Industry · Automotive

The showroom visit is the end of the journey now, not the start of it.

Two businesses under one roof.

The Landscape

Where this market stands

Australia's motor vehicle dealer industry generates around $103.6 billion a year, with more than 3,900 new-car dealerships employing over 64,000 people, and Australians bought more than 1.2 million new vehicles last year, one of the strongest markets on record.

But the path to those sales has inverted: buyers arrive at the dealership having already researched models, prices and finance online, often with the shortlist decided. The dealerships and service businesses winning now are the ones visible during that research phase, not the ones with the biggest forecourt.

$103.6bn

Australian motor vehicle dealer industry

SRC · IBISWorld, 2025-26

1.21m

New vehicles sold in Australia last year

SRC · FCAI VFACTS, 2025

64,000

Australians employed by new-car dealerships

SRC · AADA, 2025

The Signal

What the data says

Automotive service and repair is one of the most efficient categories in digital advertising: the lowest average cost per lead of any industry at around $28.50, with search conversion rates near 14.7%. For fixed operations (service, parts, tyres), paid search is close to a solved acquisition channel when the account is built properly.

Vehicle sales run heavier economics. Advertising costs average around $700 per vehicle sold, and digital now takes over 70% of dealer ad budgets, which makes attribution across the long, multi-visit buying journey the difference between knowing what sold cars and guessing.

$28.50

Average cost per lead for auto service, the lowest of any industry

SRC · WordStream, 2025

14.67%

Average search conversion rate for automotive service

SRC · WordStream, 2025

72%

Share of dealer advertising budgets now spent on digital

SRC · Industry reporting, 2025

The Friction

What gets in the way

Every automotive business is really two: high-value, low-frequency vehicle sales and low-value, high-frequency fixed operations (service, parts, tyres), and the marketing needs are opposite. Sales demands stock-integrated campaigns, model-level landing pages and weeks of retargeting through a long deliberation; fixed ops demands always-on local search where sub-$30 leads and 14.7% conversion rates live. Most budgets chase the metal and starve the workshop that carries the margin.

The segments layer their own constraints on top: franchised dealers operate inside OEM co-op rules and brand templates that make differentiation nearly impossible, independents and used-car operators carry a trust deficit against a market trained to expect the worst, and carsales.com.au dependency does to dealers what portals did to real estate: rising listing costs for undifferentiated visibility the dealer never owns.

Then the follow-through leaks: internet enquiries answered hours later when the buyer emailed five dealerships, no after-hours response while a third of enquiries arrive overnight, service reminder programs left to the DMS defaults, and attribution that can't connect the first model search to the showroom visit weeks later, so ad spend gets judged on clicks while sold units and repair orders go untracked.

Our Approach

How we work in Automotive

01
Split the programs: dedicated fixed-ops campaigns on always-on local search (service, tyres, brakes, logbook) with online booking, and separate vehicle-sales campaigns with model landing pages, stock-feed ads and long-window retargeting.
02
Dominate the catchment: Google Business Profile, review velocity and suburb-level Local SEO for both sales and service departments, because when the shortlist is set, Maps position and star rating decide the visit.
03
Beat the response clock: speed-to-lead automation, after-hours AI chat and SMS follow-up sequences, since the dealership that answers an internet enquiry first usually wins it regardless of price.
04
Own the retention revenue: DMS-connected email and SMS service reminders, lapsed-customer reactivation and trade-in triggers timed to ownership cycles, the highest-margin marketing a dealer can run.
05
Attribute to the metal: call tracking, showroom-visit attribution and reporting tied to sold units and repair orders, so budget follows what actually moves inventory, not what clicks.