• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 9, 2013

Hearst-owned Jumpstart Automotive Group is working on a plan to serve custom, local display ads across screens on behalf of Dealer.com's automotive dealer clients. On Tuesday, the two companies will announce a long-term partnership connecting dealerships with auto shoppers through online display ads, driving them into stores.

The exclusive agreement gives Dealer.com -- which builds and supports mobile sites for the automotive dealerships -- the ability to sell premium display advertising on Jumpstart's partner sites, such as jdpower.com, caranddriver.com, U.S. News Autos, CarGurus, and Consumer Guide Automotive. It brings together the biggest research and shopping networks. The focus spans from mobile to desktop.

Dealer.com powers more than 12,000 dealerships across North America, including 90% of the top 125 dealer groups in the U.S., with search and social software and services. Its sites support approximately 36 million unique visitors monthly.

Nick Matarazzo, CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, said the publisher doesn't have the "feet on the street" to support all 18,000 automotive dealers in the United States. The biggest challenge becomes building the technology that allows Jumpstart to identify specific consumers moving across screens and devices as IP addresses change, but Matarazzo believes the company will jump the hurdle in "relatively short order."

"We look at the behavior of why and when people buy," he said. "We also look at engagement and the way people travel across sites. If you're looking for a new BMW, do you also check out Mercedes? It's fascinating to see how models get cross-shopped."

Matarazzo said when people research cars online, 75% of the time they start with one model and buy something else, but "most OEMs don't know how to talk to consumers via mobile." He plans to change that through findings from several ongoing research studies identifying the personal creative focus that works.

Dave Winslow, Dealer.com chief digital strategist, said the two companies have been testing the ads for the past six months. The company measures success with a metric he calls view-through rate, rather than click-through.

Someone on Car and Driver might not click on an ad the first time, but because that brand ad made an impression, the consumer came back about 30 days later to complete a lead. Dealer.com's technology can attribute that impression to the action. "We typically see .2%, but with JumpStart that moved to above 1%," Winslow said. "The increase tells us the ad influenced the consumer."

Dealer.com already works with Google and Bing, but this deal represents the first with some of the biggest automotive publications.