6 automotive marketing strategies to boost dealership leads without boosting budgets

Across the globe budgets in the automotive sector are under more pressure than ever, yet growth targets continue to increase.

It’s against this backdrop that experts from Phyron, Infinity, and Waylands Automotive came together in a recent Automotive Management webinar, to share how you can boost dealership leads without boosting spend. 

In a lively panel discussion, marketing leaders Daniella Lindskog (Phyron AI), Matt McGillicuddy (Infinity), and Vicky Hart (Waylands) discussed everything from smarter content creation to connecting the dots in the customer journey.

You can also watch the webinar in full here. But for those of you that need a more bite-size version, here’s 6 practical marketing tactics to generate more automotive sales leads - without increasing ad budgets.

1. Double down on what delivers dealership leads

Efficiency isn’t new for marketers. But the pressure to deliver more with less has never been higher.

“Not only are we trying to do more with less,” said Vicky Hart, Marketing Director at Waylands, “but we’re also then trying to deliver greater visibility in terms of marketing’s impact on revenue generation – and we’re doing that with smaller teams and reduced budgets.”

In this environment, high-performing teams need to shift from “spreading broadly” to ruthlessly focusing on what moves the needle. That means doubling down on channels that convert,  like inventory-linked dynamic ads on Meta, which Vicky Hart said have helped Waylands improve lead quality.

And to do all that without burning out your team? That’s where AI and automation come in.

2. Apply automation to scale creative output

AI is changing how marketing teams produce content at scale for platforms like Meta, but it’s automation that makes the magic happen. As Daniella Lindskog, Marketing Lead at Phyron, put it:

“AI in itself is perfect for generating this scalable content. But it’s also the automation in the back… that’s where the real magic happens.”

She explained how tools like Phyron are helping teams present inventory in ways that were once only possible for OEMs with big budgets:

“Video’s becoming fully democratized and accessible to dealers of almost any size, and for every single vehicle — not just limited to the new vehicles.”

By automating everything from video creation to online publishing, dealers can deliver consistent, branded content efficiently. “We’re focused on video storytelling,” she added, “but in an efficient way… to really free up the time of marketers.”

This automated approach to content creation helps marketing teams create more, faster, without spiralling budgets out of control or adding complexity.

3. Personalise ads and messaging to attract the right audience

But it’s not just about generating more creative. It’s about generating better creative. Generic, one-size-fits-all ads and messaging won’t cut it with today’s car buyers.

Daniella Lindskog shared a striking example of how small messaging shifts can drive real results:

“One of our clients had such a hard time selling a certain group of vehicles… and what they did was introduce a new section on their website and just labeled this section as their outlet cars. Just by using this kind of language, they were able to sell them so much quicker.”

From how you label deals to the tone of your messaging, personalization can fuel better performance. And with the right tools - like Phyron’s Inventory Videos or Paid Ads - it doesn’t have to be budget breaking to build more targeted ads at scale.

However, even the most compelling ad campaigns can fall flat if the response isn’t captured. To truly do more with less, marketers need to focus not just on creating demand, but on what happens when that demand turns into action.

4. Focus on fixing the leaks in your automotive marketing funnel

Matt McGillicuddy, VP Marketing at Infinity, shared a stark figure:

“Nine per cent of calls are going unanswered on average in the sector at the minute…”

That stat highlights a critical - and often invisible - form of leakage. High-intent customer calls that go nowhere. In a market where budgets are under strain, that’s not just unfortunate. It’s expensive. As Matt put it:

“We're spending money from a limited budget just for that demand to be wasted.”

Tackling these missed opportunities is one of the simplest and most impactful places to start. “We’ve got to focus on stopping that,” Matt said. “Fixing the basics, seeing where dropout occurs—that’s a pretty easy thing for us all to do at relatively low cost.”

However, the "leak" isn't always a missed call; sometimes it's a misunderstanding of the buyer. Matt noted that while call volumes are up, call duration has also increased by 6% year-on-year.

This suggests that the customer journey is becoming more complex and requires deeper engagement. Without the right insights reaching the sales floor, those longer conversations can become missed opportunities.

5. Beware of the blind spots in your dealership data

Another major source of wasted budget is attribution blind spots. Vicki Hart warned that marketing spend often gets pulled toward whatever is easiest to track:

“Digital channels that are easier to scrutinise, easier to attribute—budgets then get engineered and skewed towards those.”

The risk is that teams end up over-investing in short-term, measurable activity, while undervaluing the upper-funnel influence that builds long-term demand. To avoid that, marketers need to move beyond vanity metrics and focus on outcomes — such as cost-per-vehicle-sold, not just cost-per-click.

The challenge is that most attribution tools are excellent at tracking online engagement, but far less reliable once a customer moves offline. That leaves marketers working with an incomplete picture at the exact moment buyer intent is highest.

“The visibility breaks down at the moment where intent peaks,” Matt McGillicuddy explained. “That intent is usually peaking when a customer is picking up the phone, going offline, going in.”

If those offline touchpoints aren’t connected back to digital campaigns, teams risk underestimating what’s truly driving results and optimizing toward the wrong signals.

6. Use call insights to improve your automotive marketing campaigns

The solution lies in turning messy, unstructured data — especially call conversations — into actionable performance insights.

“Being able to give structure to unstructured conversation data, understand intent, and understand outcomes—that's where AI is changing the game,” Matt added.

By categorising calls and identifying which interactions represent genuine sales intent, marketers can feed higher-quality signals back into their ad platforms. That creates a tighter feedback loop, improves automated bidding, and ensures spend is directed toward buyers most likely to convert.

Conclusion

How can dealerships generate more leads without increasing ad spend?

Boosting dealership leads in 2026 means reducing waste, not increasing spend.

As automotive marketing budgets tighten in 2026, the brands and dealer groups that win won’t be the ones spending more. They’ll be the ones operating smarter.

This webinar discussion made it clear that lead growth today can come from efficiency, automation, personalization, and better funnel visibility. Without the need for bigger budgets.

The opportunity for marketers is to focus less on adding activity, and more on eliminating wasted effort across creative production, attribution, and conversion. To sum the 6 key takeaways up:

✔ Prioritise what performs best by doubling down on proven lead-driving channels such as inventory-linked dynamic ads.

✔ Use AI + automation to scale content output without increasing workload or creative costs, making high-quality video accessible even for smaller dealer teams.

✔ Personalisation improves conversion. Even small shifts in language, segmentation, or offer framing can significantly accelerate sales velocity.

✔ Fix funnel leakage before increasing demand, especially missed inbound calls, which represent high-intent dealership leads already paid for.

✔ Close attribution gaps between online and offline behaviour, so marketing investment reflects real outcomes like vehicles sold, not surface-level clicks.

✔ Turn call conversations into performance signals by using AI-driven call insights to identify intent, improve follow-up, and feed smarter data back into ad platforms.