Turning Auto Campaigns Into Dealership Visits: Smarter Insights for OEMs, Dealers, and Marketplaces
Automotive OEMs, dealerships, and third-party marketplaces are investing millions in digital advertising. But one
question remains the hardest to answer: did those dollars drive people into dealerships?
Agencies and in-house teams are tasked with proving ROI, optimizing across platforms, and defending budgets in a
competitive landscape. Yet too often, measurement stops at clicks or impressions. That leaves a gap between online
engagement and real-world dealership visits, the point where vehicles are actually sold.
At Chameleon Digital Media, this is where we come in. Our mission is clear: where offline behavior meets online
strategy.
The Problem Auto Marketers Face
Today’s automotive marketing ecosystem is fragmented. Brands spread investment across mobile, desktop, connected TV,
social, and search. Dealers and marketplaces then need to stitch together these results into a single story.
The problem? Most attribution models do not extend far enough. They show digital engagement, but they do not prove the
connection between media spend and dealership traffic. Without that last mile, it is difficult to show executives that
campaigns are creating measurable outcomes at the dealership level.
- 60% of automotive searches come from mobile devices
- 61% of auto shoppers contact a dealership by phone after a mobile search
- 42% of Canadian car buyers now start online but still finalize their purchase at the dealership, up from 29% in
2019 - 78% of marketers still rely on last-click attribution or basic analytics, leaving blind spots in offline
conversion attribution - Only 52% of marketers currently use attribution reporting, and 42% still report attribution manually using
spreadsheets
The Solution: Dealership Visit Insights
Chameleon bridges that gap with dealership visit insights. Here is how it works:
- Mapping dealerships nationally: we build a complete map of every dealership in your network
- Tracking visits during and after campaigns: our technology captures dealership visitation while
a campaign is running, and up to 30 days after - Cross-device attribution: we link visits back to media across mobile, desktop, and connected
TV, so nothing is left unaccounted for
The result is a clear line between advertising activity and dealership foot traffic. It gives auto marketers the
transparency they have been missing.
Competitive Overlap: Sharpening Strategy
The other advantage is competitive intelligence. Dealership visit insights do not just show you who came to your
dealerships, they reveal where else those same shoppers are visiting.
For marketers, this is gold. Competitive overlap insights help you:
- Identify audience crossover with rival OEMs
- Refine conquesting strategies to target in-market shoppers
- Align marketing efforts with real behavioral data
Instead of guessing where potential buyers are going, you will have the data to prove it.
Datalytica: Closing the Attribution Loop
Behind the scenes, Chameleon powers these insights with Datalytica, our proprietary attribution and
reporting platform.
Datalytica connects campaign delivery with real-world dealership outcomes in real time. It ingests cross-device data,
maps dealership visits, and provides dashboards that marketers can use to:
- Validate campaign performance across mobile, desktop, and CTV
- Attribute visits during campaign windows and up to 30 days post campaign
- Generate reporting that moves beyond spreadsheets into actionable, boardroom-ready insights
With Datalytica, OEMs, dealers, and marketplaces finally have a closed-loop reporting system that ties advertising
spend to the dealership floor, where buying decisions happen.
Proof in Action
Take a recent example: an auto marketplace wanted to show OEM partners how national campaigns could be tied directly
to dealership outcomes. By applying dealership visit insights, we were able to track foot traffic during and after
campaign delivery, then compare those results with competitor visitation patterns.
The outcome was simple but powerful: OEMs saw which campaigns actually drove people into dealerships, and agencies
gained the ability to refine targeting and strategy based on real-world results.
The Bottom Line
Auto marketing is evolving quickly, but one truth remains: dealership visits are what drive sales. Without a clear way
to connect online campaigns to offline results, marketers are left with partial answers.
Chameleon provides the missing link. With Datalytica powering dealership visit insights and competitive reporting,
OEMs, dealers, and marketplaces can finally measure what matters.
Want to see how dealership visit insights can sharpen your next campaign? Book a demo with Chameleon today.