Car Dealer Ad Maker: Design Studio Image Ads

Pick a unit from your lot or an offer from the brand, and the ad is laid out before your coffee cools: the real photo, the right price, the terms that offer needs and your logo, in every size the store posts or prints.

Image Ads is the first tool on the screen when you open Design Studio from the dock in LeadLocate CRM, and it has one job: turn a vehicle the store actually has, or an offer the store can actually honor, into a finished ad. You choose the source: a unit from your inventory, an OEM offer from the brand, or a store special from Inventory Link. The ad maker brings in the photo, the year, make, model and trim, the price or the offer figure, and the store's name, address and logo. It lays all of that out in the style you pick and keeps the fine print the offer needs where a shopper expects to find it.

That is the difference between a car dealer ad maker and a blank design tool. In a blank tool somebody retypes the price from the website and hunts for the logo file, and the ad is wrong the day the price changes. Image Ads reads the same inventory that Inventory Link imports from your website, so every ad starts from the store's own data, and a saved ad reopens with today's price rather than the one it was made with. The result is dealership image ads that match the lot, made in minutes by the people who sell the cars.

It fits every kind of store we serve. A franchise store builds from the brand's offers. An independent or buy here pay here lot builds from its own units and specials. An RV or boat dealer gets the same layouts around a motorhome or a center console.

Tuesday at ten, the used car manager wants three trucks pushed before the weekend. He opens the Inventory page, clicks the first truck, and presses Make an Ad in its photo viewer. Image Ads opens with that unit already loaded. He tries Showroom, then Billboard, and settles on Dealer Flyer because the photo is strong. He has the AI write the headline and the copy, changes one word, and drags the price a little higher on the preview. Then he presses Every social size and downloads the same ad in every social shape, ready for the store's Facebook page and Instagram. The other two trucks take less time, because the style is already chosen.

Wednesday the sales manager wants one piece for the service lounge and the front counter. She switches from Single ad to Lineup, picks eight SUVs from the tray, chooses the Price List style, and has each tile show a monthly payment. She types the APR, the term in months and the down payment, and the payments fill in on every tile while the fine print numbers itself to match. She exports a print shop PDF with trim, bleed and crop marks and emails it to the printer the store already uses.

Friday a salesperson has a customer thinking about a lease. He opens the brand's lease offer in Image Ads, the terms come in locked, he picks a story size, and presses Text it to a lead. The composer opens on her thread with the ad attached. He adds a line of his own and presses Send himself.

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Image Ads opens with a full set of inventory ad templates, each one a complete layout rather than a blank page: Showroom, Dealer Flyer, Billboard, Price Drop, Offer Sheet, Luxury, Magazine Cover, Split and Night Drive. Every style reserves room for the fine print first, then fits the photo, the headline, the price, the selling points and the contact block around it, so a long model name or a three line disclaimer never runs off the edge. The words shrink before the photo gives up its space.

Sizes come in two families. Five social sizes run from square posts to full screen stories and wide link images. Six print sizes, the Flyer among them, carry an eighth of an inch of bleed and a safe area at print resolution. A print check tells you when a photo or a logo is too small for the size you picked, before the printer does, and print pieces can carry a QR code that opens the vehicle's listing. Exports are a PNG or JPG, a print shop PDF with trim, bleed and crop marks, an office PDF for the printer in the building, and every social size at once in a single download.

Nothing on the layout is fixed in place. Click anything on the preview to move it, size it, align it or hide it, and press Put it back when you change your mind. Pan and zoom the photo inside its frame, or show the whole photo. The Layout panel keeps Undo, Redo and Reset this layout one click away, and each size keeps its own moves.

AI writing help drafts the headline and the ad copy from the vehicle's own details, written for a still ad or a print piece rather than for a video. It can also make the scene, a backdrop drawn in the exact shape of the ad, so a square post and a tall story each get one that fits instead of a stretched copy. Everything the AI writes lands in fields you can edit, and nothing leaves the studio until you export it or send it.

The logo starts as the store logo on the account. Under Your logo a rep can upload another one or pick one already uploaded, and Show our logo on the ad turns it off for a piece that should go out without it. The pick is shared with Video Reels, and every saved ad in My Ads keeps the logo it was made with.

Lineup puts two to sixteen vehicles, offers or specials on a single ad, in four styles, Showcase Grid, Dealer Cards, Price List and Spotlight, at all eleven sizes. Each tile shows the price, a payment or the name only. Payments are worked out from the APR, the months and the down payment you type, and the ad holds until all three are in. Each offer's terms are numbered to match its tile, identical terms are merged, and Next photo steps a tile through that unit's other photos. Pick for me fills the lineup when you would rather not choose.

