How to view and manage Cars.com financing leads

How to view and manage Cars.com financing leads

When shoppers engage with Instant Financing on your Cars.com listings, their information flows into multiple systems depending on how far they progress in the financing journey.

This article explains how to locate and manage these leads in your CRM and view application details in Automatic.

1 Viewing financing leads in your CRM

Instant Financing leads are delivered to the same CRM email addresses that receive your standard Cars.com leads. Each lead includes:

  • Shopper name and contact information
  • Vehicle of interest (year, make, model, stock number)
  • Lead sub-source (Finance Intent and Prequalified)
  • A secure link to the application in Automatic

To identify Instant Financing leads, look for the following sub-sources:

  • Cars.com Finance Intent
  • Cars.com Prequalified
crm finance intent

Tip: Set up filters or custom lead source tags in your CRM to easily prioritize and report on Instant Financing leads separately from standard marketplace leads.

2 Manage leads in Automatic

Automatic is Cars.com’s dealer-facing platform for managing financing applications and Online Shopper deals. Access it at automatic.dealerinspire.com.

The Deals page shows all your leads. From this page, you can:

  1. Search for a lead
  2. Filter leads by Financing Status, Lead Source, Days, or Deal Status
Automatic
  1. Sort by Activity, Newest/Oldest Customers, and Lead Source
Automatic
  1. Get a Quick Look at customer info, Garage, and activity
  1. Click the chat bubble to send a text message to your shoppers (for Conversations customers)
  2. Assign or Unassign a customer to yourself or another user
  3. Go to the customer’s Garage— the shopper’s saved vehicle and financing profile in Automatic— where you can review application details
Automatic

3 View and work financing applications in Automatic

You can access application details from:

  • The secure link included in your CRM lead
  • The shopper’s profile via the Deals page in Automatic

For each application, you can review:

  • Shopper information: Name, contact details, address, employment, and income
  • Vehicle details: The specific VIN or vehicle for which the shopper applied
  • Financing preferences: Loan term, down payment, and trade-in information
  • Prequalification status: Whether the shopper received offers and from which lenders
  • Lender offers: Estimated rates and terms from participating lenders (if prequalified)

From the application details page, you can take the following actions:

  • Send SMS texts (if you are a Conversations customer) or email the customer directly
  • Adjust deal structure: pricing, term, trade-in, and protection products
  • Build a custom financing offer based on the shopper’s inputs

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