Buyer's guide
How to choose the best car dealership ad agency. 7 questions to ask first.
The best ad agency for a car dealership builds campaigns around your inventory, refreshes creative every month, reports in plain English, is upfront about what you pay and where your budget goes, and makes sure every lead it buys gets answered fast.
Quick questions, no call needed.
Updated 5 min readBy the Dealer Ad Solutions team
- YouTube
- Marketplace
- TikTok
The short answer
- The best ad agency for a car dealership builds campaigns around your inventory and your market, not generic brand ads.
- A good dealership ad agency is upfront about what you pay and where your budget goes, runs ads in your own ad accounts, and does not ask for setup fees or a long contract before you see results.
- A good dealership ad agency changes creative every month and reports in plain English: what ran, what it cost, what it brought in and what changes next.
- A good dealership ad agency knows who answers the leads its ads create, and how fast, because unanswered leads waste the budget.
- Walk away from an agency that cannot answer the 7 questions in this guide.
The questions
What should you ask any agency?
Us included. A good agency answers every one of these without a pause.
How do you charge?
Know exactly what you pay for the work, and whether any of it is a share of your ad spend. Your budget should go straight to the platforms, from ad accounts you own.
Ask them: What do we pay you, and is any of it a share of our ad spend?
Who answers the leads?
Ads create leads; leads go cold fast. If nobody answers fast, the best campaign in the world just buys you unanswered messages.
Ask them: What happens to a lead from our ads at 9 PM on a Friday?
Is it built around our inventory?
Dealership ads should sell the cars on your lot to the buyers in your area, not run generic brand campaigns.
Ask them: How do our current cars and our market shape the campaigns?
How often does the creative change?
The same ad for months gets ignored. Fresh creative and regular optimization keep cost per lead from creeping up.
Ask them: How often do you make new ads, and what do you change each month?
Can I read the report?
You should understand in two minutes what ran, what it cost, what it brought in and what changes next.
Ask them: Can we see an example of your monthly report?
What is the commitment?
Setup fees and long contracts move the risk onto you before you have seen a single result.
Ask them: Are there setup fees, and how long is the contract?
Which platforms, and why?
Google and YouTube reach buyers who are searching, Facebook and Instagram reach them in their feeds, and TikTok reaches buyers your competitors may not be reaching. The mix should fit your store.
Ask them: Which platforms would you use for us, and why those?
Side by side
How do we compare with the usual options?
Dealer Ad Solutions next to a typical agency and running your ads yourself.
Swipe to compare →
| What matters | OursDealer Ad Solutions | A typical agency | Doing it in-house |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Yes: A monthly fee, plus a small share of ad spend on some packages, none on the top ones | Partly: Varies: a flat fee, a share of spend, or both | Partly: Staff time, tools and learning curve |
| Your ad accounts | Yes: Yours. Your budget goes straight to the platforms | Partly: Sometimes the agency's own accounts | Yes: Yours |
| Setup fees | Yes: None | No: Common | Partly: Your time to set it all up |
| Commitment | Yes: Advertising alone is month to month | Partly: Often a long-term contract | Partly: None, but no expert either |
| New creative | Yes: Every month | Partly: Varies | Partly: When someone has time |
| Reporting | Yes: A plain-English report every month | Partly: Often a dashboard to decode | Partly: Whatever you build yourself |
| Every lead answered fast | Yes: Yes, with AI follow-up: messages answered within a minute | No: Usually not their job | Partly: When your team is free |
| Platforms | Yes: Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok | Partly: Varies by agency | Partly: Whatever you can learn |
Red flags
Walk away if you hear these.
Any one of them means your money works harder for the agency than for your store.
- No straight answer on what you pay, or where your budget goes
- Nobody can tell you who answers the leads, or how fast
- The same ads run month after month
- Reports you cannot read without a call
- A long contract and a setup fee before any results
Quick answers before you decide.
How do car dealership ad agencies charge?
Car dealership ad agencies charge in different ways: a flat monthly fee, a share of your ad spend, or both, and setup fees and long contracts are common. Before you sign, ask what you pay for the work and whose name is on the ad accounts. Dealer Ad Solutions charges a monthly fee with no setup fees; its top ad packages take no share of ad spend, and the others add a small fee on what your ads actually spent.
Who owns the ad accounts and the ad budget?
With Dealer Ad Solutions, your dealership owns its ad accounts and its ad budget. We manage the accounts for you, your budget is paid straight to the platforms from your own accounts, and we never raise it without your written consent. Once the fees are paid, the final ads we make for you are yours too.
Which ad platforms do you run?
Google and YouTube, Facebook and Instagram (Marketplace included), and TikTok. Vehicle Shopping Ads, which put your cars with photo and price in Google vehicle ads, come with Ads Scale + Vehicle Listings and Showroom Elite, or are available as an add-on.
Do you take a percentage of my ad spend?
On our top ad packages, no. On the others, there is a small management fee: a share of what your ads actually spent that month, billed after the month, never on budget that didn't spend. Your ad budget itself is paid straight to the platforms from your own ad accounts, and your quote shows the exact fee.
How will I know the ads are working?
You get a plain-English report every month: what ran, what it cost, which leads it brought in and what we are changing next. New creative and optimization passes run every month.
How long is a Dealer Ad Solutions contract?
Dealer Ad Solutions' AI follow-up packages have a 90-day minimum, the same 90 days the guarantee covers. After that, and for advertising on its own from the start, you can cancel any time with 30 days' notice; service ends at the close of the billing period in which those 30 days run out. There are no setup fees.
What does Dealer Ad Solutions cost?
Dealer Ad Solutions does not publish prices: every store gets its own quote for AI follow-up, advertising or both, with the plan sized to the store's monthly lead volume and ad spend. There are no setup fees. AI follow-up has a 90-day minimum, advertising on its own is month to month, and the top ad packages take no share of ad spend. See if you qualify, and you get your quote on the free demo.
Stop paying for leads nobody answers.
Four quick taps, then a short demo where you get your quote.
Who we work with
- 5 new stores set up a month
- Setup groups start on the 1st and the 15th
- 50 or more leads a month
- The owner or GM on the demo
What does your dealership sell?
Your quote is built around your store.
5 new stores a month · groups start the 1st and 15th · 50+ leads a month