10:05 am, June 26, 2026
Autotrader has promised to give dealers more insight than ever before as it looks to expand its Buying Signals technology.
Car Dealer reported earlier this week that the listings giant was planning to roll out a major expansion of the product, in a bid to give retailers an even better understanding of buyer demand.
But what changes can dealers expect and how will the amendments impact businesses on a day-to-day basis?
The subject was discussed at length in London on Tuesday, when Autotrader held its annual media briefing with members of the motor trade press.
During the presentation, the firm’s chief product officer Karolina Edwards-Smajda said the firm was focussed on developing tools that reflect ‘real-world forecourt needs’.
She explained that the next phase of Buying Signals will provide retailers with richer customer insights and, eventually, the ability to identify high-intent buyers before an enquiry is submitted.
It represents a major change for Buying signals, which launched in late 2025 and uses Autotrader’s consumer behaviour data to help dealers identify which leads are most likely to convert into sales.
Speaking at the briefing, chief product officer Edwards-Smajda said the product has already proved its worth and backed it to continue helping dealers.
‘It really helps retailers to identify buyers that are most likely to convert, and we have very high confidence in being able to identify those,’ she said. ‘Users or leads which are from high-intent buyers convert at least twice as high as any other lead on Autotrader.’
Since launching, Autotrader says Buying Signals has already enriched more than a million enquires.
The tool currently tells dealers whether a customer is considered a high-intent buyer, whether they are local to the dealership, if they have saved the vehicle and provides an anonymous profile of their browsing preferences, including the makes and models, vehicle age and mileage ranges they have been searching.
However, new enhancements will allow retailers to get even more data about buyer behaviour, starting over the coming weeks.
The updates will include anonymous behavioural information, such as how long customers spent viewing a vehicle advert and which areas of the listing they interacted with before making contact.
The biggest development, however, will come later this year with what Autotrader is calling ‘pre-connection Buying Signals’.
Rather than waiting for a customer to submit an enquiry, the new feature will alert retailers when a high-intent buyer is actively engaging with one of their vehicles, giving them advance notice of likely demand before any lead is received.
‘In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching Buying Signals enhancements,’ Edwards-Smajda explained. ‘On top of the current version, we’ll be providing retailers with even more insight about why we say the user is a high-intent buyer.
‘At the moment, Buying Signals are available on the leads, but we’re not able to tell retailers whether there is a real interest from a high-intent buyer before the lead is submitted.
‘This is what the pre-connection Buying Signals will be able to do. On every vehicle advertised on Autotrader, we’ll be able to signal to retailers that, on that car, you have a high-intent buyer engaged with that car, even before they send a lead.’
Explaining the rationale behind the changes, Edwards-Smajda said the alerts will give retailers ‘a bit of heads up’ that a customer is likely to buy, enabling them to review pricing strategies and decide how best to manage demand before an enquiry even arrives.
Buying Signals is currently available to retailers using Deal Builder or Reservation Request.
