Car Dealer Digital Advertising

What to check before you buy

Ownership and money come next. The dealership should own its ad accounts, Facebook Page and pixels, with the agency granted access.

Then campaigns and audiences stay if the agency leaves. Get the assets listed in writing.

For franchise stores, manufacturer co-op programs reimburse a share of approved advertising. Rates run from about 30 percent to 100 percent of eligible spend, up to an accrued balance.

Claims are denied when ads use unapproved vendors, creative or eligibility. So ask whether the agency files co-op claims and knows your brand's rules.

Reporting should trace vehicles sold to the campaign, separate lead-to-close by source, and show sales and service results apart.

Review the search terms, audiences and placements the ads reached, not only the totals. Ask the agency to share the raw platform reports every month, check that brand terms are not taking credit for sales that would have come anyway, and look at the cost per sold vehicle by campaign, since a campaign with cheap clicks and no sales is a bad buy, and a campaign with fewer clicks and steady sales may be your best.

Review the creative and the landing pages as well as the budget. A strong campaign sends a shopper to the exact vehicle or offer advertised, with a price that matches the ad, and a weak one sends everyone to the homepage.

Ask to see each campaign's ad, its landing page on a phone and the lead or call that results, and check that the offer is accurate and the required disclosures are present. Ask who writes the ads and how manufacturer approval is obtained for franchise brands.

Then check how the agency is paid. Percent-of-spend fees reward higher spending, flat fees reward steady work and performance fees reward whatever is measured, so ask which applies and whether any incentive could push spending up without helping sales. Compare the agency's fee and media cost with your cost per sold vehicle, and ask for the raw platform reports each month.

Keep a simple monthly record of each campaign's spend, sold units, cost per sold vehicle and the reason you kept or changed it. Over a year that record shows which channels earned their budget, which only looked busy and which assumptions about your market were wrong. It also makes a change of agency far easier, because the next team starts from evidence instead of memory.

Questions to put to every car dealer digital advertising vendor

• Who owns audiences, accounts and creative?
• How is incrementality measured?
• Can spend and fees be separated cleanly?

Other categories dealers compare alongside Digital advertising: Dealership websites & CMS, Email, SMS & lifecycle marketing, SEO, local & AI-search visibility, Digital marketing agencies & managed services, Social media & reputation, and Marketplaces & lead providers.