Advertising on NHL for Car Sales Leads

NHL.com, the NHL app and streaming audiences, reaching the affluent, loyal hockey fan in your market.

The National Hockey League's digital properties, NHL.com, the NHL app and its streaming, reach a fan base that is among the most affluent in sports, concentrated in the northern and Canadian border markets and growing in the Sun Belt, with sponsorship and digital placements sold through the league's partnership operation and, locally, through the clubs' own sales teams, by market and audience. Hockey fans are loyal, they follow the season closely, and they buy trucks, SUVs and all wheel drive vehicles in the climates hockey thrives in.

For a dealership the audience is the affluent fan in its market, reached on the app and site during the season and through club sponsorships at the arena, where dealerships are a fixture. An all wheel drive message in a snow market during the season is one of the more natural sports placements a store can make.

A store spends with the NHL for an affluent, loyal fan base in hockey markets through the season, with digital placements and arena sponsorships, and with a vehicle message, all wheel drive and trucks, that matches the climate. The audience's income is the reason luxury brands sponsor the sport.

The honest objection is that league level placements are partner sold and suit groups and manufacturers, that arena sponsorships carry commitments, and that outside hockey markets the audience is thin. The effect reads mostly through branded search over weeks.

For the broader case for this kind of channel, Automotive Media Buying Services covers it without repeating what is here.

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The NHL fits all wheel drive, truck and premium franchise stores in hockey markets, dealer groups with a brand budget there, and stores whose manufacturer sponsors hockey. It fits less well outside hockey markets and for single stores with small budgets. National sellers can run digital placements nationally.

NHL is bought through buying platforms and media partners rather than a self serve console, and LeadLocate reaches it for your dealership that way. Ask for it from the Advertising Networks page in the CRM and our team arranges the placement for your store, through a buying partner or an order placed in your dealership's name, with the geography set to the market you sell in. If your dealership or your agency already holds a seat on a platform that carries NHL, we can work through that instead. Either way the campaign is planned from the same Leads Manager selections as every other channel you run with us, and it reports into the same place.

An NHL sourced lead reaches the CRM as a click from a digital placement to a LeadLocate lead page, a branded search during the season, arena event traffic logged with the source, or a direct inquiry, attributed directly for the clicks and over weeks for the rest.

Once it is in the CRM the channel stops mattering and the process takes over. The lead shows its source and campaign, the pre screening answers you asked for in Leads Manager, and it routes by the distribution rules you set, to a person or a rotation. Automated first contact, by text, email or a scheduled call, is optional and configurable. If the store's process lives in another CRM, Instant Push forwards each lead there by ADF on arrival, and the subscription price is the same either way. Expect a mix: shoppers who name a vehicle and shoppers who name a budget, both of them worth a call, as what to expect from car sales leads sets out.

A dealership that runs six channels through six vendors gets six reports, six invoices and six opinions about where the leads came from. Running NHL 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 NHL gets all of it, because the CRM does not care where a lead came from once it is in.

For an agency with a franchise client in a hockey market, the NHL's affluent digital audience and the local club's sponsorships are a placement the client's buyer follows all winter, and connecting the store's LeadLocate CRM shows the clicks and the branded search lift through the season.

If an agency runs NHL 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 automotive-media-buying-servicesL.

A dealership is a local business, so every channel LeadLocate runs is planned around a zone: a radius around the store, a set of counties, or a whole state for a group. The zone editor in Leads Manager is where that is drawn, and it applies to NHL the same way it applies to search or social. Auto brokers and stores that ship nationally can widen the zone to the country; a Toyota store in one city has no reason to pay for shoppers in another, and does not. Groups give each rooftop its own zone so two stores in the same group never bid against each other for the same household. One rule worth knowing before you plan a financing campaign: campaigns that mention financing run under fair lending rules, which do not allow narrowing an audience by age, gender, income, marital status, household size, education, language or ZIP, and Leads Manager locks those controls. Vehicle and geography targeting is unaffected.

The setup cost of NHL, in your time, is a click. The Advertising Networks page in the CRM lists it beside every other channel; Request Connection opens a support request our team works, usually the same day. Stores that are new to LeadLocate choose a plan on the pricing page, month to month with no long term contract, and start with the webXintel Ads Network the same week. Media bought through a NHL account in your name is billed by NHL directly to you. Your existing CRM, if you have one, keeps receiving leads through Instant Push by ADF, and the price does not change for that.

From there it is a conversation, not a contract. Our team confirms the zone and the selections, says plainly what NHL is likely to do for a store of your size, and agrees a review date. If the reporting shows NHL earning its budget, it stays; if it does not, it is switched off from the same page, the store keeps every lead and record it produced, and the budget moves to a channel that did better in the same report.

How does a single dealership advertise with the NHL?

Usually through the local club's sales team for sponsorships and market level placements; league level digital suits groups and manufacturers. Our team opens the right conversation on request.

Who is the hockey fan?

An affluent, loyal audience concentrated in northern markets and growing in the Sun Belt, which buys all wheel drive vehicles, trucks and premium models.

How is the campaign measured?

By clicks from digital placements to the lead page, branded search lift during the season, arena event traffic logged with the source and direct inquiries, reported in the CRM.

Can my dealership buy NHL directly?

Yes, through LeadLocate. NHL is sold through buying platforms and media partners, so you request it from the Advertising Networks page in the CRM and our team arranges the placement in your dealership's name. If your agency already has a seat on a platform that carries NHL, we work through that.

Can NHL leads go into the CRM we already use?

Yes. Instant Push forwards every lead to your existing CRM by ADF as it arrives, source and campaign included, and the subscription price does not change for it.

What does LeadLocate charge for NHL?

The platform is a month to month subscription with no long term contract, priced on the pricing page, and every plan includes the webXintel Ads Network. The media itself is billed for the placement our team arranges, in your dealership's name. We never tie the price to a result.

Request NHL 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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