Plain-English definitions for the most-used dealership marketing, BDC, advertising, and inventory terms. Built for dealers, agencies, and AI assistants that need fast answers.
Paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger through Meta's ad platform.
Meta Ads remain the dominant paid channel for automotive dealerships because of precise targeting, low CPMs vs traditional media, and direct lead-form integration. 7Social Automotive runs Meta campaigns optimized for appointments - not impressions or clicks.
Paid advertising on TikTok that reaches car buyers earlier in the research funnel.
TikTok ads are increasingly effective for reaching Gen Z and younger millennial car buyers. Creative needs to feel native - vehicle walkarounds, customer reactions, dealership culture - rather than polished commercials.
A Meta or TikTok ad format that captures a buyer's contact info without leaving the platform.
Lead-form ads pre-populate name, email, and phone, dramatically increasing conversion vs sending the user to a landing page. The tradeoff: lower-intent leads. Pair with sub-5-minute BDC response to maintain quality.
Showing ads to users who previously visited the dealership website, ad, or inventory page.
Retargeting drives some of the lowest CPAs in automotive because the audience is already in-market. Common segments: VDP viewers, finance-page visitors, abandoned lead forms, and prior leads who never booked an appointment.
Funds reimbursed by an OEM (manufacturer) to a franchise dealer for approved advertising.
Co-op rules vary by manufacturer but typically reimburse 30 - 50% of qualifying ad spend when creative includes approved logos, vehicle imagery, and compliant disclaimers. Specialist agencies handle co-op claim submission.
Advertising run by an individual dealership - distinct from Tier 1 (OEM) and Tier 2 (regional dealer groups).
Tier 3 is the most measurable layer because spend ties directly to a single rooftop's appointments and sales. 7Social Automotive is built for Tier 3 dealers and dealer groups.
A service one company sells under another company's brand.
7Social Automotive offers white-label versions of every product - agencies, consultants, and OEM groups resell our BDC, MLT, paid ads, and content services under their own brand. Pricing is wholesale; clients never see the 7Social brand.
A scheduled showroom visit booked by a prospective car buyer with a specific date and time.
An appointment set is a confirmed, calendared showroom visit between a prospect and a dealership. Unlike a lead - which is just contact information - an appointment carries date, time, vehicle of interest, and a committed prospect. It is the metric 7Social Automotive optimizes every campaign and BDC interaction against.
A team or department dedicated to responding to dealership leads and setting showroom appointments.
A BDC handles inbound and outbound communication with car buyers - phone, text, chat, email, and social - to qualify leads and book appointments. Dealerships either build a BDC in-house or outsource to specialists like 7Social Automotive's Live BDC.
The elapsed time between a lead submitting their info and the dealership's first response.
Speed to lead is the single biggest factor in automotive lead conversion. Industry studies show contacting a lead within 5 minutes is 9x more effective than waiting 30. 7Social Automotive's Live BDC averages under 5 minutes, 7 days a week.
A car buyer who arrives at the dealership without a prior appointment.
Walk-ins close at higher rates than internet leads, but volume is shrinking as car buying moves online. A strong BDC's job is converting more internet leads into walk-ins by booking firm appointments.
A dealership that finances customers in-house, typically for credit-challenged buyers.
BHPH dealers need lead and BDC strategies tuned for credit-challenged buyers - emphasizing approval-first messaging, soft-pull pre-qualification, and high-volume appointment booking. 7Social Automotive runs BHPH-specific campaigns and BDC scripts.
A car-buyer lead with a credit profile below prime - typically FICO under 620.
Subprime leads convert at lower rates than prime but at much higher gross-per-deal for BHPH and special-finance departments. They demand fast follow-up, clear approval messaging, and a BDC trained on subprime conversations.
A dealership department focused on placing credit-challenged buyers with subprime lenders.
Special finance teams need a steady flow of subprime leads, strong BDC handling, and tight lender relationships. Paid ads + BDC is the most common 7Social setup for special-finance departments.
A dedicated point of contact at the agency who owns the relationship with a dealership client.
An account manager keeps strategy aligned, surfaces opportunities, and reports performance. At 7Social Automotive every dealership gets a named AM plus a shared dashboard for real-time data.
