In the ever-changing landscape of auto dealership marketing, maintaining a competitive edge is not just an option—it's a necessity. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) can make dealership tasks convenient and more efficient. While most dealerships are familiar with SaaS for basic functions, the true potential of SaaS extends beyond routine dealership operations. SaaS can revolutionize entire marketing strategies, enabling dealerships to outperform competitors and succeed in today's dynamic automotive market. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) refers to cloud-based software of any kind, although many automotive dealers use the most common type—email—daily. SaaS is any web-based software, with the model and information being housed in a Cloud and the SaaS vendor maintaining the servers and databases.
Today’s modern auto dealer uses some form of SaaS for email, ordering, service appointments, or other communication-based tasks. SaaS allows dealers to manage day-to-day operations more efficiently, saving time, energy, and money. However, an auto dealership that is not leveraging a SaaS solution to make informed marketing decisions or to understand how they stack up against competitors might face challenges in reaching their sales targets and achieving success in their market.
One of the key benefits of SaaS is overall lower costs. Because it operates in the cloud, dealerships do not have to acquire and maintain expensive hardware and they reduce their costs for licensing fees, on-site upkeep, IT personnel, and the space and resources needed for things like server rooms and supply units. ZeroSum's MarketAI presents an all-in-one advertising platform that eliminates the need for costly creative production, extra add-ons or additional software and hardware. It's designed to fit the budget of dealerships of all sizes. Plus, there are no extra charges for getting started or for integrating with a dealership's current software setup. The ZeroSum team of experts is also available to assist with any learning curves along the way.
SaaS solutions are designed to smoothly fit in with existing hardware and software, offering reliable capabilities and practices. They can easily adapt to meet specific customer needs. MarketAI, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, allocates a dealer’s live inventory-based ads to only active shoppers. MarketAI also focuses on presenting dealers with the most relevant insights in an easy-to-use dashboard, making decision-making simpler. The platform also provides clear marketing attribution, allowing dealers to see exactly how their ad spending is connected to sales.
The SaaS benefit of being cloud-based enables real-time integrations with other web-based resources. MarketAI is updated daily with live data. It eliminates the need to wait on reports that show ad spend, KPI, or sold inventory and there is no need to wait on updates that might delay sales.
More traditional software requires installation, configuration, and can have a steep learning curve. Dealers may also need assistance setting up the solution to work autonomously, if the solution even has the option of doing so. MarketAI is intuitive and available for use immediately. Because MarketAI utilizes dynamic ad automation to run on a variety of channels for highly targeted ads, like over-the top (OTT) streaming services, social media, banner ads, Google vehicle ads, and search engine marketing (SEM), a dealer reduces or eliminates time previously spent on optimizing and updating ads across a myriad of platforms. With the data and intelligence of MarketAI along with the largest active VIN database, the ads are continuously adjusted automatically based on a dealers’ live inventory and market condition. And because Market-AI is a SaaS, once installed, a dealer can immediately start optimizing their marketing.
As the automotive landscape continues to evolve, integrating SaaS marketing tools is a strategic imperative. The future of auto dealership marketing materializes through innovations like MarketAI. Capitalizing on data-driven insights, expert guidance, and real-time strategies, MarketAI is an example of SaaS's potential in revolutionizing the automotive marketing landscape. Traditional modes like radio, TV, and billboards are ceding ground to AI-powered strategies. This shift underscores the need for dealerships to harness the potential of AI and machine learning, aligning their marketing tactics with the preferences of modern automotive consumers.