Advertising on The Drive for Car Sales Leads

Display and video beside automotive news and car culture, for the enthusiasts and shoppers in your zone.

The Drive is an automotive news and car culture site covering new vehicles, reviews, industry news, motorsports and the practical side of owning and fixing cars, read by enthusiasts and by shoppers who want more than a spec sheet. It is part of the Recurrent media group, and advertising runs as display and video beside its content, sold through Recurrent's advertising operation and programmatically, with targeting by geography, topic and audience segment.

For a dealership the audience is the reader who cares about cars, which includes the enthusiast buying a performance model and the practical owner reading about maintenance who is a service customer and a future buyer. Placements beside reviews and news reach readers in the zone in an automotive context, and the site's culture coverage reaches a younger enthusiast than the traditional magazines.

A store spends on The Drive for automotive context with a younger enthusiast audience, in its zone, at a cost per thousand that suits a franchise or performance store budget, in a placement where the reader is thinking about cars by definition. It complements the review heavy sites with culture and practical coverage.

The honest objection is a modest zone audience, display that competes with the article, and an effect that reads partly through clicks and partly through branded search over weeks. Direct buys carry minimums; smaller budgets route programmatically.

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 Drive fits performance and truck stores, franchise stores with an enthusiast following, and dealer groups adding automotive editorial to a plan. It fits less well for buy here pay here and for stores that need volume. National sellers can run it nationally.

The Drive 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 The Drive, 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.

A Drive sourced lead reaches the CRM as a click from a placement to a vehicle page or a LeadLocate lead page, a branded search, or a direct inquiry, attributed directly for the clicks and over weeks for the rest. Enthusiast readers tend to name a specific model or trim.

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 The Drive 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 The Drive gets all of it, because the CRM does not care where a lead came from once it is in.

For an agency with a performance or truck brand client, The Drive is an automotive editorial placement with a younger enthusiast audience, and connecting the store's LeadLocate CRM shows the clicks and the inquiries the flight produced.

Most dealerships hand their advertising to a small local agency that already has their trust, and that agency is who usually ends up managing The Drive. LeadLocate is built to sit underneath that relationship rather than compete with it. The agency keeps its accounts and its client, connects those accounts to the store's LeadLocate CRM or buys leads through the webXintel Ads Network, and manages every channel it runs for that store from one Leads Manager with one set of reports. For an agency serving several stores, that replaces a stack of platform logins per client with one system, and it gives the agency something it would otherwise have to build itself: a CRM the dealership actually works its leads in, with the follow up visible. Agencies that refer stores to LeadLocate can also enroll in the referral program inside the CRM. dealer-marketing-attribution-softwareL goes into the agency arrangement in more detail.

Nobody drives across three states for a sedan, so the market The Drive is bought in is the market you draw. Leads Manager's zone editor takes a radius, counties or a state and hands it to every channel you run, including this one, and the reporting comes back by that zone so you can see which part of your area actually answers, which is often not the part a store expected. Groups run separate zones per rooftop; brokers and national sellers open the map up. On financing campaigns the audience is not narrowed by protected characteristics, because fair lending rules do not allow it and the controls in Leads Manager are locked accordingly. Geography and vehicle targeting stay fully in your hands.

The setup cost of The Drive, 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 The Drive account in your name is billed by The Drive 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 The Drive is likely to do for a store of your size, and agrees a review date. If the reporting shows The Drive 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.

Who reads The Drive?

Enthusiasts and practical owners, younger on average than the traditional magazine reader, interested in reviews, news, motorsports and the ownership side of cars.

Can the buy be limited to my zone?

Yes, placements are targeted by geography and topic, so only readers in the store's zone see the store's ads beside the content.

How is the campaign measured?

By clicks from placements to vehicle pages and the lead page, branded search lift in the zone during the flight and direct inquiries, reported in the CRM.

Can my dealership buy The Drive directly?

Yes, through LeadLocate. The Drive 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 The Drive, we work through that.

Can The Drive 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 The Drive?

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.

One more channel, no new login, no new report. Ask for The Drive inside the CRM or talk to a lead specialist about which channels fit your store first.

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

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