CHICAGO -

Craigslist is a great place to post your ads as long as you follow the site’s rules and don’t get blacklisted. The site remains a top five most visited site for vehicle buyers, but how can you tell how well your ads are doing?

There are some key questions you want answered to ensure that you are getting as much out of Craigslist as possible. You want to know; are your ads actually being posted? Are your ads getting ghosted and if so, which ones? Are your ads getting clicked on? Most importantly, are your ads generating leads?

You should be checking the following reports daily, or at least weekly:

—Posting Report: This kind of report should tell you the ads you are posting each day and which of those ads (if any) are being flagged or ghosted. This way you can ensure you are getting maximum exposure and can take action to fix/re-post any ads that may be causing trouble.

—Performance Report: This report should tell you, at the very least, how many clicks your ads are getting. It should also tell you how many people are taking action from your ads (conversion rate). Ideally, you will be able to break these statistics down by make, model, price range or price vs. no price, or even by the time of day the ads are posted.

—Leads Report: What good is your click through rate unless the final result is interest in the vehicle and eventually a purchase? Tracking the e-mails sent as a result of seeing the ad on Craigslist is a great way to see the true impact your Craigslist ads are having on your business. Taking it a step further, there are companies that will give you a dedicated phone number so you can specifically track calls from Craigslist.

If your current Craigslist vendor cannot give you the information above, you should seriously consider switching vendors. After all, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Finally, and most importantly, you should always be running experiments to fine-tune your performance. If possible, track these experiments all the way to sales. For example, you may try posting one month with prices and one month without. You’ll get more contacts without the price because people will call to ask for the price, but does this convert into more sales?

Jacob Solotaroff is senior vice president and general manager of MAX Systems.