Glossary
Dealership marketing, in plain English.
Every vendor meeting comes with a new acronym. Here are the ones that matter, in a sentence or two each — with a link to the guide that goes deeper where there is one.
A
- A/B test
- Running two versions of an ad, email or page at the same time to see which one gets more leads. Change one thing at a time or you won't know what made the difference.
- AI search visibility
- Whether AI assistants like ChatGPT or Google's AI answers mention your store when a shopper asks about buying a car in your area. Learn more ›
- Appointment set rate
- The share of leads that agree to a specific appointment time. One of the clearest signs of how good your first reply is. Learn more ›
- Appointment show rate
- The share of set appointments where the customer actually shows up. Confirmations and a real reason to come in push it up. Learn more ›
- Attribution
- Working out which marketing channel gets credit for a lead or a sale. Never perfect — aim for consistent, not exact. Read the guide ›
B
- BDC
- Business development centre — the team or person who answers internet leads and phone calls and books appointments. Read the guide ›
- Bounce rate
- The share of visitors who land on a page and leave without doing anything else. High bounce on vehicle pages usually means slow load times or missing info. Read the guide ›
- Brand search
- Searches that include your store's name. Cheap to win and important to protect, but most of those shoppers were already heading your way. Read the guide ›
C
- CASL
- Canada's anti-spam legislation. It sets rules for consent and unsubscribing on commercial emails and texts sent to people in Canada. Read the guide ›
- Close rate
- The share of leads, or of shown appointments, that buy. Always say which one you mean — they are very different numbers. Learn more ›
- Co-op
- Money from the manufacturer that pays back part of a franchise dealer's advertising, as long as the ads follow the brand's rules.
- Conquest
- Marketing aimed at shoppers who haven't picked your store yet, including people looking at a competitor's brand or models. Read the guide ›
- Core Web Vitals
- Google's measures of how fast and stable a page feels to a real visitor. Part of why a slow dealer site can rank lower. Read the guide ›
- Cost per sold unit
- Total marketing spend divided by the cars sold from it. A better measure than cost per lead, because cheap leads that never buy aren't cheap. Read the guide ›
- CRM
- Customer relationship management — the system that stores leads, customers, notes and follow-up tasks. Only as good as what gets entered into it.
- CTR
- Click-through rate — the share of people who see an ad or search result and click it.
D
- Days on lot
- How long a vehicle has been in stock. For used units, the listing quality has as much to do with it as the price. Read the guide ›
E
- Equity mining
- Finding customers whose vehicle is worth more than what they owe, then offering them an upgrade that keeps their payment close. Read the guide ›
F
- First-party data
- Information customers gave you directly — your CRM, service history and email list. Increasingly the most valuable data a store has. Read the guide ›
- Fixed ops
- The service, parts and body shop side of the dealership. Usually more customer visits than sales sees in a month. Read the guide ›
- Frequency cap
- A limit on how many times one person sees your ad in a set period, so retargeting doesn't turn into following people around. Read the guide ›
G
- Google Business Profile
- Your free listing on Google Search and Maps — hours, photos, reviews, posts and departments. Often the first thing a shopper sees. Read the guide ›
L
- Lead ads
- Facebook and Instagram ads with a built-in form. More leads at a lower cost, but often softer ones — plan for fast follow-up. Read the guide ›
- Lead response time
- How long it takes from a lead arriving to a real person replying. Track the median by day of week, not the average. Read the guide ›
- Local pack
- The three businesses Google shows with a map for local searches like "Hyundai dealer near me". Most of the calls go to these three. Learn more ›
- Lookalike audience
- A group of people a platform finds who resemble your existing customers. Built from your buyer list, it usually beats broad interest targeting. Read the guide ›
M
- Map pack
- Another name for the local pack. Learn more ›
- Mystery shop
- Testing your own store as a shopper would: submit a lead, call, text, and score what happens. Read the guide ›
O
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results.
P
- PPC
- Pay-per-click advertising, like Google Ads, where you pay each time someone clicks. Read the guide ›
R
- Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your website. Works best with a short window and real, live inventory. Read the guide ›
- Review velocity
- How many new reviews you get each month. Recent, steady reviews matter as much as your total count. Read the guide ›
S
- Schema markup
- Hidden labels in your website's code that tell search engines and AI tools exactly what each piece of information is — hours, address, vehicles, reviews. Read the guide ›
- SEO
- Search engine optimization — making your website and listings easy for Google (and AI tools) to find, understand and recommend. Learn more ›
- Service-to-sales
- Turning service customers into vehicle buyers, usually by spotting good equity or big repair estimates during a service visit. Read the guide ›
- Speed to lead
- How fast a new lead gets a real, human reply. Inside ten minutes during business hours is the target. Read the guide ›
T
- Third-party leads
- Leads bought from or delivered by listing sites and lead providers, rather than coming to your own website. Read the guide ›
U
V
- VDP
- Vehicle detail page — the page for one specific vehicle on your website. Where most shopping decisions actually happen. Read the guide ›
- VLA
- Vehicle listing ads — Google ads that show a specific vehicle's photo, price and details right in the search results. Read the guide ›
Z
- Zero-click search
- A search where the shopper gets their answer on Google or from an AI assistant without clicking any website. Read the guide ›
Missing a term?
If a vendor used a word you didn't recognize, send it over. I'll explain it — and tell you whether it matters for your store.