How to Automatically Follow Up With Leads From Cars.com, Autotrader, Carfax, and More

If you're in the automotive industry, you know how fast leads can go cold. Whether a customer submits a form on Cars.com, Autotrader, Carfax, or your own dealership website, your ability to follow up instantly is the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity.

Fortunately, there's a way to automate this entire process—turning random leads from multiple sources into structured data and immediate follow-ups that convert. In this post, we’ll walk you through how to set this up yourself, step by step, and how Elevated Ideas can do it all for you (plus much more) if you want to take it off your plate.

Step 1: Route All Incoming Leads to a Zapier Email Parser

The first step is ensuring that every lead, no matter the source, lands in a central place where automation can begin.

• Create a Zapier account if you don’t already have one.

• Use Zapier Email Parser to generate a unique mailbox (e.g., [email protected]).

• Forward all lead notification emails to this mailbox. You can do this automatically by setting up email forwarding rules for leads coming in from Cars.com, Autotrader, Carfax, Facebook Marketplace, or your dealership website.

This mailbox acts as your filter—catching every new lead the moment it comes in.

Step 2: Create a Zap to Scrape and Structure Data Using ChatGPT

Lead notification emails come in all shapes and formats. Some contain plaintext, others HTML, some have all the fields you need, while others bury them deep in paragraphs.

This is where AI comes in.

• Set up a new Zap in Zapier.

• Choose your trigger: New Email in Zapier Mailbox.

• Add a formatter step to clean up any email body if needed.

• Then, add a ChatGPT step using OpenAI or Zapier's GPT plugin.

In this step, GPT will parse the email text and extract relevant information into structured data fields:

• First & Last Name

• Phone Number

• Email Address

• Year, Make, Model

• Message or Comments

• Source (Cars.com, Autotrader, etc.)

ChatGPT's natural language processing capabilities allow you to standardize messy lead formats into clean, actionable data.

Step 3: Send the Structured Data to LeadConnector (Your CRM)

Once you have the structured lead info, it needs to be sent to a CRM where your sales team can manage it.

We recommend LeadConnector (powered by HighLevel) as your centralized CRM.

• Add a step in your Zap to create a new contact in LeadConnector.

• Map all structured fields from ChatGPT to their respective fields in LeadConnector.

• Add a tag like "autoresponder" so the system knows to begin automated engagement.

Now you’ve got a lead sitting neatly in your CRM, tagged and ready to be followed up with—without touching a thing.

Step 4: Create an Instant Automated Follow-Up Sequence

With the contact created and tagged in LeadConnector, you can now fire off a personalized multi-touch outreach flow automatically.

Here’s what you can include:

• Email: Sent within 30 seconds, personalized with name and vehicle info

• SMS: Friendly follow-up thanking them for their interest and prompting a response

• Voicemail Drop: Pre-recorded message from your dealership rep with context

All of this is sent out instantly and feels 100% personalized to the customer.

But it doesn’t stop there. If the lead doesn’t respond:

• The automation can follow up repeatedly over the next few hours, days, or weeks

• You can include educational material, inventory links, or even scheduling links

• A notification will go out to your sales team as soon as the lead responds or engages

This turns what used to be a slow, manual process into a fast, responsive system that builds trust and urgency.

Bonus: Ongoing Lead Nurturing & Notifications

Even if a lead goes cold initially, the system can keep checking in, offer new vehicles, trade-in programs, or financing incentives.

And if you want to monitor team performance?

• You can see open rates, click-throughs, response rates, and even listen to call recordings inside LeadConnector.

No more wondering who followed up and when.

Don’t Want to Set This Up Yourself?

We get it. You didn’t get into the car business to build AI-powered automations or play Zapier engineer.

That’s where Elevated Ideas comes in.

We specialize in setting up complete CRM automation systems tailored for dealerships, service shops, and auto resellers.

When you work with us, you get:

• Full Zapier integration setup

• AI lead parsing with ChatGPT

• LeadConnector onboarding & CRM customization

• Complete follow-up automations

• Performance tracking dashboards

• Unlimited lead sources

• Plus a slew of nonrelated CRM tools like social media management, chat widgets, forms, review automation, & more!

Let us build it for you once so you can close more deals forever.

Reach out to Elevated Ideas today and let’s make your follow-up game unbeatable.

Stop losing leads. Start winning sales.