Widget Carousel — Your Full Carvia Report, One Embed

Release Overview

The Widget Carousel is Carvia's flagship dealer embed — one script tag that delivers your complete vehicle intelligence suite on every Vehicle Detail Page.

Instead of installing widgets one at a time, your team gets a single, mobile-friendly carousel with Carvia Score, AI insights, valuation, verified records, ownership timeline, specifications, and ownership cost analysis — all in one horizontal experience shoppers can swipe through. Each slide appears only when data is available, so the carousel stays clean instead of showing empty panels.

The carousel is the same experience shoppers see on Carvia's sample report and shared vehicle pages. Your sales team can point to one embed and say: “Everything you need to know about this car is right here.”

The Problem We Solved

Dealers wanted Carvia on their VDP, but installing multiple widgets created clutter, inconsistent layouts, and a poor mobile experience.

Before the carousel, each widget was a separate embed — different heights, different load times, different placement decisions. Internet managers had to choose which intelligence to show and which to hide. Sales reps had no single place to walk a shopper through the report. Mobile VDPs became a vertical stack of iframes that never felt native.

The carousel bundles everything into one cohesive, swipeable experience. Data loads in parallel behind the scenes, slides appear based on what's available for that VIN, and the embed resizes itself so your page layout stays clean.

What's Included

Eight intelligence slides, loaded in parallel and shown only when data is available for that vehicle.

How It Works

1. You add one embed snippet. A mount div with data-widget="widget-carousel" plus a deferred SDK script with your publishable key. Your Carvia account team generates this from the admin widgets workspace — no engineering required for standard installs.
2. The SDK waits for visibility. The carousel loads only when the mount point enters the viewport, keeping your VDP fast. It exchanges your publishable key for a session token against your verified domain.
3. An iframe renders the carousel. Sandboxed, full-width, with dynamic height. The embed reads VIN, mileage, and listing price from your page and fetches all widget data in a single parallel resolve call.
4. Slides populate based on data. Score, insights, valuation, records, timeline, specs, costs, and EV data resolve together. Visibility rules filter out slides with missing or fallback content.
5. The iframe resizes automatically. When shoppers switch slides or content loads, the carousel notifies your parent page of its new height — eliminating the awkward scroll gaps that plague most dealer iframe embeds.
6. SEO snapshot injects into your page. By default, a collapsible HTML summary is added to the parent DOM for search engine indexing — billed as part of the widget render, not separately.

Mobile Experience

Most VDP traffic is mobile. The carousel was designed for thumb navigation from day one.

• Swipe navigation — horizontal swipe with a 50px threshold distinguishes deliberate swipes from vertical page scrolling
• Scrollable tab header — all slide titles visible in a horizontal tab strip; active tab auto-scrolls to center
• Prev/next controls — arrow buttons and keyboard navigation for accessibility
• Progress indicator — slide counter and progress bar so shoppers always know where they are in the report
• Dynamic height — iframe shrinks and grows with the active slide so mobile pages don't have dead space below the carousel

The result: a report experience that feels native on a phone, not like a desktop widget squeezed into a narrow iframe.

Embed Reliability

Through June 2026 we hardened the embed for real dealer websites — where iframe sizing, domain verification, and platform-specific layouts matter.

• Parent resize notifications — ResizeObserver posts height changes to your page via postMessage, eliminating fixed-height iframe scroll gaps
• Domain-aware ZIP resolution — valuation uses the postal code configured for your verified dealer domain, not a generic default
• Embed cache partitioning — client-side cache partitioned by parent hostname for multi-domain dealer groups
• Session security — tokens issued only to verified domains on your account; unverified origins rejected at session exchange
• Dealer.com layout — dedicated integration mode mounts into primary-banner with deferred loading on first scroll

Lead Capture

The carousel turns passive VDP browsing into captured leads — without sending shoppers off your site.

Get My Full Report is a gradient CTA in the carousel title bar. Shoppers enter their name and contact info, and Carvia generates a shareable vehicle report URL they can save, text, or email. Your sales team gets the lead notification with full vehicle context.

• Recipient name, email, and/or phone (at least one required)
• Optional personal message and SMS opt-in
• Dealer staff can claim the send with seller name, email, and role
• Share URL with copy-to-clipboard in the success modal
• reCAPTCHA v3 protection on submission

The shared report page delivers the same carousel experience — so the lead arrives pre-educated on score, insights, valuation, and history before they walk onto your lot.

Value by Role

For sales professionals

• One embed to demo on the lot — swipe through score, insights, and valuation without juggling multiple tools
• Buyer-facing transparency — builds trust before the desk conversation starts
• Get My Full Report — capture leads directly from the VDP with a shareable report link

Scenario: A shopper is on the fence about a used SUV. Your rep opens the Insights tab on their phone, walks through buyer-fit summary and ownership timeline, then taps Get My Full Report — the lead is in your CRM before they leave the lot.

For general managers

• Consistent merchandising — every VDP in inventory gets the same intelligence experience
• Full-lot coverage — used, new, and EV inventory on one embed (new-car support)
• Usage-metered billing — transparent per-render tracking with Stripe integration

For marketing and internet directors

• Differentiated VDPs — intelligence-rich pages vs. competitors still showing stock photos and thin factory copy
• SEO snapshot — searchable vehicle intelligence injected into your page DOM by default
• Foundation for SRP — pairs with the SRP Listing Badge for search results merchandising
• Audit-ready — run VDP Audit to show prospects what their pages are missing

Related Releases

The Widget Carousel is the delivery layer for everything Carvia builds:

• Buyer-Fit Insights & New Cars — consultative AI tone and new-inventory support
• Local Market Context — ZIP-aware valuation in the Value slide
• EV Insights — electric-vehicle slide inserted automatically when applicable
• AI Vehicle Report Chat — conversational layer on the same VDP data
• Get My Full Report — share flow and lead capture in the title bar
• Widget Analytics — measure engagement and conversion from carousel renders

Getting Started

1. Contact your Carvia account team for widget-carousel access and your publishable key. The admin widgets workspace generates your header script and body markup — copy-paste ready.
2. Add the embed snippet to your VDP template. One mount div with data-vin, data-mileage, and data-listing-price attributes, plus the deferred SDK script. For Dealer.com, use the dedicated integration mode instead.
3. Verify your dealer domain. Add your VDP domain in the admin workspace and complete DNS TXT verification. Configure your postal code per domain for accurate local valuation.
4. Test on live inventory. Open used and new VDPs on mobile and desktop. Confirm slides load, swipe works, and the iframe resizes cleanly.
5. Train your team and connect analytics. Use the carousel as the single walkthrough tool on the lot, and pair with Widget Analytics to measure engagement.