by Terry MacCauley - Posted 19 hours ago
“Because what gets measured gets improved. And what gets ignored eventually gets lost.”
Over the past several weeks, we have covered the first four Big Time Principles: Reach, Frequency, Budget Tied to Actual Sales, and Creative That Builds Brand and Urgency Equally.
Each of those principles sets the foundation for this final one. Combining reach, repetition, the proper budget, and strong creativity leads to only one question.
Did it sell cars?
That is the ultimate test of all marketing performance, and the number that answers it every time is Cost Per Sale.
In an industry filled with data, dashboards, and reports, dealers often surround themselves with numbers that only tell part of the story. Clicks, impressions, and form fills are useful indicators but are not results. They are indicators for advertising professionals when trying to produce (sales for dealers) in different media, but they are not a litmus test for whether the advertising is working well.
The best measure of advertising performance is your Cost Per Sold Vehicle.
Take your total advertising spend for a specific period and divide it by the total number of vehicles sold. That number is clean, direct, and honest. Plus, it brings the benchmark you set full circle when setting your budget.
All the other metrics, such as clicks, impressions, and leads, are indicators that lead to this one outcome. When focusing on Cost Per Sold, you always know if your advertising works.
Some critical thinking here: If your leads went up overnight by 10%, your CPC went down by 15 cents, and your impressions shot up, but, but, but, you sold six fewer vehicles YOY, which is the only metric you care about and use to pay all the bills? Disturbingly, many dealers get off the reservation, led by false actors, into thinking the sales may be down, but their advertising is better because of more leads. In fact, we have even been fired over 10% fewer leads YOY in August (8 months in), but with sales up YOY.
Keep submitting any desired scenario into this discussion. On television, more people saw my commercial, or on the radio, more people heard my spot, but did you sell more vehicles? That is the ultimate KPI, every single time.
The average online conversion rate for the automotive industry is approximately 3.7 percent.
This means that roughly four out of every one hundred website visitors will either submit a lead form or make a purchase through your website.
That statistic alone proves why focusing on Cost Per Sold is so essential. Most people will never fill out a lead form. Many will call, visit, or browse before taking action. Digital data can measure the last click, but cannot always capture the customer’s true journey to your dealership. Fair question: Is every single sales call logged into your CRM system to this day? Does every sales call achieve a name, phone number, and email address to put into the CRM?
Your advertising often influences far more people than the numbers show. That is why the Cost Per Sold metric tells the real story. It measures what matters most: total spend divided by total results.
Cost Per Sold connects every part of your business into one unified scoreboard, including marketing, sales, and operations. It removes excuses and reveals performance.
Consider two dealerships. Both spend ten thousand dollars on advertising. One sells fifty cars. The other sells twenty.
Dealer One’s Cost Per Sold is two hundred dollars. Dealer Two’s is five hundred dollars. The difference is not only in marketing performance but also in operational execution.
The store that logs every opportunity, responds faster, and follows the process with discipline always wins. Cost Per Sold exposes both marketing efficiency and in-store performance with total clarity.
If you are not auditing yourself, you leave your blind spots in control of your future.
Measuring Cost Per Sold gives you the power to adjust, improve, and grow. When you ignore it, you rely on assumptions instead of evidence. Most dealerships that struggle with marketing are not failing because of poor ideas. They are failing because they are not measuring what matters.
There are only two types of dealerships: those that know their Cost Per Sold and those that guess.
Dealers are often shown success through vanity metrics such as reach, clicks, engagement, and impressions. These can look impressive in a report but mean very little if the showroom is empty.
Focusing on Cost Per Sold creates accountability. It reminds your marketing partners and management team that the goal is not to collect clicks but to sell vehicles.
When the conversation changes from “How many leads did we get?” to “How many cars did we sell for that spend?” the dealership begins to operate more intelligently.
A dealership’s Cost Per Sold is not the marketing team's responsibility alone. It is the result of marketing and operations working together.
When salespeople fail to log phone calls, walk-ins, or live chat opportunities, the actual lead count disappears, and the Cost Per Sold becomes inflated. The result is inaccurate data that hides opportunity.
If the dealership treats lead management and follow-up as optional, no marketing plan can overcome that. When process and marketing align, the Cost Per Sold number becomes achievable and predictable.
Cost Per Sold will naturally rise and fall as seasons, markets, and campaigns change. What matters most is not the number on any single day but the overall trend over time.
When Reach drops, Frequency weakens, or Creative loses consistency, the Cost Per Sold will rise. When all four previous principles work together, the Cost Per Sold will decline and stabilize.
This number tells the truth about where improvement is needed. It should be tracked consistently, reviewed monthly, and discussed honestly.
Dealers and marketers often spend too much time obsessing over metrics they can control, such as click-through rates, impressions, or cost per lead. These numbers can all be manipulated. You can increase your click-through rate tomorrow by writing a more aggressive headline, changing your targeting, or eliminating non-performing search terms, but that does not mean you will sell more vehicles. At Big Time Advertising, we are so hyper-focused on selling cars for our dealers that we often frustrate other vendors and dealers. Nonetheless, we stand on principles, especially when those principles have stood the test of time.
At the end of the day, selling more is the only thing that matters. Cost Per Sold is the only measure that connects marketing effort to business outcome. Everything else is simply a supporting statistic.
Return on Ad Spend, or ROAS, has become one of the most popular metrics in marketing conversations, but it is also one of the most misleading. ROAS was created by digital agencies that needed to prove their value to clients without always being able to connect results to real sales.
When a dealer would say, “But I did not sell more cars,” digital agencies would respond with a string of “buts.”
• But your click-through rate increased.
• But your impressions doubled.
• But your website traffic improved.
Those “buts” create just enough FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) to make dealers question their success instead of asking the most straightforward, most important question: Did we sell more cars?
Focusing on cost per sold leaves no room for confusion. It removes every “but.” It holds every department accountable to the same outcome. It strips away the noise and forces every conversation to return to what truly matters: results.
Cost Per Sold is not just a metric. It is a philosophy. It teaches discipline, forces honesty, and clarifies what success really means.
At Big Time Advertising, every strategy, campaign, and recommendation is built with one purpose: to lower Cost Per Sold without reducing volume or profitability.
Our philosophy is simple. Spend smarter. Stay consistent. Measure relentlessly.
The goal is not simply to generate leads. The goal is to improve performance at every level of the dealership. Cost Per Sold provides the visibility to ensure that your marketing spend is accountable, your message is relevant, and your team is aligned.
Cost Per Sold is the ultimate truth teller. It measures how well you convert attention into action, exposes waste, reveals opportunity, and provides the framework for continuous improvement.
What gets measured gets improved. What gets ignored eventually declines.
The dealerships that lead their markets do not depend on luck or emotion. They measure, adjust, and execute. They know their numbers, and they trust the process that produces them.
If you commit to one metric this year, make it this one.
Because when you understand your Cost Per Sold, you finally understand your business.
• The Big Time Principles series concludes with today's newsletter. Find the first 4 principles archived at the Big Time Advertising Website at the bottom of the home page.
-by Terry MacCauley, Founder & CEO
This week’s video features "Dana White’s Life Advice Will Leave You SPEECHLESS!" by Best Motivation.
UFC president Dana White shares the raw, real mindset that took him from the bottom to the top of one of the world’s most competitive industries. Whether you’re building a business, chasing a goal, or just trying to level up—this one’s packed with bold truth and zero fluff.
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