Leads & Contacts¶
Every inquiry a shopper submits - a "request info" form, a contact form, a stock alert sign-up - lands in DMS as a lead. The Leads menu is your built-in CRM for handling them.
The three sections¶
| Section | What's there |
|---|---|
| All Leads | Every inquiry submitted through your forms, newest first. |
| Contacts | Your saved address book of people, built from leads. |
| Stock Alerts | Shoppers who asked to be notified when matching inventory arrives. A badge shows how many are pending. See Stock Alerts. |
Where leads come from¶
Leads are created when a shopper submits a form on your site - typically the contact/inquiry form on a listing's detail page. Each lead captures who they are, how to reach them, and (when relevant) which listing they asked about.
A submission only becomes a lead if the form is a DMS form whose fields are mapped to lead data. In the Elementor form field settings, each input (name, email, phone, message, and so on) must have its Lead Data option set to what it represents - a name field associated with Customer Name, an email field with Customer Email, and so on. Without those associations DMS has no way to know a submission is a lead or which value is which, so nothing lands here. Full setup is in the lead forms section.
To collect leads, then, make sure your detail-page template includes a DMS lead form with every field mapped to its lead data.
Working leads¶
From All Leads you can review each inquiry, follow up, and keep track of who has been contacted. People worth keeping become Contacts - your ongoing customer list.
Archiving leads¶
When a lead is finished with - a dead end, a duplicate, spam, or a deal long since closed - archive it instead of deleting it. Archiving keeps the full record and its timeline but takes the lead out of your day-to-day view: archived leads drop off the All Leads list, the follow-up reminders on your dashboard, and CSV exports.
- One lead: open it (or use the row actions) and click Archive. On an archived lead the same button reads Restore.
- Several at once: tick the leads in the list and use the Archive Leads bulk action.
- Seeing archived leads: click View Archived in the top right of the leads page. From there you can Restore leads back to the active list, or export them.
Archiving needs the same permission as managing leads. Deleting a lead is still permanent and separate - archive is the reversible option.
Notifications¶
When a lead comes in, DMS can email a notification so you don't have to watch the admin. Who gets notified and the email wording are controlled in your settings. See Settings.
Connecting your CRM (ADF/XML)¶
DMS can forward leads to an external CRM using ADF/XML, the standard format most automotive CRMs accept. This video walks through connecting your CRM so new leads flow straight into it.
Stock alerts¶
Stock Alerts are a special kind of lead: a shopper signs up with the search they ran, and DMS emails them automatically when a matching listing is added. This turns "we don't have that right now" into a future sale. Full setup is in Stock Alerts.
Next: make sure your detail pages capture leads in Templates & Pages, or configure notification emails in Settings.