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A recap of the "Mastering Automotive Ads" webinar with insights from Infinity and Phyron

Understanding the Shift

The modern automotive buyer journey is longer, more complex, and spans more touchpoints than ever before. With pressure to convert faster and spend smarter, marketing teams are increasingly turning to AI for solutions. But not all applications of AI are created equal.

In the recent webinar “Mastering Automotive Ads: Smarter AI, Better Data, Bigger Results,” experts from Infinity and Phyron shared practical insights on how AI is being used in real dealership settings to drive efficiency, improve targeting, and drive the results that matter. The session featured Matt McGillicuddy, Marketing Director at Infinity, and Tina Sadeghi, Head of Client Success and Growth at Phyron.

Here's a summary of the key takeaways.

Watch the full webinar on-demand

Getting AI Right: The Real Opportunity

The automotive sector is embracing AI, with investment within the industry set to hit $74.5 billion by 2030 – but many marketers remain cautious. As Tina Sadeghi pointed out, only a fraction of businesses using AI feel confident in its results.

What’s missing? In short, relevant data and clear processes to enable scalable execution.

It’s becoming ever more critical for marketers in the space to unlock this opportunity given the ever-growing pressure for teams to do more with less, counter protracted decision-making processes stemming from economic uncertainty, and adapt to greater demand for instant, high-quality digital content from car buyers.

While there are many elements of the car purchasing journey AI can improve for both dealers and buyers, improved returns from advertising investment has the potential to drive an immediate impact for a majority of dealerships. Yet fundamentals get in the way of attainment. 

AI can’t deliver value unless it understands your customers. Marketers who want to drive impressive results with AI need to prioritise feeding tools the information they need to develop this understanding and work at their best. There is a need for teams to revisit their measurement processes and plug attribution gaps in order to build the well-rounded data sets needed to unlock the full benefits of AI-powered advertising.

Outcome-Based Optimisation

Plugging attribution gaps isn’t just about having more data – it’s about having the right data. One of the most underused but richest sources of insight in automotive marketing is phone call data. Yet many dealerships still rely on surface-level metrics like clicks or form fills when evaluating PPC performance.

As Matt McGillicuddy explained during the session, this is where the AI powering Infinity’s Smart Outcomes tool makes a tangible difference. By automatically analysing inbound calls and categorising them by intent and outcome, the tool allows marketers to go far beyond basic tracking and start understanding which interactions are truly moving the needle.

“AI has made it far easier to access and use insights from customer conversations,” said Matt. “We're now able to analyse every call and feed the outcomes directly into optimisation platforms. It’s a game-changer for media efficiency.”

Dealerships using this rich intent data and outcome data to fuel ad optimisation are seeing a sharp increase in the volume of sales-qualified calls coming from paid media, significantly improved conversion rates, and a noticeable uplift in average order value.

Stoneacre Motor Group, for instance, has seen a 79% improvement in conversion rates and 300% more sales calls coming from PPC investment by connecting call outcome data with their Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads.

“Connecting these crucial pillars of data has helped us make real commercial strides with our digital targeting.” Mark Zavagno | Digital Operations Director, Stoneacre

AI-Driven Creative

Automating the flow of high-quality conversion data into platforms like Google Ads isn’t the only way AI is transforming dealership advertising. Another crucial area seeing rapid evolution is creative production, particularly video storytelling.

In a competitive landscape where attention is short and customer expectations are high, delivering relevant, dynamic video content at speed is becoming a performance advantage in itself.

As Tina Sadeghi shared during the webinar, modern car buyers are more discerning than ever. “They want personalised, on-brand, up-to-date content. And they want it now.” Without the right tools, dealerships are often forced to compromise on creative scope or cadence.

This is where automation and AI step in to eliminate the manual bottlenecks traditionally associated with time-consuming tasks like video production. Dealerships can now automatically generate customised, on-brand, and spec-accurate video ads for every vehicle in their inventory. The result is reduced labour demands and, most importantly, high-impact content that meets modern buyer expectations and cuts through the digital noise.

By using AI in this way, Motorpoint, for example, can now create video ads 200x faster, driving a 60-80% increase in leads from high-intent actions. Cost-efficiencies are also a huge benefit of adopting this approach, with Jan Nygaard reporting an 88% saving on ad creative by replacing manual processes with AI and automation.

What Can Marketers Do Today?

The future of automotive marketing isn’t just digital – it’s intelligent. By applying AI in ways that respect and enhance real-world buying journeys, dealership marketers can drive more value, more efficiently.

To unlock the full potential of AI, marketing teams at dealerships are enabling a shift towards outcome-driven, scalable, and automated marketing that delivers for both customers and sales teams.

Watch the full session on-demand

About Infinity

Infinity is EMEA's leading Call Tracking and Speech Analytics platform. Tracking over 44 million calls across 70 countries, it’s empowering AM100 dealerships to use their call data to report their true impact, drive better campaign performance, and maximise returns.

About Phyron

Phyron is the leading provider of 100% automated AI video and enhanced imagery for automotive retailers. We help over 4,000 dealers and OEMs transform their vehicle listings from static to dynamic at scale.