Sergio Alvarez is a performance marketing expert, digital attribution leader and CEO and founder of Ai Media Group.

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions I’ve seen in my work with the automotive industry is the notion that all sales leads are created equal. If a prospect has shown any level of interest in a dealership, automotive salespeople are ready to convert the sale immediately. In my opinion, nine times out of ten, their approach could use some work. They may be wasting time on invalid leads while squandering valid ones.

How do we validate leads in the automotive industry—and is validity the only measure of worth we should be looking at?

Is in many other industries, the automotive sector assigns too much value to the amount of traffic they’re getting rather than the quality of that traffic. Determining the validity of leads is important, but even more, so is understanding the hierarchy of value in these leads.