Automotive Marketing Agency: 12 Best to Boost Car Sales in 2024 [Full Review]

The automotive marketing environment is extremely competitive and highly targeted. Businesses should work with a professional automotive marketing agency to find a unique marketing angle and increase ROI.

Almost 90% of US shoppers report a problem when shopping at dealerships, and over 60% feel taken advantage of. 

But how do you figure out what your shoppers dislike about your business?

And how do you ensure buyers feel comfortable and get personalized recommendations to boost brand experience?

The best way to achieve this is by working with an automotive marketing agency. These agencies have ample experience in the automotive marketing environment and understand what targeted buyers want.

We’ve made it easier for you and found the top automotive marketing agencies in 2024 and why businesses should pick them.

Ready to find the perfect automotive marketing agency for your brand and maximize revenue?

Let’s go!

How to  Choose an Automotive Marketing Agency

Here are some of the things you should consider when you’re looking for a great automotive agency:

• Services: The services your automotive marketing agency offers are vital. Some agencies take a specialized approach, and others provide a general range of automotive marketing services. The route you choose relies on what you need for automotive marketing. Brands needing robust services and expertise may prefer an all-in-one solution agency. 
• Case studies: Case studies matter when choosing an automotive marketing agency because you need an agency with proven strategies. Your agency should have helped brands similar to yours achieve impressive results. This information is typically available on an agency’s website.
• Portfolio: Working with agencies with big automotive brand names in their portfolio is always a big plus. However, the businesses your agency has worked with must be similar to yours because different-sized and structured brands require different approaches. So, while a marketing strategy worked for KIA, it may not work for you, and your agency must know how to find your signature approach.
• Credibility: Automotive marketing agencies must have authority and credibility to prove they know the industry. You can evaluate credibility from review platforms and websites, social media, and social proof on an agency’s website. Although accomplished agencies will cost more, you’d waste time and money working with an agency that can’t pull results.

When we chose the agencies to review here, we did a deep dive into their services, portfolios, case studies and client reviews for you but keep the above in mind when you’re comparing your options!

Source: #DigitalRetailer Podcast

What Services Does an Automotive Marketing Agency Offer?

Like most agencies, automotive marketing agencies offer a host of services that cover every aspect of your marketing. However, they need to offer strong services that are especially important for the automotive industry:

1.PPC Ads

Your automotive marketing agency will offer PPC (pay-per-click) ad services to help your brand gain exposure and drive qualified leads. PPC ads are powerful because you only pay once users click on your ad’s content.

But because automotive marketing comes with broad keywords, brands must be particular with the keywords they choose. Create and manage a negative keyword list to avoid paying for clicks from leads that aren’t likely to qualify and focus on intent-based keywords to capture traffic from serious buyers.

Your automotive marketing agency will guide you through this process and help you determine the best keywords to rank for and exclude from your PPC ad campaign. Any of the top automotive marketing agencies on this list can help you create personalized content for your PPC ad campaign and track your analytics too.

2.Fixed-op Marketing

Fixed operations include all the after-sales services your dealership offers, such as maintenance or repairs. Fixed-op marketing is a practice that drives brand loyalty. This marketing strategy works when people who’ve bought your cars bring them back for other services like repairs or maintenance. About one-third of car repairs in the US are solved by dealerships. Adopt fixed-op marketing to provide more value, services, and reasons for buyers to return to your brand. 

Redirecting customers back to your business welcomes increased chances of securing customer loyalty and building a referral network.

But fixed-op marketing isn’t simple. How you market these “extra” products and services must align with your primary products. The trick here is to make all your services convenient for buyers to find out about and use. You can also offer buyers exclusive deals for fixed-ops, like 10% off the first car service or 10% off your first repair.

An automotive marketing agency will help you define the best approach for your fixed-op marketing strategy. Your agency will consider what your target audience would value and how to enhance your brand experience and performance.

3.Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is valuable for automotive marketing because most businesses need to be easily accessible to the immediate community. When buyers in your area search for “second-hand Kia cars near me”, they must find your business. The automotive industry strongly relies on engaging local buyers and providing a competitive solution tailored to their needs.

An expert SEO strategy will ensure your brand is easily and quickly discoverable. Almost 70% of all internet searches start with search engine results, proving how crucial it is for automotive brands to adopt SEO practices.

Your SEO strategy will outline keywords for your ad content, Google My Business Page, and how you plan to create content that overthrows your competitors. When automotive brands develop SEO strategies, they must also ensure to include keywords relevant to their location and specialization. If you’re a car repair shop in downtown New York, you want to use your location “downtown, NY” and specialization, “car repairs” in your keywords.

4.Web Development

Automotive marketing agencies provide web development and design services because businesses in this sector need a targeted, conversion-driven website. Purchasing a car isn’t as simple as buying a pair of boots, so buyers need a lot more information and a higher level of trust in your brand.

You’ll lose out on conversions if your website doesn’t have elements like social proof and customer-centric content to improve your credibility and foster trust in your audience.
An automotive company’s website must build trust between the brand and its target buyers, clearly list the available services, and ensure buyers can effortlessly contact the brand.

While designing and developing your website, automotive marketing agencies will use customer data. These insights will reveal what content you should use and how to reflect your brand voice throughout your entire site.

You may assume you can DIY your automotive website using WIX or WordPress. Unfortunately, if you’re not a professional web developer and designer, your website won’t perform at its best.

When targeted buyers interact with unprofessional websites, your exit and bounce rates will increase, threatening your ranking on Google’s search engine results.

