6:55 am, November 9, 2026
Research into sales leads – generated by expensive ad platforms for car dealers – has revealed how quickly a customer typically responds.
AI solutions firm Impel analysed more than 500,000 sales leads over a 12-month period and found some 38% of customers replied within 15 minutes of being contacted.
The firm also found that a lead that has gone quiet is not necessarily lost, with some 28% of those leads analysed engaging with dealerships more than 48 hours after their original contact.
Impel’s solutions actively ‘work’ leads, continuing to contact customers for a response, and the firm found on average it took 3.7 attempts to generate an ‘engagement’ and 4.9 attempts to generate an appointment.
Impel’s data looked at 549,476 leads handled by its Sales AI software in the 12 months prior to October 31, 2026.
James Leese, managing director UK at Impel, said: ‘More than half a million leads over a 12-month period gives us a substantial picture of what happens after a customer makes an online enquiry. One of the clearest lessons is that there is no single customer timetable.
‘Some want to engage straight away, some are doing it when the dealership is closed and others will go quiet before coming back days later. A lead going quiet and a lead being lost are not the same thing.
‘For dealers, that means responding quickly still matters, but so does what happens next. You need to be there when the customer is ready and have the persistence to maintain the conversation when they aren’t.’
Impel is one of the partners for Car Dealer Live 2027, our conference for the motor trade taking place on March 16, 2027. Tickets for the event are available now.
This data follows the firm’s research presented at this year’s Car Dealer Live which found that 34% of dealers ceased contact after just one attempt.
Impel’s latest analysis also looked at the methods of contacting customers and found that texts generated more than half of all engagements.
Leese added: ‘The lesson is to meet customers where they are. Some will want to speak to someone, while others are perfectly happy to progress digitally. And if they don’t respond immediately, that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared.
‘Giving customers different ways to engage, then following up consistently and respectfully, gives them the opportunity to progress when they’re ready.
‘That’s where AI can make a real difference. It gives dealers the capacity to respond quickly and maintain those conversations at a scale that is very difficult to sustain manually, while allowing sales teams to focus their time where customers need them.’