Traditionally, a typical visitor on NADAguides.com — a site known primarily for vehicle pricing and values — would likely be on the lower end of the car-shopping funnel.

They know the specific year, make and model of the car they’re looking to buy or trade; they’re “about ready to pull the trigger on a transaction,” said Troy Snyder, vice president of the consumer division at J.D. Power, which acquired the vehicle shopping site’s parent company in August.

But with the integration of consumer ratings, reviews and scores from J.D. Power — a move announced Monday — NADAguides.com can better address the needs of upper-funnel shoppers, as well.

Those shoppers may be less sure of what model within a segment they want to consider, Snyder said, and need guidance to help narrow down their choice.

“I’ll be honest with you, it’s hard every year to know what SUVs are out there in the marketplace available for sale, and how (those models) fit with the other models in their segment. I’m telling you that, being in the industry, this kind of information is needed to help users very quickly sort through the overwhelming level of information and help them pin down two or three or four models that fits within their wants and needs,” Snyder said by phone.

In a news release Monday announcing the integration, J.D. Power said it has surveyed more than 2 million vehicle owners over the last decade, offered insight on close to 2,000 models and given out 555 awards.

That kind of information is now being shared directly with consumers via NADAguides, which has also integrated Verified Owner Ratings and Reviews into the website. The website has also highlighted recipients of model awards so that car shoppers can easily research the top-performing cars of specific segments.

“We’re constantly evolving the car-shopping experience on NADAguides.com to provide consumers with simple access — on any device — to pricing information for purchases, trade-ins and used-car sales,” Snyder said in the news release.

“For the first time, we’ve paired the highly regarded data of NADAguides.com with J.D. Power’s well-respected ratings and awards that annually measure vehicle dependability, quality, performance, style and design, sales experience and customer service,” he said.

‘Opened the door for both of us’

NADAguides has largely been a pricing and values resource for consumers, not as a much as a general vehicle research outlet, Snyder said. J.D. Power, meanwhile, has focused more on the commercial and business-to-business side of automotive, without much of a consumer-facing presence.

Then in August, J.D. Power acquired National Appraisal Guides, which was the owner of NADAguides.

“And what that did was, it opened the door up for both of us … NADAguides wasn’t known as a ratings and reviews site — we did have that content on that product, but it wasn’t our strength — and J.D. Power simply didn’t have a consumer presence,” Snyder said.

With the two brands now under the same roof, so to speak, it made sense to start asking questions, like, 'Where should we join databases here?' and 'if we were to combine these data points, what kind of consumer-facing, car-shopping tools and content can we produce?'" Snyder said.

“This was actually a pretty easy conversation. Some obvious integrations surfaced very quickly. And within under five weeks’ time, we were able to take all of J.D. Power’s content and data and integrate it into NADAguides.com,” he said. “Now what you get with that, what car shoppers get with that, is per model now, we are providing quality, dependability and reliability scores.

“Whereas in the past, a car shopper would just get maybe market pricing on a new car, which told them what people have paid in the last seven days or they may get a used value. Now we’re taking their experience deeper and helping them narrow down their selection set and really help them determine what car’s best for them. So, this is a whole new dimension for the NADAguides folks.”

‘Another first for J.D. Power’

And it also helps establishes more of a consumer presence for J.D. Power, a company that certainly has a good deal of consumer awareness through things like advertisements where companies tout their J.D. Power award wins.

 “Knowing that you can’t go five minutes while watching TV and not see some J.D. Power award in some form or fashion, we know that awareness is there,” Snyder said. “Now what the challenge has been is, people recognize the awards and they know the brand name very well, but they don’t understand what we do.”

One challenge, Snyder said, is not just sharing the data, but explaining how the data was created, why it is being shared and how, for example, it fits with the car commercial on TV mentioning the award.  

“And what it really does is, if you catch that award on TV, you can come to the site now and learn, ‘Why did they win that award; what’s behind it?’” Snyder said. “And this is another first for J.D. Power; this kind of information hasn’t been exposed before.”