for at least three days.
Faiers added that the £99 price point was chosen because it was the ‘average’ of what many dealers chose to use as reservation fees themselves.
Karolina Edwards-Smajda, Auto Trader’s chief product officer, added: ‘Deal Builder isn’t a new feature – it’s now at the centre of the Auto Trader buying journey, and by early next year, every retailer will be part of this evolution.
‘Buying Signals is the outcome of continuous learning from the 2.7m daily visits to our platform and understanding how we can improve the consumer experience and outcomes for retailers.’
Car dealers with Deal Builder enabled will see Buying Signals in the next few weeks.
Faiers added: ‘We know that these initial data points and the initial flags in Buying Signals are very valuable and useful for retailers, and it’s the right time to get it out there and to figure out and work with retailers to see how we can really deliver the value that this product should should deliver.’
Humphries & Parks Director, Sam Kingsland-Joy, who has already been using the product said: ‘Buying Signals is a game changer. For a business as small as ours, having access to that data is huge.
‘My initial thoughts were that this is absolutely fantastic. This is data that’s out there. And if that can be displayed, that’s going to be a game changer in terms of how we speak to customers.’