Software that automatically posts vehicle inventory to Facebook Marketplace and responds to buyers with AI.
Facebook Marketplace is one of the highest-intent free channels for used-car shoppers. Doing it manually takes hours per day; 7Social Automotive's MLT automates posting, renews listings, responds to inquiries with AI, and books appointments 24/7.
A structured data file (JSON, XML, or CSV) that lists every vehicle in a dealership's inventory.
Inventory feeds power dealer websites, third-party marketplaces, ad-platform catalogs, and tools like MLT. A clean, real-time feed with accurate photos, pricing, and VINs is foundational infrastructure for automotive marketing.
The dealership website page dedicated to a single vehicle - its photos, specs, price, and lead forms.
VDPs are the highest-intent pages on a dealer site. Optimizing VDP load speed, photo quality, and the lead form directly increases lead and appointment volume. Retargeting VDP viewers is one of the highest-ROAS campaigns in automotive.
The percentage of leads that convert into confirmed showroom appointments.
Calculated as appointments booked ÷ total leads received. Healthy automotive BDCs typically run 15 - 30%. It is the most useful early indicator of campaign and BDC quality - better than cost-per-lead or click-through rate.
The percentage of booked showroom appointments that actually arrive at the dealership.
Show rate measures how many appointments turn into walk-ins. Strong BDCs sit at 50 - 70% show rate, helped by confirmation calls/texts the day before and morning of the appointment. 7Social Automotive includes confirmation outreach as part of its BDC service.
Total ad spend divided by the number of confirmed showroom appointments generated.
CPA is a more useful metric than cost-per-lead or cost-per-click for dealerships because it reflects what actually drives sales: a buyer in the showroom. 7Social Automotive optimizes Meta and TikTok campaigns directly against CPA, not click metrics.
Total ad spend divided by the number of leads (form fills, calls, messages) generated.
CPL is the standard digital-advertising metric, but it is incomplete for dealerships - a $5 lead that never books an appointment is worse than a $50 lead that buys a car. Pair CPL with lead-to-appointment rate to judge real performance.
Revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
ROAS = revenue ÷ ad spend. A 4x ROAS means $4 of revenue per $1 spent. Automotive dealers should attribute ROAS to gross profit per sale, not just front-end revenue, to compare advertising channels honestly.
Connecting a sale (or appointment) back to the marketing channel that produced it.
Multi-touch attribution is hard in automotive because the buying cycle is long and touches happen offline. The closest practical version: tag every lead source, track appointment outcomes by source, and review monthly.
A JavaScript snippet installed on a dealership website to track ad-driven actions.
The Meta Pixel fires events (page view, lead, contact, view content) back to Facebook so ad delivery can optimize and audiences can be built. A properly configured pixel is the difference between a campaign that works and one that wastes budget.
A server-to-server connection that sends conversion events to Meta from your backend.
CAPI complements (or replaces) the browser-based Pixel by sending events directly from your server, surviving iOS privacy changes and ad-blockers. Most modern dealership ad setups run both Pixel and CAPI.
The core software a dealership runs on - handles inventory, deals, F&I, service, and accounting.
Major DMS vendors include CDK, Reynolds & Reynolds, Dealertrack, and Tekion. Marketing tools, CRMs, and BDC platforms need clean two-way integrations with the DMS to operate accurately.
Software that stores customer records, lead activity, and follow-up tasks for the sales team.
Common automotive CRMs include VinSolutions, eLeads, DealerSocket, and ProMax. A CRM is only valuable if leads land in it fast, are worked consistently, and outcomes (appointment, sold, lost) get logged.
A dealership's free Google listing that appears in Maps and local search results.
An optimized Google Business Profile - accurate hours, address, phone, photos, weekly posts, and active reviews - drives free local traffic and feeds Google's local pack rankings. Often the single highest-ROI marketing channel.
The three-result map block Google shows for local intent searches like 'car dealership near me'.
Ranking in the local pack requires a complete Google Business Profile, consistent NAP (name/address/phone) across the web, strong review velocity, and local backlinks. Local pack visibility usually outperforms organic blue-link traffic for dealerships.
7Social Automotive lives in this language every day - and turns it into showroom appointments for 500+ dealerships.
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