Automotive — New & Used Car Dealerships

The shape tilts toward Acquisition Performance (62.1) and away from Retention & Loyalty (50). That tilt tells you where the industry's marketing dollars have gone and where they haven't. The businesses that correct the tilt first will see outsized returns because they're fixing the constraint that's holding everything else back.

Dimension Breakdown

The real story behind Australian dealership marketing

Australian car dealerships sit in a strange position. They sell high-value products with long consideration cycles, but they market like impulse retailers. The data tells the story: a composite of 58.7 against a national average of 63.2 means this vertical is underperforming nearly every comparable consumer-facing industry.

The dimension spread is revealing. Acquisition Performance (62.1) and Conversion Efficiency (60.3) are both below average, but the real problem is Retention and Loyalty at 50.0 That's the lowest retention score in any consumer-facing vertical we track. By comparison, Mechanics and Servicing scores 65.3 in retention. The workshop down the road is better at keeping customers than the showroom that sold them the car.

Brand and Positioning (58.3) tells you most dealerships haven't differentiated beyond their franchise badge. When your brand strategy is "we sell Toyotas," you're not building a brand. You're renting one.

The gap between the top and bottom of this industry is enormous. Dominant-tier dealerships score in the high 60s. Challengers sit in the low 50s. That's a 15-point spread within a single vertical, which means the opportunity for any individual dealer to move up is real and immediate.

The fix isn't complicated. It's service reminders that actually work, trade-in nurture sequences that don't feel like spam and a website that converts mobile traffic instead of bouncing it. The dealerships already doing this are pulling away from the pack. The rest are still waiting for walk-ins.

Ranked 64th of 70. Bottom quartile. The blunt version: marketing in this vertical is an afterthought for most businesses. The opportunity version: any business that takes it seriously will have an open lane with very little competition for attention.

Where you sit in Automotive

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Cross-cut Automotive — New & Used Car Dealerships data by taxonomy, compare dimensions across sectors and see where this industry sits nationally.

Frequently Asked

The bar in Automotive — New & Used Car Dealerships is low. That's your advantage.

Most businesses in this vertical score below 58.7. A focused investment in Retention & Loyalty alone could move you ahead of the majority of your competitors. The opportunity exists because nobody else has taken it.