Facebook’s targeting is based on interests, like people who engage with truck content or follow truck pages. But liking trucks doesn’t mean someone is shopping for one right now. Automotive buyer data uses real-world signals from our 10 data partners, like what vehicle someone currently owns, how long they’ve owned it, and whether they’re actively shopping for a vehicle, to identify people more likely to buy soon. We still run your ads on Facebook, but they’re shown to these buyer audiences instead of a broad interest group.

Google mostly reaches people based on what they search for or browse online. That works once someone is already typing “trucks for sale near me,” but by then they’re often comparing several dealerships, and those clicks are some of the most competitive and expensive in automotive. Google’s in-market audiences are also estimated from online behavior alone. Automotive buyer data adds real-world signals from our 10 data partners, like what vehicle someone owns and their shopping activity, so we can reach likely buyers earlier, often before they start searching.

Cars.com Social and Edmunds ads mainly retarget people who have visited those specific sites. That means you’re only reaching shoppers who happened to use one platform, and every other dealer buying the same product is reaching those same people. Our automotive buyer data draws from 10 data partners, including shoppers on car search sites, plus vehicle ownership, purchase intent and transaction data. That lets us reach likely buyers who never visited Cars.com or Edmunds, often before they ever see a competitor’s ad.

Here’s a dirty secret in the industry: “in-market shoppers” can mean a lot of things. Often, agencies are just using Meta’s or Google’s built-in audiences, or buying from a single data partner, which leaves big blind spots. We combine data from 10 partners to get a more complete picture of who’s actually shopping. Ask your agency exactly where their in-market data comes from. If they can’t name the source, that tells you a lot.

Yes. We have buyer audiences for RV, powersports and marine shoppers, built from the same kind of ownership and purchase intent signals we use for cars. These segments also tend to have less ad competition, so your budget often goes further.

Traditionally, automotive digital marketing campaigns can only optimize for more clicks, because sales happen offline at the store. We feed the Meta and Google AI your real sales data, training it to know which ads are selling cars and which ads just eat up clicks. This helps your ad campaigns get smarter over time to get more sales and lower the cost per sale, without increasing your budget. 

Yes our process works even better with marine, RV, powersports, construction, and other vehicle dealerships because there is less ad competition in those spaces. However, we cannot work with individual car salesman or auto brokers.