12 Best Automotive Marketing Agencies

1.SmartSites

SmartSites is an award-winning digital marketing agency with ample experience in the automotive industry. Working with this agency, your automotive marketing campaign will revolve around PPC ads, CRO strategies, web design optimization, and SEO. SmartSites has worked with many automotive businesses, including AGA Truck Parts, Baldwin Filters R Us, and Mickey Parts. Among all these clients, SmartSites has increased organic web traffic by 1550% and boosted sales revenue by over 40%.

2.Green Line Automotive

Green Line Automotive is a dedicated automotive marketing agency aiming to keep you ahead of your competitors. This agency provides a free website audit to evaluate your online authority and specialized solutions to drive performance on Google platforms. Automotive businesses can rely on Green Line Automotive for video marketing, paid search, and vehicle ad listings, SEO and social media marketing.

Source: Green Line Automotive

3.Local Dealers Marketing

Local Dealers Marketing has worked with many top-tier dealerships to boost revenue and traction. Some automotive brands include Ford, Jeep, KIA, and Toyota. Local Dealers Marketing uses a three-step approach to help automotive businesses reign the market. First, this agency will focus on your branding aspects to secure a memorable brand experience. Next comes your tailored sales strategy, and then Local Dealers Marketing will help you promote your business.

4.Automotive Marketing Gurus

Automotive Marketing Gurus (AMG) isn’t just an automotive advertising agency. Instead, this group of automotive experts helps businesses streamline their operations through project management, audits, reporting and analytics, and custom marketing strategies. AMG will work with your business to find the best solution and marketing campaign approaches. What you can expect from AMG includes email marketing, direct mail, business development consulting, and co-op programs.

5.Force Marketing

Force Marketing aims to help local dealerships increase customer retention rates, boost fixed-op revenue and target the right customers through tailored brand messaging. Ensuring you reach your automotive marketing goals, Force Marketing will create a specialized mix of omnichannel communication to deliver unique brand experiences. Force Marketing also provides lost shopper identification and video marketing and streaming.

6.PureCars

Working with brands like Lexus and Audi proves PureCars knows the automotive marketing industry. You can attract valuable buyers and drive brand awareness through social media ads, programmatic ads, personalized promotional onsite offers, and reporting analytics. PureCars has helped automotive businesses increase conversions by 27%, decrease costs per sale by 28% and waste 55% fewer leads.

7.JF Marketing

JF Marketing is a truly unique automotive marketing agency. Rather than focusing on traditional services like social media and video marketing, JF Marketing brings its innovative twist to the scene. This agency has grouped several technology solutions to help businesses optimize their sales pipelines and CRM strategies. There are five solutions – Quick2Credit, Quick2Trade, Textium email and direct mail, and Social Synergy.

8.Adpearance

Adpearance combines tech-driven marketing solutions and automotive marketing experience to help brands increase and measure ROI. This agency offers remarketing ads, online reputation optimization tactics, web design and development, PPC ads, social media ads, and video marketing. Adpearance also provides content marketing, email marketing, and advanced targeting to attract and convert qualified leads. Plus, this agency is a Google and Microsoft advertising partner!

9.Dealer Teamwork

Want to work with a 2024 Google Premier Partner and boost your vehicle listings? Dealer Teamwork can help your business! This automotive marketing agency makes digital marketing easy with efficient support, data-driven decision-making, and a proprietary vehicle merchandising platform. You don’t have to hassle with vehicle listings that don’t achieve results. Dealer Teamwork will optimize your ads, invite more sales opportunities, target the best buyers and manage lease offers and finance payments in real-time.

10.The Auto Agency

The Auto Ad Agency has a dedicated team of automotive marketing experts to help brands maximize their bottom lines. This agency focuses on four main offerings – SEO, SEM, traditional marketing, and digital marketing. As an exclusive automotive marketing agency, this agency has experience in both new and pre-owned automotive sectors. The Auto Ad Agency has developed TV commercials for KIA and BMW and created digital media campaigns for Fiesta Car Motors and American Jeep.

11.Omni Advertising

Omni Advertising focuses on turning big ideas into tangible success for automotive brands. This agency has generated over $1 billion in ad revenue, works with over 300 dealerships in the US, and represents 10 of the top 25 Honda dealers. Omni Advertising can help your business through a comprehensive, omnichannel marketing strategy centered around your target buyers. A few examples of the expert services Omni Advertising provides include traditional marketing, paid media, email marketing, and SEO.

12.Smartz

Smartz is a digital marketing auditing agency for automotive brands. This agency has almost three decades of industry experience and thousands of high-performing websites behind its name. Smartz is also a Google advertising partner. This agency will guide your automotive business to success through technical and local SEO, paid ad audits, content audits, and UI/UX audits. Smartz has worked on over 2500 automotive projects, helping businesses increase visibility and traction.

Conclusion

To find the best automotive marketing agencies consider an agency’s portfolio, case studies, services, and credibility. These agencies provide solutions for PPC ads, fixed-op marketing, SEO, and web development to help increase automotive sales, attract targeted buyers and build brand authority. A few of the best automotive marketing agencies are Green Line Automotive, Smartz, Local Dealers Marketing, Force Marketing, and Automotive Marketing Gurus.

References

BrightEdge Research: Organic Search Improves Ability to Map to Consumer Intent

Invoca Blog: 35 Statistics Automotive Marketers Need to Know in 2024

LinkedIn: You Will NEVER Maximize Digital Marketing for FixedOps Because the Industry has Set You Up to Fail – Here’s How to Fix It!