Criteo Advertising for Car Sales Leads

Dynamic retargeting that shows shoppers the exact vehicles they viewed on your site, across the web, at scale.

Criteo is one of the largest commerce advertising platforms, built on dynamic retargeting: showing a shopper who viewed products on an advertiser's site those exact products, and related ones, in display placements across the web after they leave, driven by the advertiser's product feed and Criteo's own shopper data across thousands of retailers. It also sells prospecting to find new shoppers and retail media, with targeting by geography and audience, outcome based bidding and reporting by campaign. It works with advertisers directly and through partners, and it requires a tag on the site and a feed of the products.

For a dealership the products are vehicles, and a shopper who viewed a specific used truck sees that truck, with price and photo, on the sites they visit afterward, which is the most direct retargeting there is. Inventory Link, the LeadLocate product that ingests a dealership's live inventory, is what makes the store's vehicles available for that kind of merchandising; a feed is not required for the platform's non dynamic formats.

Connecting your own Criteo account to the CRM has its own page: Run Criteo from Your Dealership CRM. This page is about the channel and the leads.

A store spends on Criteo for dynamic retargeting at the scale of a platform built for retailers, showing the exact vehicle a shopper viewed across the web, with shopper data that few platforms match. For a store with a live inventory feed and real website traffic it is the strongest retargeting format available.

The honest objection is that Criteo is built for retailers with large catalogs and budgets, so its minimums and onboarding suit groups and franchise stores more than a small lot, that it needs a tag and a feed the store's web vendor and Inventory Link provide, and that retargeting reaches only existing visitors and creates no new demand. Frequency needs capping.

For the broader case for this kind of channel, Automotive Retargeting Campaigns covers it without repeating what is here.

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Criteo fits dealer groups and franchise stores with live inventory feeds and meaningful website traffic, and the agencies that buy for them. It fits less well for small stores with little traffic and for stores without a web vendor to place tags. National sellers with feeds can run it nationally.

Criteo sells its placements through its own advertising console, and that console is where our team works. There are two ways to get there. The first is the webXintel Ads Network, included with every LeadLocate plan: you make your selections in Leads Manager, the zone you sell in, the campaign type and the questions a shopper answers before a lead is created, and our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections. The second is your own Criteo account. Ask for it from the Advertising Networks page inside the CRM and our team sets it up, usually the same day, so campaigns run under an account your dealership owns, with the spend on your card and the history in your name. If you or your agency already hold an account, say so in the request and we start from there. Nothing about the choice is permanent. A store can begin on the managed network and move to its own account later, or keep both running.

A Criteo sourced lead reaches the CRM as a return visit that becomes a form on the vehicle page the shopper was shown or on a LeadLocate lead page, a call to a tracked number, or a direct inquiry, attributed directly, often naming the exact vehicle. These shoppers already knew the unit.

Whichever way the shopper arrives, the record is the same. The lead carries its source, the campaign, and the answers to the pre screening questions you set in Leads Manager, and it goes to the salesperson or the rotation you chose in lead distribution. The first response can be automatic: a text, an email, a task on the calendar or a call from the BDC. If your store works leads in another CRM, turn on Instant Push and the lead is forwarded there by ADF the moment it arrives, at no change in price. What no channel can do is decide who submits the form. Some shoppers arrive with a VIN and a trade, some with a monthly budget and a rough idea, and both are real; what to expect from car sales leads covers that plainly.

A dealership that runs six channels through six vendors gets six reports, six invoices and six opinions about where the leads came from. Running Criteo through LeadLocate means it is planned in Leads Manager beside the others, its leads arrive in the same inbox with the same distribution rules, its follow up runs through the same texting, calling and email tools, and its results show up in the same reporting modules. Add a channel and the work does not grow; the picture does. The full set of channels a store can ask for is on the advertising channels page, and it matches the list inside the CRM.

