Facebook Automotive Inventory Ads Alternative for Car Dealerships

Inventory ads put your vehicles in front of scrolling shoppers. LeadLocate puts shoppers in your inbox, delivered to you and only you, with the platform to work every one.

Automotive inventory ads are one of the most talked about formats in dealer social advertising, and plenty of stores have tried them. The search for an alternative usually starts with a report. The ads delivered impressions and clicks to vehicle detail pages, the spend was easy to see, and the sold units were much harder to trace. A click on a photo of a truck is a sign of interest, and a sales manager still needs a name, a phone number and a conversation.

The second reason is the work around the ads. Someone has to keep the inventory catalog accurate, watch the ad account, adjust budgets, rotate creative and answer the leads that come through. In many stores that job falls to a sales manager between customers or to an agency that reports once a month. When the person who understood the account moves on, the store is left with a login nobody wants to open.

The third reason is what the store actually wants to buy. Most dealers are not shopping for more impressions. They want shoppers in their market who asked to be contacted, delivered to them and nobody else, with a platform that answers in seconds. LeadLocate is built to deliver exactly that, which is why dealers comparing the two move their budget to it.

Automotive inventory ads, often called AIA by dealers and agencies, are an ad format from Meta for Facebook and Instagram. The dealer or its agency builds a vehicle catalog in the Meta ad tools from the store's inventory, with details such as make, model, trim, price, mileage and photos. The ads then show specific vehicles from that catalog to people who have shown interest in similar vehicles, and a click usually takes the shopper to the vehicle detail page on the dealer's website or to a lead form.

The appeal is easy to understand. Shoppers see real units from a real lot instead of a generic brand ad, and the vehicles shown update as the catalog updates. Stores with large inventories and a strong website often like the format for keeping their units in front of local shoppers.

Formats, rules and pricing on every ad platform change over time, and credit related ads carry their own category rules on Meta. Confirm current pricing, terms and ad policies with the vendor directly before you plan a budget. The rest of this page explains what a dealership gains when it moves that budget into LeadLocate.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

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

The first gain is buying leads instead of clicks. In Leads Manager, your store draws its territory with the zone editor, checks zip stats and a market scan, chooses the campaign type and the prescreening questions you want answered, sets Custom Offers and previews sample ads with See Samples. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan. Nobody at the store has to learn an ad manager, rebuild a catalog or babysit a budget.

Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you chose, and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing. Inbound buyer leads are a mix of shoppers asking about a specific vehicle and open shoppers describing what they want. Opt in seller leads bring local owners who asked for an offer on their vehicle, a second supply line for the used car department.

The second gain is one inbox. Leads from your zone, your website forms, your tracking numbers and any social campaigns you keep all land in the same CRM with their source attached. For a closer look at social campaigns worked through the CRM, see Facebook ads for car dealerships.

A shopper who taps an ad on a phone was doing something else a minute ago, so the first response has to be fast and it has to be a text. Automated Templates answer each new lead the moment it lands, with a message written for that source. Follow Up Processes then run a multi step cadence of texts, emails and calls that you approve once, so every salesperson follows the same playbook.

Texting covers SMS and MMS with pictures, RCS messaging with automatic SMS fallback and delivery status on every bubble. The vehicle button in every composer attaches a unit from your inventory with its photos and price, so the shopper sees the actual car in the thread, and trackable short links show who clicked through. The AI writing assistant drafts a reply, and voice dictation lets a salesperson answer from the lot.

Calls run through the browser softphone with click to call, tracking phone numbers per source and business hours routing. Every call is recorded with call transcription, and missed call text back turns a ring nobody could catch into a thread. The Phone Validator and Email Validator show a validity dot on each contact, so the team calls numbers that ring. Every call, text, email and voicemail sits on one timeline on the lead record.

