Overview
This campaign re-engages recent sales leads who are actively browsing your inventory on Autotrader or KBB. These shoppers submitted a sales lead one to three months ago, did not buy, and are now showing renewed buying intent by viewing vehicle detail pages on third-party automotive sites. The campaign reaches them with a personalized email or SMS that highlights a vehicle from your inventory matched to what they were just viewing off-site.
At a glance
| Campaign group | VDP Visitors |
| Audience | Off-Site VDP Visitors (HOT) |
| Channels | Email and SMS |
| Data sources | Cox Automotive (Autotrader and KBB) off-site VDP views, combined with first-party CRM lead data |
| Send cadence | Sent on weekdays only during the standard Audience Activation send window (Monday–Friday) |
Campaign goal
Turn cold-but-warming sales leads into showroom visits and test drives. A shopper who submitted a lead one to three months ago and is now back on Autotrader or KBB is signaling that they are re-entering an active buying window. The campaign meets that moment with a relevant vehicle and offer from your dealership, rather than letting the shopper continue researching with competitors.
Who receives this campaign
A shopper qualifies when ALL of the following are true:
- They submitted a sales lead to your dealership between one and three months ago.
- They have viewed at least one vehicle detail page on Autotrader or KBB within the relevant recent window.
A shopper is excluded when ANY of the following are true:
- They have already purchased from your dealership in the past.
- They submitted a new sales lead within the past 14 days (they are already in an active sales conversation).
How the matched vehicle is selected
Audience Activation looks at the most recent vehicle the shopper viewed on Autotrader or KBB and tries to surface a strong match from your live inventory, in this priority order:
- A same-trim match (same year, make, model, and trim) if the exact VIN is not available.
- A same-model match (same year, make, and model) if no trim match exists.
- A same-make match (same year and make) as a final fallback.
Within any tier, vehicles with active dealership offers or dynamic payments attached are prioritized over comparable vehicles without offers.
Templates available
This campaign ships with multiple template variants so the right tone reaches the right shopper:
- Email — Single Offer (Personal, Urgency, and Assuring tones), available in both Classic and Luxury styling.
- Email — Plain Text (Assuring tone), available in both Classic and Luxury styling.
- SMS — Personal, Urgency, and Assuring tones, in both Classic and Luxury styling.
- Subject lines matched to each tone.
When this campaign sends
Like all Audience Activation campaigns, sends are limited to weekday send windows (Monday through Friday). Deliveries are not generated or sent on Saturdays or Sundays. Each shopper is contacted only once per qualifying window, and standard cross-campaign deduplication applies.
Prerequisites
- Cox Automotive (Autotrader/KBB) data integration is enabled for the client.
- CRM is connected so sales lead history is available for audience filtering.
- Audience Activation is active for the dealership.
Frequently asked questions
Why a one-to-three-month lead window?
Shoppers who submitted a lead within the past 14 days are still in an active conversation with sales — sending an automated follow-up would conflict with rep outreach. Shoppers who submitted a lead more than three months ago have shifted into a different lifecycle stage and are reached by the Cold Lead Reactivation campaign instead.
Why exclude shoppers with on-site VDP activity in the last 30 days?
If a shopper has been browsing your own website recently, they are already covered by on-site VDP campaigns. This campaign is specifically designed for shoppers whose recent activity has been on Autotrader or KBB rather than on your website, so reach is incremental — not duplicative.
What if the off-site vehicle is not in our inventory?
The match-by fallback (trim, then model, then make) ensures the shopper receives a relevant vehicle from your inventory even when the exact VIN is not available. Templates can adapt copy based on the match quality so the recipient sees an appropriately specific or general reference.
How is shopper privacy handled for off-site activity?
Cox publishes activity from every dealer in the Autotrader and KBB network, not only yours. Audience Activation only uses these signals for shoppers who are already identified in your CRM, and the source of the view is not surfaced in customer-facing copy.