Bring in-market buyers to accurate vehicle pages through inventory and search ads, show prices buyers can pay, answer every lead fast with the price, availability and an appointment time, use chat after hours, and call or text only with consent. Measure appointments shown and cars sold by source.
Bought lead lists and texting without consent create legal risk and few appointments.
Leads for specific cars
The best leads are buyers asking about a specific vehicle. Google's vehicle ads show an image of the car with make, model, price, mileage and dealer name, and send the click to that vehicle's page on your site; they are available in the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan. Keep the inventory feed accurate to the hour, give every vehicle a page with real photos, full details and the price, and run campaigns by new, used and certified pre-owned. Our performance marketing service runs these campaigns.
Prices buyers can pay
A lead that arrives expecting one price and meets another rarely becomes a sale. In Ontario, OMVIC requires the advertised price to include all fees and charges the dealer intends to collect except HST and licensing, and counts dealer websites, marketplaces and social media as advertising. Federally, the Competition Bureau says promoting a price that cannot be attained because of mandatory fees is against the law unless the charge is imposed by government. In the USA, finance and lease figures trigger extra disclosures under Regulation Z and Regulation M; our Google Ads guide for dealers covers them.
Answer fast, with a real answer
Buyers often contact several dealers about similar cars. Answer every lead quickly, by the channel they used, with what they asked: the price, whether the car is available, trade-in next steps, and an appointment time. A templated reply that asks them to call wastes the lead. Track who answered each lead and how long it took, and review the slowest cases each week.
Chat for after-hours questions
Many buyers browse at night. A chat assistant on your vehicle pages can answer common questions (availability, features, hours, what to bring), collect contact details with consent, and offer appointment times, then hand the conversation to a person in the morning. Tell buyers when they are talking to an automated assistant. Our AI chatbot service builds these.
Calls and texts: consent first
Texting is often the fastest way to reach a buyer, and it is tightly regulated. In the USA, the FCC's TCPA rule (47 CFR 64.1200) requires prior express written consent for telemarketing calls and texts made with an autodialer or prerecorded voice, bars telephone solicitation before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time, and protects numbers on the national do-not-call registry. Do-not-call rules cover marketing texts as well as calls, and an opt-out made in any reasonable way, such as a STOP reply, must be honored within 10 business days; an FCC order effective 25 November 2026 changes some of how opt-outs work, so check it when you set up your process. In Canada, CASL requires consent before a commercial electronic message, including texts. Put clear consent wording on every form and keep the record. Email follows the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide.
Third-party leads and reviews
Marketplace and third-party leads can add volume; judge each source by appointments and sales, not lead count, and check how each collected consent before you call or text. Reviews bring buyers too: ask every customer after delivery and service the same way. The FTC's reviews rule bars fake reviews, rewarding reviews of a particular sentiment and suppressing negative ones.
How to measure dealer lead generation
By source: leads, leads answered and how fast, appointments set, appointments shown, cars sold and gross, and cost per sale. Track service leads separately, from booking to repair order. Lead counts alone mislead when a source brings buyers who never show.
What we do and do not do
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. We run inventory and search campaigns, build vehicle pages and chat, and set up consent capture for dealerships. We sell no lead lists, do no events or printing, and give no legal advice; your compliance team approves consent wording and ad terms. Our car dealership marketing page describes the work. This guide is general information, not legal advice.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.