Moving budget from inventory ads keeps your vehicles in front of shoppers, on pages your store owns. Inventory Link ingests your inventory feed, or imports inventory from your website when no feed exists, and puts every unit into the CRM, the phone app and the vehicle button in every text and email.

The inventory website builder publishes inventory sites for the store and for each salesperson from a template, and the embeddable inventory widget places your live units on any website you already run. Brand pages carry offers and lead forms, the Schedule a Visit sheet rises from the bottom of a phone screen, and OEM incentives for more than twenty makes sit beside the vehicles they apply to. Those links are made for social posts, texts and a salesperson's profile.

Lead Pages, the landing page builder inside the CRM, gives every offer its own page with its own URL settings, and your website forms connect to your account's form intake link so every submission becomes a lead with its fields mapped. Website visitor analytics show sessions, sources and top pages inside the CRM, so you see which traffic turned into conversations.

Ad platforms change formats and rules often, so confirm each vendor row directly. The LeadLocate column is what your store runs from its first day.

When a shopper is ready for numbers, EZ Desking builds cash, finance and lease structures with a fifty state tax matrix, and the customer receives a deal page branded to your store with e-signature and deal chat. A SecureWebX apply link lets the shopper finish a credit application on the same phone they scrolled on, and the secure Send to Lender share passes it to the lender you choose.

A clean move takes about a month. In week one, map your zone in Leads Manager, choose your prescreening questions and offers, and connect your website forms to your form intake link. Set up each existing source, including any social campaigns you keep running, as its own custom source feed in Lead Feeds Manager so every lead is labeled from the start.

In weeks two and three, write the Automated Template for each source and turn on a Follow Up Process for new shoppers. Put a manager on the feed with Manager Lead Copies so the desk sees every lead as it arrives. If your store also wants campaigns under its own Meta account, our team sets that up for your store on request, and those leads land in the same inbox.

In week four, compare sources on four numbers: cost per delivered lead, time to first response, appointments shown and units sold. The activity, company and management reports, together with marketing attribution, put those numbers side by side. Keep the spend that sells cars and move the rest.

Every plan is month to month with no long term contract. CRM Only starts at $199 a month for stores that bring their own lead sources. Inbound buyer leads start at $799, Marketplace Acquisitions seller leads at $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid Plan at $1,599. Every plan with leads includes the CRM, because the CRM is what receives and works them, and the webXintel Ads Network comes with every plan. See each plan on the pricing page.

Training is included: a video training library, Live Training sessions and Schedule Training on the top bar. Jax, the bilingual AI assistant inside the CRM, helps your team in English or Spanish. One login launches the CRM, Inventory Link and SecureWebX, and the mobile app puts texting, calling, inventory and desking in every salesperson's pocket.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, close rates or results, and no vendor can. What we can do is show you the platform working on a real store. Watch the demo, or contact us and call 844-376-2274 to map a zone around your store.

Can we keep running Facebook ads with LeadLocate?

Yes. Any social campaign can stay in place as its own custom source feed in Lead Feeds Manager, so its leads land in the same inbox as your zone leads and you can compare cost per sale by source.

Who runs the LeadLocate campaigns?

Your store makes the selections in Leads Manager: zone, campaign type, prescreening questions and offers, with sample ads to preview. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan.

Are LeadLocate leads shared with other dealers?

Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

How does our inventory reach shoppers?

Inventory Link ingests your feed or imports inventory from your website, then powers your inventory sites, the embeddable widget, brand pages with offers and the vehicle button in every text and email.

What does it cost?

CRM Only starts at $199 a month. Inbound buyer leads start at $799, Marketplace Acquisitions seller leads at $999, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid Plan at $1,599. Every plan is month to month.

Do we need a DMS connection?

No DMS connection or inventory feed is required to operate. Your account is set up for you, usually the same day, and your team can text, call and desk from the first login.

See your zone mapped, exclusive leads arriving and the CRM answering them in seconds. Month to month, so we earn your business every month.

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