Marketing for automotive dealership groups
Every month closes on a unit count, and next month's budget gets argued from what the last one delivered.
Where the money moves.
Dealer marketing runs on three tiers that rarely agree. The manufacturer sets national brand direction, the group runs its own layer, and the rooftop has to move the cars standing on its own yard this month. Co-op funding sits underneath all of it with claim rules, approved asset lists and audit trails attached, so a dealer principal spends real time proving an ad qualified rather than deciding whether it worked. The discipline that fixes this is building every asset claim-ready from the first draft: correct lockups, compliant drive-away pricing, disclaimers placed properly, evidence captured as it goes out.
Stock decides the calendar more than any brand plan does. Runout, plate clearance, a delayed shipment, a block of units ageing past the floorplan window, these change the brief on a Monday and the campaign has to change with them. Feeds answer that better than one-off creative. Live inventory pushed into vehicle listings, Marketplace, search and social means the ad set follows the yard automatically, and aged units can be weighted up without a fresh production round. It also stops you paying for clicks on a car that sold last Thursday, which quietly wrecks cost per delivered unit.
Plenty of dealership lead problems are handling problems wearing a marketing costume. An enquiry answered after lunch meets a buyer who has already booked a test drive elsewhere, and appointment set rate, show rate and close rate each cut the funnel again before spend can fairly be judged. So the reporting runs from the CRM back to the source: enquiries, appointments, shows, deliveries, split by campaign and by model. Once that view sits on one screen, the argument about lead quality tends to resolve itself, and the conversation moves to where the loss actually happens.
Fixed operations and used car acquisition carry margin the front end cannot, and both earn a budget line of their own rather than the remainder of one. Service and parts retention is a lifecycle programme built off the DMS against each customer's own interval, not a seasonal burst. Buying cars from the public is demand generation with its own funnel, its own valuation tool and its own economics, and when supply tightens it is often the highest-return line on the plan. Left as an afterthought, the yard fills with auction stock bought at auction prices.
What we run.
Co-op ready asset system
Every campaign built to the manufacturer's brand and pricing rules before the first draft leaves the studio, with the evidence pack of screenshots, spend, placements and invoices assembled while it runs. Claims get lodged on time instead of reconstructed at quarter end.
Live inventory feeds
Your DMS pushes stock into vehicle listing ads, catalogue campaigns and the website in near real time. Aged units get weighted up, sold units drop out the same day, and the campaign follows the yard without a rebuild every fortnight.
Used car acquisition
A separate funnel with its own valuation tool, landing page and follow-up. Search for owners typing their model and year, social prospecting across your catchment, and a valuation offer designed to capture a phone number rather than a browsing session.
Reporting to delivered units
CRM-back attribution across enquiry, appointment, show and delivery, split by campaign and model. Cost per delivered unit and days on lot replace cost per lead as the metric the monthly marketing meeting actually runs on.
Questions we get asked.
They are built for it. Asset specs, logo usage, pricing presentation and disclaimer placement follow the brand manual before anything goes live, and claim evidence is collected while the campaign runs. Where a manufacturer requires pre-approval, that step sits in the schedule rather than being discovered late. Where a placement is not claimable, you see that before the spend commits.
You do. Google Ads, Meta Business Manager, analytics, tag manager and the domains sit in the dealership's own name from day one, with our team added as users. If a rooftop is sold or the relationship ends, the history, audiences and conversion data stay with the business, and that is the part which takes years to rebuild.
Then that is what the reporting surfaces first. Time to first contact, appointment set rate and show rate sit next to spend, so the lead quality conversation has evidence attached to it. Routing, response scripts and follow-up cadence cost less to change than a budget increase does, and the delivery numbers show whether the change worked.
Yes. Different buyer, different cycle, different data source. Service marketing runs off the DMS against each customer's interval and recall history, while vehicle campaigns run off stock and the month. Sharing one budget line hides which of them is working, so each carries its own target and its own report.
Also in automotive
Talk to us.
9 services under one team, run against the numbers your business already reports on.
Contact the Ignis Team
Send through your details and we will audit your business before we reply.