The tools behind that inbox are the ones a store already uses on its other leads: automated first contact by text or email, calls placed from the CRM with the recording transcribed onto the record, voicemail drop for the ones who do not answer, drip processes for the ones who are months away, appointments on the shared calendar, and desking when the shopper arrives. A lead from Criteo gets all of it, because the CRM does not care where a lead came from once it is in.

For an agency with dealer group clients, Criteo is dynamic retargeting at retail scale, and connecting each store's LeadLocate CRM shows the returned shoppers who inquired about the vehicles they were shown.

If an agency runs Criteo for your store today, nothing about that has to change. The agency connects the account it already manages, or requests the placement through us, and the leads flow into your LeadLocate CRM where your salespeople work them and your managers can see the follow up. The agency sees the same reports you do. For the agency, the appeal is practical: one platform for every channel and every client instead of twenty consoles, a real CRM behind the campaigns without having to build or license one, and a lead flow from the webXintel Ads Network it can offer any dealership on day one. The referral program in the CRM pays agencies for stores they bring. More on the arrangement at dealer-marketing-attribution-softwareL.

Geography is the first setting on every LeadLocate campaign, and it is yours. Draw the zone you sell in with the zone editor in Leads Manager, a radius, a list of counties or a state, and Criteo placements are bought for that zone and nothing outside it. Brokers who sell to the whole country set the whole country; a group draws one zone per rooftop and the reporting comes back the same way, so a regional manager can see which store's market answered. Financing audiences stay inside fair lending rules on every channel: Leads Manager keeps them from being narrowed by age, gender, income, marital status, household size, education, language or ZIP, with locked controls, so a store is protected without thinking about it. Everything else, the vehicles, the message, the radius, is open.

Two steps. First, if your dealership is not on the platform, pick a plan on the pricing page; every plan is month to month with no long term contract, and every plan includes the webXintel Ads Network. Second, from Leads Manager inside the CRM, open Advertising Networks and request Criteo. Our team handles the setup, usually the same day, and the campaign is planned from your zone and your selections. Spend on an account you own is billed to you by Criteo; there is no markup on it from us. If the store's process lives in another CRM, Instant Push forwards each lead there by ADF.

Expect a short conversation before anything runs: which vehicles, which zone, which questions a shopper should answer, what a fair trial of Criteo looks like in your market and when to review it. Then the campaign runs and the reporting does the talking. A channel that earns its place stays; one that does not is turned off from the same page, and the store keeps the leads, the records and the history either way.

What does Criteo need from the dealership?

A tag on the website placed by the store's web vendor and a feed of the vehicles. Inventory Link is the LeadLocate product that ingests a store's inventory; ask about it in the request. Our team coordinates the website tags with your web vendor.

Is Criteo affordable for a single store?

It is built for retailers and its minimums suit groups and franchise stores. A small store usually starts retargeting with a self serve platform and grows into Criteo.

How is the campaign measured?

By return visits that become forms on vehicle pages and the lead page, calls to a tracked number and direct inquiries, attributed directly in the CRM with the vehicle named.

Do I need my own Criteo account to run it through LeadLocate?

No. The webXintel Ads Network is included with every plan and needs no account of yours. If you want campaigns under an account your dealership owns, request the connection from the Advertising Networks page and our team sets it up, or connects the Criteo account you or your agency already hold.

Can Criteo leads go into the CRM we already use?

Yes. Turn on Instant Push in the CRM settings and every lead is forwarded to your existing CRM by ADF the moment it arrives, with its source attached. The subscription price is the same whether you work leads in LeadLocate or forward them.

What does LeadLocate charge for Criteo?

The platform is a monthly subscription, month to month with no long term contract; the plans are on the pricing page and each includes the webXintel Ads Network. Media you buy through your own Criteo account is billed by Criteo to you, not marked up by us. We do not tie the price to results, because no one can promise what a shopper will do.

Request Criteo from inside the CRM and our team sets it up, usually the same day. Not on LeadLocate yet? Pick a plan, month to month, and start with the included webXintel Ads Network this week.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

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