Most stores get ads one of three ways. A freelancer or an agency bills by the piece and needs a day or a week for each change. A brand co-op template looks like every other store in the region and knows nothing about the units on your lot. Or someone on the team builds it in a free online design tool, retypes the price, grabs whichever logo file is on the desktop, and exports at a size the printer sends back. None of them know that the truck in the ad sold on Tuesday.

Image Ads replaces that with a car dealer ad maker on the dock that starts from the store's live inventory and offers. A manager makes the weekend's ads in the time it used to take to write the request, and a salesperson makes his own for the customers he is working, from the same templates, with the same logo and the same terms. The print shop still prints the flyer; it just receives a file it can print as is.

Image Ads is part of Design Studio, which comes with the LeadLocate platform subscription. A LeadLocate bill is made of the plan subscription, users beyond the login each plan starts with, which are an add-on, and usage credits for metered work such as bulk texting, phone and email validation and voicemail drop deliveries. The plans are laid out on the pricing page.

Finance and lease ads live under the trigger term rules of Regulation Z and Regulation M: once an ad states a payment, a term or an amount due at signing, the rest of the terms have to be there too. Image Ads is built around that. An OEM finance, lease or cash offer comes in with its terms locked. They show as Required offer terms, the rep can add lines to them, and they are drawn in full at a readable size on every format. When a size is too small to hold them, that size is held with a notice and a one click move to a taller size that fits, so a cut disclaimer never reaches a printer.

The same rule follows a rep who types. A payment or a rate typed into the headline or the price line makes terms required, and the ad waits on Add the terms before it exports. Offers and specials that have ended hold until they are taken out. A struck price appears only on a new unit and is labelled MSRP, and the Price Drop stamp reads Below MSRP, so the ad never implies a former store price. The post caption carries the full fine print every time you copy it.

Your manager still signs off on every piece, and now he signs off on an ad that arrives with the offer's terms already on it. The store's own wording for disclosures sits with compliance disclosures and privacy notices, set once per store.

Design Studio has its own button on the dock at the bottom of LeadLocate CRM on the desktop, and Image Ads is the tool it opens to. The rail down the side holds the rest of the studio: GIF Ads right under Image Ads, Video Reels, and the Business Kit with the card tools. From the Inventory page, Make an Ad in any vehicle's photo viewer opens Image Ads with that unit loaded. Saved work sits in My Ads, a copy can go to the File Library, and Edit in Image Editor hands the ad to the studio's free form editor for a one off piece.

There is nothing to install or switch on for a user who has Design Studio. Inventory comes from Inventory Link, OEM offers come from the brand programs the store sells, and the logo comes from the account. On a social size, Text it to a lead opens a short list of customers, puts the ad in the CRM composer on the customer's thread, and leaves the Send button to the rep. Jax, the assistant on the dock, answers how to questions about Design Studio's screens. A store that wants its own locked template for every rep, or a style built around its own brand, can ask: that is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership.

Image Ads is the still member of a three tool family that shares the same inventory, the same offers and the same logo. GIF Ads takes the ad you just made and moves it, sized for a text or an email. Video Reels turns the unit's photo gallery into an MP4 for stories and feeds. The Business Kit card tools make the cards, referral cards and vCards that sit on the desk beside the flyer.

Outside the studio, the OEM incentives showroom is where the brand offers come from, and send vehicles by text puts a unit's photos and price straight into any text when a full ad is more than the moment needs. The all features page lists the rest of the platform.

What is the difference between Image Ads, GIF Ads and Video Reels?

All three live in Design Studio and build from the same inventory, offers and logo. Image Ads makes still ads for social posts and print. GIF Ads makes a short looping version sized for a text or an email. Video Reels makes an MP4 for stories, feeds and your website.

Can I make a print flyer and a social post from the same ad?

Yes. Pick a print size for the flyer and export a print shop PDF with trim, bleed and crop marks, then press Every social size for the social set. Each size keeps its own layout moves, so neither version spoils the other.

Where do the vehicles and offers come from?

Vehicles come from the store's live inventory, imported from your website through Inventory Link. Offers come from the OEM programs for the brands you sell, and store specials come from Inventory Link. A saved ad reopens with today's price.

Can one ad show more than one vehicle?

Yes. Lineup puts two to sixteen vehicles, offers or specials on one ad in four styles. Each tile shows a price, a payment or the name only, and payments wait for the APR, the months and the down payment before the ad exports.

Does the ad keep finance and lease terms right?

OEM offer terms come in locked and are drawn in full on every size. A size too small for them is held with a one click move to a size that fits, a typed payment makes terms required, and ended offers hold until they are taken out.

Can I send an image ad to a customer from the CRM?

Yes. On a social size, Text it to a lead opens a short list of your customers, then puts the ad in the CRM composer on that customer's thread. You add a line and press Send yourself; nothing goes out on its own.

Image Ads comes with Design Studio in LeadLocate CRM, month to month. See an ad built from a live unit in the pre-recorded demo, or compare plans and start with your own inventory.

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