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How leads come in

The three ways a lead lands in your pipeline — storefront contact form, AI sales chat, and manual entry — plus the email alert every web lead sends your team.

Who: Any team memberPlan: All plans

Every lead — whether a shopper fills out your website or you jot down a walk-in — lands in the same place: Leads. Here's where they come from.

The ways a lead arrives

  1. Storefront contact form — a shopper on a vehicle page fills out the Ask about this vehicle form and clicks Send inquiry. The lead's source is recorded as Website.
  2. AI sales chat — the public AI assistant collects a shopper's name and contact info in conversation, then hands them off to your team. The source is recorded as AI chat.
  3. Manual entry — you add a lead yourself for a walk-in, phone call, referral, marketplace inquiry, or anything else (see below). You pick the source.

Whatever the source, the lead shows up in your Leads list right away, starting in the New status.

What about marketplace channels? Listings you syndicate to Google or Facebook send shopper inquiries to your own email or CRM — they don't flow into your Leads list automatically. When one comes in, add it by hand and pick Marketplace as the source so it's tracked here too.

Add a lead by hand

For a walk-in, a phone call, a referral, or anything that didn't come through your website:

  1. Go to Leads and click Add lead.
  2. Enter the First name and Last name (both required).
  3. Add an Email and/or Phone so you can reach them.
  4. Pick a Source — Walk-in, Website, Referral, Phone, Email, AI chat, Marketplace, Auction, or Other.
  5. Add any Notes for context.
  6. Click Add lead. You're taken straight to the new lead's page.

Source is required. If you click Add lead without picking one, you'll see "Pick a source" — select a source and try again.

Every web lead emails your team

When a lead comes in from your website or the AI chat, AutoDealer.io emails your dealership automatically so nobody has to babysit the dashboard. The email includes the shopper's name, their email and phone, the vehicle they asked about (if any), and their message, plus a link straight to the lead.

The alert is sent to the first email address you have on file, in this order:

  1. Your primary location's contact email.
  2. Your website's contact email (set in the website builder).
  3. Your dealership's main contact email.

If none of those three emails is set, the lead is still saved and visible in Leads — but no alert email goes out. Set a contact email on your location, in website settings, or on your dealership info so you never miss one.

If you've turned on lead routing, an incoming web or AI-chat lead is also auto-assigned to a salesperson, and that person gets an in-app bell notification by name. With routing off, the lead stays unassigned for someone to claim.

What the shopper has to provide

Both the storefront contact form and the AI chat need a name plus an email or phone before the lead can be saved — that's the minimum needed to follow up. The AI won't hand off a shopper until it has that, and the website form asks for it too. (Only the email-or-phone is enforced on the server; the storefront form also asks for a last name, but the AI chat will take a first name alone.)

FAQ

A customer says they filled out the form but I don't see a lead.

First check your Leads list — the lead is saved before any email is sent, so it's there even if the alert didn't reach you. If it's missing entirely, the shopper likely left without an email or phone, which the form requires.

Why didn't I get the email alert for a web lead?

The most common reason is no contact email on file. The alert goes to your primary location email, then your website contact email, then your dealership's main contact email — if all three are blank, the lead saves but nothing is emailed. Add one of those addresses to fix it going forward.

What's the difference between "Website" and "AI chat" sources?

Website means the shopper used the Ask about this vehicle form on a car's page. AI chat means the public AI assistant collected their details in conversation and handed them off. Both email your team the same way.

Can I change a lead's source after it's created?

The source reflects where the lead originated and is set when the lead is created. For manual leads you choose it on the Add lead form; web and AI-chat leads are tagged automatically.

Who can add leads?

Any signed-in team member can add a lead and see the Leads list — there's no role restriction on lead capture.