Dealership PPC judged on units sold, not clicks bought.

Waste comes out in the first fortnight, because negatives, capped brand spend and paused catch-all campaigns take effect immediately. Structural gains follow over four to eight weeks as bidding relearns on cleaner conversion data. The honest read is one full sales cycle: appointments move before sold units do, and we agree that up front so nobody judges a rebuild on nine days of data.

Some, rarely as much as an inherited account does. Brand terms look magnificent in a vendor report because they convert cheaply, and much of that volume would have arrived anyway. Our approach is to hold enough brand coverage to defend against conquest bids from the group down the road, measure the incremental part honestly, and move the rest to models and stock that need help. It usually frees a meaningful share of budget in month one.

Management is a fixed monthly fee scoped to the account rather than a percentage of spend, which keeps our incentive pointed at efficiency instead of volume. Media is yours and paid directly. Judge us on cost per appointment and per sold unit against your gross per unit: with an industry average lead at $32.79 and about 10.2% of internet leads closing, the break-even is straightforward arithmetic we will do with you before you sign anything.

It is the difference between a good account and a guessing account. Without it, the platforms optimise toward whoever fills in a form — including tyre-kickers, duplicate enquiries and people shopping four states away. With appointments and sold units flowing back, the bidding learns which clicks became customers and buys more of those. We handle the plumbing, including the awkward part where the CRM export needs a field nobody has populated since 2019.

Yes, and we treat co-op as a funding source rather than a straitjacket. We keep compliant assets and disclaimers where the programme requires them, document what qualifies for reimbursement, and prepare the claim evidence so the money is actually recovered. Where a programme rule genuinely damages performance, we will show you the cost of compliance in numbers so the trade-off is a decision rather than an assumption.

Feed quality is the campaign. Trims, prices, photographs and availability have to be right and current, or spend goes to cars that sold on Tuesday. We audit the feed, fix what the platform lets us fix, escalate what it does not, and then connect it so budget follows stock pressure — ageing units pushed on purpose, hot models not subsidised for sales that were happening anyway.

It is a constraint we work with regularly, and often the highest-value thing we change. Where the platform allows custom templates we optimise those; where it does not, we build fast standalone pages for the campaigns carrying real spend and pass the lead straight into your CRM. Given 92% of dealer domains fail Google's mobile speed requirements, this is usually where the cheapest performance gain in the whole account is hiding.

In most stores, yes, and they often carry the better return. Fixed-ops searches are local, high intent and repeat every few months, the auction is cheaper than new-vehicle terms, and the work fills bays that are already staffed. We keep them in separate campaigns with their own budgets and their own conversion definition — a booked work order — so the sales pool never absorbs the money.

It can perform well in automotive, particularly with a healthy feed, but it needs guardrails: clean conversion data, brand exclusions so it does not quietly harvest your own name, sensible asset groups per department, and regular reporting on where placements actually ran. We use it where the data supports it and keep a controlled search structure alongside, so you always have a channel where the levers are visible.

They change where the research happens rather than where the money is spent. Cox Automotive found 19% of buyers, and 25% of new-vehicle buyers, using AI sites or AI overviews while shopping, which shifts some early comparison away from classic results while high-intent local queries still land in paid. We manage both from one plan — the ads keep buying the bottom of the funnel while our AI search work keeps your store present in the research stage.

Yes, and it usually goes better when everyone shares one conversion definition. We agree with the BDC what counts as an appointment, make sure the CRM records it the same way every time, and give the website vendor a short list of changes ranked by revenue impact rather than a forty-page audit. When something is genuinely blocked, we say which channel it is costing and how much, and let you decide.

Yes, and the numbers get more honest when one team holds them. Our dealership SEO, paid social and analytics specialists work from the same plan as the paid search team, so an appointment is attributed once instead of claimed by three vendors. Hiring us for search alone is equally fine — everything is documented and left in accounts you own.