Case Study · Multi-store auto dealership · 3 rooftops · 112 staff
Coastline Motors turned every VDP lead into a personal comparison microsite — and tripled test-drives.
How a 3-rooftop independent dealer replaced the one-car brochure email with an AI-built, shopper-specific comparison page delivered inside 90 seconds.
Challenge
The problem behind the problem.
Coastline's three stores captured thousands of leads a month across their Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs), but conversion to a test drive was flat at 6%. The real problem wasn't the quality of the leads — it was the experience that followed.
Every VDP submission kicked off the same thing: a human BDC agent, a template email with a single-car brochure, an average 4-hour first-response time, and nothing about the twelve other vehicles on the lot that would have been a better fit for the shopper's budget and taste. Inventory context, which was the dealership's actual advantage, wasn't reaching the buyer.
The GM had tried bolt-on CRM tools (ActivEngage, Fullpath) and a third-party 'AI responder.' They generated activity, not test drives. Senior sales said the problem was simple: 'We're shopping against three other dealers by dinner. Whoever gets them the *right* list first wins.'
Solution
What we actually shipped.
We built a lead-capture layer that sits on every VDP (DealerInspire, Dealer.com, and their Shopify-based used-inventory site) and replaces the vendor lead form. When a shopper submits, the system fires three things in parallel — before the BDC agent's phone even buzzes.
First, the AI reads the submitted vehicle (price, year, mileage, make, model, trim, body style, drivetrain) and pulls the shopper's browsing history on the site if available. Second, it queries Coastline's live inventory feed (vAuto → DMS passthrough) for 8 to 12 comparable vehicles in a ±15% price band, tuned for the shopper's implicit preferences (body style stays fixed, year/mileage/trim can flex). Third, it builds a personalized comparison microsite at compare.coastlinemotors.com/<shopper-token> — side-by-side spec grid, photos, MPG, warranty position, financing estimate, and clean CTAs for each car (test drive, trade-in, or Q&A).
The microsite link goes out as a branded email in the shopper's name and, with explicit opt-in checked on the form, a TCPA-compliant SMS: 'Hi {first name} — I pulled 9 cars like the {year make model} you saw, in your budget. Quick look: {short URL}. Reply TEST for a drive, STOP to opt out.'
Every microsite view, scroll-depth, card expand, and CTA click feeds the intent graph we ship with the CRM. By the time the BDC agent picks up the phone, they already know which three vehicles the shopper compared, which trim they lingered on, and whether they opened the financing tab.
In their words
"We spent years trying to out-respond our competition. Now we out-inform them. The shopper opens the text, sees nine cars we hand-picked for them, and books a drive before the other three dealerships have replied at all."
— General Manager, Coastline Motors
Result
The number on the retainer report.
Test-drive conversion on VDP leads went from 6% to 19.2% in the first 60 days — 3.2× the baseline, measured against a held-out control group on one rooftop for the first month. First-response time dropped from 4 hours 11 minutes (BDC average) to 90 seconds (automated first touch), and the BDC team's follow-up efficiency went up because every call started with context instead of cold discovery.
Reply rate on the comparison email was 4.5× the legacy one-car brochure email; SMS reply rate was higher still. Over the first nine months, Coastline attributed $2.1M in additional gross profit directly to deals that came through the comparison-microsite flow, net of engagement cost.
Coastline is now piloting the same system for service appointments (show the 3 closest availabilities + loaner status + recall notices) and for the trade-in valuation flow (show 8 comparable cars the shopper could upgrade into at their monthly payment).
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