• by Ross Fadner , October 30, 2008

Are mobile ads actually selling cars? Can marketers track back and deliver ROI and other metrics? Those were the key questions Elgin Kim had for a panel of auto industry marketing execs at the OMMA Mobile show in Los Angeles.

 

“I don’t really know where you’re going with that,” said Mike Sage, VP, Sage Auto Group. “All we’re trying to do is get to young ladies like Tiffany on her phone. It’s a matter of having her come to Universal before going to another dealership. For us it’s all about the call to action. The content comes from manufacturers.”

 

Hyperfactory’s Daniel Blackburn had a more concrete answer, saying that he knows from dealer feedback that mobile contributed significantly to moving some 3,000 units of a particular line of Jaguars. He said that one of the major hurdles to mobile effectiveness is the lack of geo-targeting capabilities, which we know will soon be a standard requirement in all smartphones. “GPS enabled targeting is really where we want to go,” he said. “We’ll spend the money; it’s just a matter of where.”