Cost per lead looks fine; cost per sale doesn’t. How to tell a media failure from a handling failure before you cut the wrong dealership ad budget.
Three systems, three numbers, one store. Here’s which report to trust for which question — and how to tell a measurement artifact from an operational failure before you cut the wrong budget.
When a local shopper asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude where to buy, is your dealership named? What actually decides it — and how to get ahead before it’s the fire.
There’s no universal best channel for a dealership. Give each one a job, a leading indicator, and a named measurement risk — then fund the ones that earn the sold VIN.
Trace a dealership sale from first click to sold VIN: the four measurement layers, how to connect CRM and DMS outcomes without letting definitions drift — and why attribution describes credit while only experiments prove cause.
The right dealership marketing budget isn’t an industry percentage — it’s built from your own unit goals, contribution gross, and cost per incremental sale. Here’s the method.