How Auto Dealers Can Market in a Changing Economy

Highlights: 

• Auto dealers can thrive during economic uncertainty by understanding how market conditions impact buyers.

• Data-driven marketing strategies, including expanded economic and behavioral insights, are crucial for identifying and targeting high-potential buyers.

• Integrating economic-based marketing segments with digital advertising platforms can lead to significant increases in inquiries and reach, and lower costs per inquiry.

Ongoing economic uncertainty has many auto buyers worried and acting a lot differently than, say, a year ago. Knowing this, how are you adjusting your marketing strategies to ensure you’re identifying and engaging the right audiences at a time when consumer finances and behaviors are so fluid and fast-changing? 

Today’s auto market is not for the faint-hearted.

Buyers are stressed about the soaring cost of living, high interest rates, and tariff hikes. As an auto marketer, you need to understand the impact that volatile market conditions are having on buyers so you can continue to connect with the right audiences who are interested in buying and can afford to buy. 

What you might not realize is that today’s temperamental economy is creating a unique opportunity for you to race ahead of your competitors. Why? Some dealers and lenders may be idling their marketing or even reducing their marketing spend, waiting to see what happens next.

But, with the right strategy, you can confidently push forward, targeting high-potential buyer audiences, closing more high-quality auto loans, and moving more vehicles off your lots. 

It’s an aggressive approach that’s ideal for automotive marketers, and it begins with the data. 

Market smarter by knowing more.

Standard marketing demographics are good for basic segmentation, but they provide little to no economic differentiation to help you pinpoint your most promising buyer audiences. For this, you need to know more. 

• Are they in the market for a new vehicle? If so, what make and model?

• What’s their total income (including retirement, investments, etc.)?

• What’s their capacity to spend? And how much are they currently spending? 

• Are they overextended, or are they underutilizing their credit? 

• Are they financially durable, or are they one unplanned expense away from delinquency or bankruptcy?

These are the precise and highly predictive economic and behavioral insights you need as an automotive marketer. This type of expanded visibility can help you confidently identify which buyers to target and which ones to avoid. It can help preserve your marketing resources by powering more targeted campaigns. And it can enable more personalized messaging and offers that drive increased buyer inquiries and conversion rates.  

Equifax provides this type of anonymized consumer economic data to auto marketers, digital marketing agencies, and marketing platform providers. Our IXI Digital Targeting Segments, Auto In-market Propensity Scores, and more can be seamlessly delivered to support omni-channel marketing and advertising across today’s leading technology platforms. And you can get fast access for use in upcoming campaigns since the data is cloud-based and available for quick delivery via multiple channels and platforms. Check out our partner ecosystem. 

But don’t take my word for its effectiveness. Here’s a real-life success story with a mic-drop ending. 

Skyrocket vehicle sales inquiries and slash costs.

The automotive digital marketing agency, DealerOn, recently conducted a social advertising experiment for its client, a luxury automotive dealer group. As part of its digital strategy, DealerOn was using Meta’s Advantage+ machine learning to find and target look-alike buyers. 

But how much added lift and exposure could be achieved by layering Equifax economic-based, automotive marketing segments with Advantage+ Custom Audiences from Meta? How would the combination impact reach, inquiry volume, and cost per inquiry? 

Fast forward to the end of the experiment, and the results were striking. On average, dealers participating in the test experienced a:

• 57% increase in inquiries

• 23% increase in reach

• 36% lower cost per inquiry

Further supporting overall testing ease and efficiency was our ability to quickly, seamlessly, and securely deliver Equifax data to Meta via the Equifax Cloud.  

By seamlessly layering targeted economic insights into its current digital strategy, the dealer group became even more intentional and strategic in its platform advertising and improved crucial marketing metrics. View the full case study. 

As the current economic landscape continues to unfold and evolve, this is no time for a “wait and see” approach to marketing and advertising. Future auto buyers are out there waiting for you. 
Ready to learn more? Discover how Equifax can help automotive businesses drive growth with its suite of industry-focused insights and solutions.