Elead CRM API
Elead CRM is CDK Global's automotive dealership CRM for lead, sales, BDC, and customer management across the showroom and service drive. An unofficial API lets you programmatically pull opportunities, customers, sales activities, salespeople, and vehicle interest and trade-in data—and push updates like new opportunities, comments, emails, sales-team reassignments, and trade records back into Elead.
What is Elead CRM?
Elead CRM is an automotive dealership CRM from CDK Global that centralizes lead management, sales-process automation, BDC and desking workflows, marketing and equity mining, and service follow-up in a single cloud platform. Dealerships use Elead to capture and route leads, manage sales opportunities and the sales team, desk deals, run targeted marketing and service campaigns, and surface analytics—integrated with major DMS platforms and dealer applications.
Core product areas include:
- Lead management and opportunity tracking across web forms, social, and automotive marketplaces
- Sales-process automation, desking, and deal workflow
- BDC (Business Development Center) management and sales-team assignment
- Marketing, equity mining, and customer engagement alerts
- Service and maintenance reminders plus analytics and reporting
- DMS integrations (CDK Global, Reynolds & Reynolds, Dealertrack, Auto/Mate) and a mobile app for iOS and Android
Common data entities:
- Opportunities, Sources, Sub-sources, Statuses, Up Types
- Customers, Prospects, Contact Details, Elead Customer IDs
- Vehicles Sought and Vehicle Trade-Ins (year, make, model, trim, VIN, mileage)
- Sales Activities, Comments, Emails, and Sales Steps
- Salespeople, BDC Agents, Positions, and Sales Teams
- Product Reference Data (opportunity, employee, and vehicle reference values)
The Elead CRM Integration Challenge
Dealerships run high-volume sales and BDC workflows on Elead every day, but turning portal-driven processes into reliable API-driven automation is non-trivial:
- Fortellis gating: Elead's published Vehicle Sales APIs run through the Fortellis Automotive Commerce Exchange, requiring a registered solution, dealer subscription, and app approval before access
- Partial endpoint coverage: The public APIs focus on sales opportunities, customers, activities, and reference data—many CRM, desking, and service workflows are only available in the portal
- Credential and session handling: Calls require client id, client secret, and subscription id per dealer, and SSO-secured logins complicate headless automation
- Throttling limits: API connections are rate-limited (roughly 100 calls per minute), so high-volume lead and inventory syncs need careful pacing
- Delta-window constraints: Incremental opportunity queries are bounded (e.g., the past seven days), so backfills and reconciliation require pagination and date-range stitching
- Dealer-by-dealer configuration: Sources, sub-statuses, up types, and position codes vary by store, so generic integrations break across rooftops
How Supergood Creates Elead CRM APIs
Supergood reverse-engineers authenticated browser flows and Elead's Fortellis-published API surface to deliver a resilient API layer for your Elead CRM instance—across opportunities, customers, activities, and sales-team data.
- Handles SSO logins, client id/secret, and per-dealer subscription credentials securely in a managed session
- Maintains session continuity with automated refresh and change detection
- Normalizes responses across opportunities, vehicles sought, trade-ins, and sales team so you integrate once and rely on consistent objects
- Respects per-connection throttling and delta windows with adaptive paging and backfill stitching
Use Elead CRM with AI agents: Elead CRM MCP Server →
Getting Started
- Schedule Integration Assessment
Book a 30-minute session to confirm your dealer rooftops, Fortellis subscriptions, and authentication model.
- Supergood Generates and Validates Your API
We deliver a production-ready Elead adapter tailored to your store configuration, sources, and position codes.
- Deploy with Monitoring
Go live with continuous monitoring and automatic adjustments as Elead and the Fortellis APIs evolve.
API Endpoints
Authentication
/authenticateAuthenticate to an Elead CRM dealer instance using client id, client secret, and subscription id and obtain a session token for downstream calls.
Opportunities
/opportunitiesSearch and retrieve sales opportunities by date range or delta window, including source, status, vehicles sought, trade-ins, and sales-team details.
Opportunities
/create_opportunityCreate a new opportunity for an existing customer record with source, up type, vehicle sought, and trade-in details.
Customers
/customersRetrieve prospect and customer records, including contact details, Elead customer IDs, and associated vehicle data.
Activities
/create_activityCreate and complete sales activities for an opportunity, add comments, and send emails that log the corresponding activity.
Reference Data
/reference_dataSearch and retrieve product reference data—opportunity, employee, and vehicle values—used to support the other Vehicle Sales APIs.
Use Cases
Sync leads and opportunities into your stack
- Pull new and updated opportunities by date range or delta window into a warehouse or downstream CRM - Capture source, sub-source, status, up type, vehicles sought, and trade-in details on each opportunity - Reconcile customer and Elead customer IDs across rooftops for a unified buyer view
Automate BDC and sales-team workflows
- Reassign the primary salesperson or BDC agent on an opportunity without portal clicks - Add or remove salespeople and update position codes as deals progress - Update opportunity sub-status and sales steps from your own tooling
Drive outbound communication and follow-up
- Send emails on the dealer's behalf and auto-log the corresponding activity - Add comments and sales activities to keep the opportunity timeline complete - Trigger marketing and equity-mining campaigns from normalized opportunity data
Keep vehicle interest and trade data current
- Add, edit, and delete vehicles sought and trade-in records on an opportunity - Match VIN, make, model, trim, and mileage against live inventory - Surface trade-in equity and vehicle-sought signals to desking and pricing tools
Technical Specifications
Authentication
Client id, client secret, and per-dealer subscription id, with SSO logins handled in a managed session
Connectivity
Authenticated browser flows plus Elead's Fortellis-published Vehicle Sales APIs where the dealer has subscribed
Response format
Normalized JSON across opportunities, customers, activities, vehicles, and sales-team objects
Rate limits
Adaptive throttling tuned to Elead's per-connection limit (roughly 100 calls per 60 seconds)
Session management
Automatic session refresh, credential rotation, and subscription-scoped access
Data freshness
Near real-time pulls via delta queries (past seven days) with scheduled batch backfills for history
Security
Encrypted credential vault, scoped access tokens, SOC 2-aligned controls, and audit logging
Webhooks
Event-style callbacks for new opportunities, status changes, activities, and sales-team reassignments
Latency
Sub-second reads on cached entities; multi-second writes when creating opportunities or sending emails
Throughput
Horizontally scaled workers paced to respect Fortellis connection throttles across rooftops
Reliability
Retry, backoff, and idempotency keys for opportunity creation, comments, and trade-in updates
Adaptation
Continuous monitoring of Elead releases, Fortellis API changes, and dealer-specific source and position-code configuration
Frequently asked questions
Supergood works with your existing Elead access. For dealer-published Vehicle Sales APIs we operate against your Fortellis subscription and registered solution; where coverage is limited we also use authenticated portal flows so you get a consistent surface either way.
Opportunities (search, create, comment, sub-status, sales steps), customers and prospects, sales activities and emails, vehicles sought and trade-ins, and sales-team members including salesperson and BDC-agent reassignment, plus product reference data.
Supergood paces requests to stay within the per-connection throttle (around 100 calls per minute) and stitches delta queries—bounded to roughly the past seven days—with paginated date-range backfills for full history.
Yes. Each rooftop is profiled against its own sources, sub-statuses, up types, and position codes, so Supergood preserves store-specific configuration rather than forcing a generic schema.
Yes. Beyond reads, you can create opportunities, add comments and activities, send emails that log automatically, reassign sales team and BDC agents, and add or remove vehicles sought and trade-in records.