For some used car dealerships, Craigslist is their secret weapon—their ace in the hole. It allows them to move units, stay connected with buyers, and improve their bottom line. For other dealerships, however, Craigslist turns out to be little more than a waste of effort. So what’s the difference? How can you ensure that your dealership’s Craigslist ads fall into the former category and not the latter?

We’re here to share the seven essential components of any strong Craigslist post. This checklist will provide you with a firm foundation for Craigslist sales success!

The Essentials of Used Car Craigslist Ads

1. Great photos. Cars lend themselves well to pictorial advertising; buyers can tell just from looking at beautiful, hi-res images that a car is stylish and appealing. Use this to your advantage, and provide plenty of compelling photos in your listings. (Craigslist will allow you up to eight.)
2. Great titles. In addition to photos, you’ll also need compelling photos. Make sure yours calls out the essential selling points of the vehicle in question. We’d generally advise against listing the price in your title, unless you know you have a big competitive advantage here.
3. A compelling description. Here we’d generally recommend keeping it simple, and giving buyers an easy way to reach out to your dealership with any further questions or comments.
4. Landing pages. This one might surprise you. In addition to the Craigslist ad itself, you need a landing page where you can send interested buyers—ideally one that is specified to the vehicle in question. Here, you might provide additional vehicle facts and figures, a strong CTA, and perhaps even a lead capturing form of some sort.
5. Call tracking. Make sure you have integrated your Craigslist postings to your call tracking or CRM system, ensuring none of these leads slip through your fingers.
6. The right timing. You don’t want to spam Craigslist by posting the same ad over and over again. Generally, we’d recommend not posting the same vehicle more than once every 48 hours.
7. The right price. New cars are notoriously hard to sell on Craigslist. Simply put, people don’t go to Craigslist looking for brand new vehicles. Keeping your cars under $25,000 is recommended.

Perfect Your Craigslist Ads

There’s obviously a lot to consider here—and plenty of ways for your Craigslist ads to go wrong. Eliminate the guesswork by working with our Craigslist Wizard app, which ensures that your ads always rank within the top page of Craigslist search results. That kind of visibility is sure to improve your bottom line, especially when you pair it with our robust call-tracking capabilities.

The Craigslist Wizard app will help you become an old pro at selling cars on Craigslist, and it’s incredibly easy to use. Start using the app today, available exclusively from Get My Auto.