How automotive marketers can streamline local advertising across tiers

Consumers shopping for a new car often make decisions based on local ads and shop at local dealerships. So planning ad campaigns across original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), dealer groups, and individual dealerships can be quite complex. Dozens of budgets, shifting incentives, regional inventory swings, and omnichannel fragmentation can make it difficult to run campaigns efficiently at scale.

The Kokai platform experience gives automotive marketers a unified way to plan, launch, and optimize local advertising across tiers, all within the platform. With new tools for local advertisers, teams can coordinate cross-tier campaigns with greater consistency, less manual work, and a clearer path to exceeding local advertising goals.

What makes local automotive advertising unique

Car buyers learn about brands across connected TV (CTV), mobile, display, digital audio, and social. They compare dealerships, browse local incentives, and check inventory before visiting a showroom. That means local advertising needs to be:

• Omnichannel
• Flexible
• Regionally relevant
• Aligned across tiers
• Easy to optimize quickly

Kokai now brings these capabilities together in a single workflow, helping automotive marketers coordinate spend across geographies, maintain visibility, and run more efficient operations at every level.

When used in conjunction with our platform’s other targeting, optimization, and measurement solutions, you can unlock full-funnel automotive advertising at the local level that drives measurable outcomes. Tier 1: OEMs need visibility across the entire ecosystem

Tier 1: OEMs need visibility across the entire ecosystem

National auto brands operate at a massive scale. They manage brand campaigns, maintain consistency across dealer networks, and need visibility into how spend performs locally. But fragmented planning — often across multiple systems, vendors, and channels — creates areas where insight is limited.

Tier 1 marketing requires:

• Unified national-to-local visibility
• Consistent creative and frequency controls across regions
• Cross-channel reach (CTV, mobile, audio, display)
• The ability to coordinate brand and dealer messaging
• Granular insights into local market performance

How we can help:

• Local campaign planning, powered by geo lists, offers tier 1 advertisers a centralized workflow, letting national teams review and align local campaigns from one place. 

• Shared settings help keep brand standards consistent across regions and dealers. 

• Omnichannel buying allows audiences to see coordinated messaging everywhere they research and shop. 

• AI-powered optimization can help maintain efficiency at scale. 

As a result, tier 1 advertiser teams can gain ecosystem-wide insight and finally get visibility into how national strategies perform locally.

Tier 2: Dealer groups need regional scale without complexity

Dealer groups often run campaigns across multiple designated market areas (DMAs) with varying budgets, incentives, and sales goals. However, they typically operate with lean teams and have limited time.

Tier 2 marketing requires:

• Scalable campaign setup across dozens of markets
• Flexible regional budgets
• The ability to react quickly to inventory changes
• Consistent creative and targeting settings
• Omnichannel coverage with less manual work

How we can help:

• Spreadsheet-based planning lets teams upload, modify, and relaunch campaigns across regions in minutes, with no new system required. 

• Shared pacing and targeting helps ensure consistency across all stores within the group. 

• Deal Desk helps simplify private marketplace buying directly within the platform. 

• Cross-channel visibility helps tier 2 teams understand which markets and formats are converting. 

Ultimately, dealer groups running local campaigns on our platform can achieve regional scale while preserving brand alignment and reducing operational work.

Tier 3: Individual dealerships need efficiency above all

Local dealerships often run dozens of small campaigns each month, and often on relatively small budgets. Think: seasonal offers, test-drive pushes, service campaigns, or inventory promotions. They need tools that help them stay fast, flexible, and efficient.

Tier 3 marketing requires:

• Quick-launch workflows
• Easy creative and budget updates
• Efficient spend management
• Reporting that’s easy to understand and act on

How we can help:

• New local campaign tools can lead to a reduction in setup time.
• Bulk uploads allow rapid updates to budgets, offers, or targeting.
• Automated optimization handles pacing and bidding, so small teams don’t have to.
• Partnerships with channel resellers (Goodway, Ventura, MiQ) give tier 3 marketers enterprise-grade tools even without large budgets.

Using Kokai, dealers can run high-volume campaigns with speed and sophistication — and without needing large teams.

Unify buying to unlock efficiency

Local advertising is core to automotive success, and modernized planning can lead to modernized monetization.

While tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 marketers may have different goals, they can all benefit from consolidating planning and buying on a single platform. As traditional channels fragment and consumer behavior shifts, auto marketers who consolidate workflows can gain the advantage.

With Kokai, OEMs, dealer groups, and individual dealerships get a more unified, flexible, and efficient way to plan campaigns at scale, from one platform and one workflow.

Want to simplify local media planning for your next automotive campaign? Click here to learn more about powering your local campaigns with geo lists. Connect with your account team to get started.

This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.