CAR DEALER MARKETING / SEARCH / DATA / AI
Car dealer marketing
One team for search, advertising, your website and AI search, with every dollar set against the leads it produced.
REQUEST A FREE ANALYSISSHORT ANSWER
Where is your dealership's marketing money actually going?
Most dealers cannot say. Each vendor reports from its own dashboard, so traffic, rankings and clicks look fine while no report shows which spend produced a lead or a sale. Carbide connects the channels, finds the wasted spend and the gaps between vendors, and moves budget to what works.
Updated
#Where the money leaks
The SEO vendor reports rankings, the ad agency reports clicks and the website provider reports sessions. Every report looks good, and none shows what produced last month's sales.
The leaks sit between vendors: ads bidding on terms you already rank for, two vendors claiming the same lead, a listing site charging for shoppers who searched your own name.
#What car dealer marketing includes
Eight pieces, and they behave differently. Some keep working after you stop paying and others stop the day you do. Most stores have a vendor for each piece and no one looking at all eight.
#Budget by decision, not by channel
Shoppers make decisions rather than channel choices. Someone choosing where to service needs different things than someone choosing between two trucks. Fund the decision that is stuck and let the channel mix follow.
Check for the line item that renewed automatically and was never reviewed. Every plan should have a list of things to stop.
#What happens after the lead arrives
A slow or generic reply loses the customer as surely as a bad ad. Check how fast your team answers, whether the reply is specific to what the shopper asked, and whether follow-up continues through the whole buying cycle.
#Questions that show whether your marketing is working
Start with one definition of a lead, applied to every vendor. Then ask each vendor the same questions.
What is included.
- 01Car dealer marketing strategy
- 02Dealership SEO and content architecture
- 03Paid media and budget allocation review
- 04Social media management and campaign planning
- 05Website conversion and speed review
- 06Vendor selection and negotiation support
- 07Dealer AI marketing and workflow planning
- 08Marketing analysis and executive reporting
QUESTIONS
Questions about car dealer marketing
How is car dealer marketing measured?
+
On outcomes the store cares about (qualified leads, answered calls, cost per acquired customer), using one definition of a lead applied to every vendor, because without that single definition the totals cannot be added and every budget argument is unresolvable.
How long until car dealer marketing shows results?
+
Paid channels and conversion fixes move within weeks: that is what you are buying. SEO, content and AI-search visibility compound over months and are still working a year later. A plan needs both, and comparing them on speed alone answers the wrong question.
Do you work with OEM and co-op requirements?
+
Yes. Co-op changes the effective cost of channels relative to each other, so a media plan built without it is optimizing the wrong number. The program requirements belong in the creative brief instead of in the claim: see OEM co-op advertising.
Can Carbide replace our current marketing agency?
+
Yes. Carbide takes over SEO, advertising strategy and reporting from an agency, and works alongside your website vendor. The free analysis shows where your budget goes and what is working. The budget then moves to the channels that earn it.
How much of my dealership's marketing budget is being wasted?
+
No standard percentage exists, and anyone who quotes one is guessing. The usual sources are ads bidding on searches you already rank first for, listing sites charging for shoppers who searched your name, and vendors whose work overlaps. Reviewing spend by channel against leads finds them.
How do I know if my dealership's SEO vendor is performing?
+
Ask for organic traffic, leads from organic search, and rankings for searches that are not your dealership's name. Rankings for your own name prove nothing. A report with no leads in it is a traffic report.
Why do my vendors' reports all look good when sales are flat?
+
Each vendor measures its own channel and counts its own wins. The same shopper can be credited three times. Without one definition of a lead across every vendor, the reports cannot be added up.
RELATED READING
FREE ANALYSIS