Renewal season is when vendors count on you being too busy to push back. The contract auto-renews, the invoice keeps clearing, and nobody asks the hard questions. But a renewal is leverage, and the right questions separate the vendors moving metal from the ones moving reports. Here are ten to ask before you sign anything. Do not accept a slide deck as an answer. Make the vendor speak in plain numbers, and watch how fast the confident ones separate from the ones who stall.
Start With Ownership and Money
- Who owns the data? If the campaign data, lead records, and pixel history live in the vendor’s account and leave when they do, you never owned your marketing. You rented it.
- What is our cost per car sold through your channel? Not cost per lead. Not cost per click. Cost per car that ended up in someone’s driveway. If they cannot answer, they are not measuring the thing that pays your bills.
- What happens to our data if we leave? Ask for the exit terms in writing. A vendor confident in their work hands your data back clean. A vendor holding it hostage is telling you something.
These three questions decide everything that follows, because they are about control. Picture a store that ran the same paid search vendor for four years. When it finally asked to move, it learned the ad account, the conversion history, and the call tracking numbers all belonged to the vendor. Switching meant starting from zero and losing years of optimization data. That is not a partnership. That is a hostage situation you agreed to without reading the fine print. Ownership is not a technicality. It is the difference between hiring help and handing over the keys.
Push on Proof
- Can you prove incrementality? Would those buyers have shown up anyway? A vendor taking credit for people already headed to your lot is billing you for the sunrise. Ask how they separate cars they caused from cars they counted.
- What do you NOT count? Every attribution model throws something away. Make them tell you what falls outside their window and what they quietly claim from other channels.
- Show me a sale you can trace end to end. One real buyer, from first touch to signed deal. If they cannot walk you through a single one, the dashboard is decoration.
Proof is where most vendor relationships fall apart under light pressure. Consider a retargeting vendor reporting forty influenced sales in a month. Ask how many of those buyers had already submitted a lead or walked the lot before the ad ever served. Often the honest answer is most of them. The vendor did not create those sales. It stood next to them and raised its hand. When you ask a vendor to trace a single deal from the first click to the signed contract, you find out fast whether the reporting describes reality or just decorates it.
Test the Relationship
- How is your fee structured, and does it change if performance drops? Flat retainers reward showing up. Find out whether the vendor has any skin in your results.
- Who else in my market do you work with? If they are running the same playbook for the dealer across town, you are paying to compete with yourself.
A flat monthly retainer pays the vendor the same whether you sell three hundred cars or thirty. That is worth knowing. So is the answer to who else they serve nearby. A dealer in a mid-size market found out his SEO agency was optimizing two competing stores for the same high-value search terms in the same county. He was funding a fight he could only half win. You are entitled to know whether your vendor’s incentives point at your success or just at your invoice.
Plan for the Exit Before You Commit
- What is the notice period, and how do I cancel? Know the off-ramp before you are on the highway. Auto-renewal clauses and long notice windows are how mediocre vendors keep bad accounts.
- If I gave you 20 percent more budget tomorrow, what would you do with it, and what would it return? A real partner has a specific answer tied to sold cars. A vendor stalling for time will talk about impressions and reach.
The last question is the tell. A vendor who knows their numbers will answer in cars and dollars within seconds, because they think about your budget the way you do. A vendor who does not will reach for reach, frequency, and brand lift. You just learned which one you are dealing with, and you learned it before you signed for another year.
You do not need every answer to be perfect. You need the vendor to answer plainly, in terms of cars sold and dollars spent, without hiding behind a black box. The ones who can are worth keeping. The ones who deflect just told you what your renewal is really worth.
Frequently asked questions
When should I ask these questions?
Well before the renewal date, not the week of. Auto-renewal clauses often require thirty to ninety days notice to cancel, so if you wait until the invoice hits, you have already lost your leverage. Put a reminder on the calendar a full quarter ahead and start the conversation while you still have the option to walk.
What if a vendor refuses to answer in cost per car sold?
Treat the refusal as the answer. A vendor who genuinely drives sales wants to be measured on sales, because that is where they look good. One who redirects to clicks, impressions, or leads is telling you their contribution does not survive the math that matters. You do not have to fire them on the spot, but you should stop assuming the report reflects reality.
Do these questions apply to a vendor I have used for years?
Especially then. Long relationships are where dark spend and unproven credit pile up, because nobody has looked closely in a while. The tenure of a contract is not evidence that it works. Ask the same ten questions you would ask a stranger, and let the answers stand on their own.
These are the numbers you should own, not rent from a vendor. See how VCTRS helps dealers hold every vendor accountable on our vendor accountability page.