Two coordinated mail drops — a database buyback campaign to 7,701 of the store's own customers and a conquest campaign to 7,500 in-market households — landed on the same June 15 in-home date, backed by Marketing Box's full omnichannel sequence: USPS Informed Delivery, six emails, MMS, Meta ads, and a trade-value landing page. Over the next 34 days, 54 of those households bought a car. Every sale below is matched back to the dealer's own DMS records.
What $17,000 bought
Every dollar of campaign spend returned $113.54 in matched gross sales. The funnel below follows the money from mailbox to showroom — 15,201 households mailed, 467 leads raised, 54 vehicles sold and matched back to the mail and lead files.
| Stage | Volume | Unit economics | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households mailed | 15,201 | $1.12 per piece, all-in | Two drops, one in-home date |
| Leads generated | 467 | $36.40 per lead | 3.1% of households mailed |
| Vehicles sold & matched | 54 | $314.81 per vehicle sold | 11.6% lead-to-sale |
| Gross sales | $1,930,104 | $126.97 revenue per piece | 113.5× gross sales per $1 spent |
Two lists, two jobs — both delivered
The database drop worked the store's own customers with a personal buyback offer and out-sold conquest nearly two-to-one, as house lists should. The conquest drop did its job differently: 19 brand-new customers at a $3,654 higher average ticket — including the campaign's single largest sale, a $73,812 EV9.
June Buyback — Customer Base
June Conquest — New Households
Per-campaign cost figures prorate the $17,000 total spend by mail volume ($8,612 database / $8,388 conquest). Every conquest sale is a household with no prior purchase or service history at the store — a first-time customer with full downstream service and repurchase value.
How the campaign stacks up against dealer norms
Automotive dealer marketing typically costs $400–$700+ per vehicle retailed across all advertising channels (NADA benchmark data). Database/retention marketing runs 40–60% cheaper per unit than conquest. This campaign landed below the industry baseline on both.
$246 per sale — 40–50% of the retention baseline
$441 per sale — below-average conquest cost
Weeks two and three carried the volume
Sales built through the first three weeks and peaked in weeks two and three — 36 of the 54 vehicles. Week four covers only the final five days of the match-back window; the omnichannel sequence runs 34 days, so late responses were still arriving when the window closed.
*Week 4 is a partial week — the match-back window closed 07/10, mid-week.
What sold — and what came in on trade
The letter's three featured lease specials — Sportage, Seltos, and Sorento — became the campaign's three best sellers: 29 of the 54 vehicles (54%). And because the creative led with a buyback offer, 38 deals (70%) brought a trade, restocking the pre-owned lot the letter said the store was short on.
● The three models given handwritten lease specials in the letter accounted for 29 of 54 sales. The Telluride — never advertised — added 7 more on the strength of the buyback offer alone.
Sales stayed in the store's backyard
Buyers came from 25 ZIP codes across the Las Vegas valley, concentrated in the northwest — led by 89129, 89166, and 89084, with the store's home ZIP 89149 right behind. The mail sold cars in the store's natural market, not at its fringes.
One in-home date, eleven coordinated touches
Six channels carried the campaign, all synchronized to the June 15 in-home date. The anchor is a personal buyback letter in a handwritten-style envelope; five digital channels bracket its arrival and keep the offer in front of the household for 34 days. See the full campaign system, touch by touch, on the home page →
Direct Mail — the anchor In-home · Day 0 · 15,201 pieces
A handwritten-style envelope with a live-stamp look, opened like personal mail — no dealer branding on the outside. Inside: a vehicle-specific buyback offer over book value, a QR trade-value code, the manager's business card, and three handwritten lease specials.
USPS Informed Delivery Day 0 · morning of delivery
A full-color, clickable ride-along ad appears alongside the grayscale mail scan in the customer's Informed Delivery email — the mailpiece sells before it physically arrives. Informed Delivery emails average a 63.9% open rate (USPS).
Email — six sends Day −1 → Day +31
A teaser lands the day before the mail, then five follow-ups walk the household from curiosity to deadline: "be on the lookout," "did you get it?", lease specials, urgency, ending soon, and a last-chance send that closes the window.
MMS / Text Days 1 · 3 · 7
Three picture-message touches in the week after in-home, while the letter is still on the kitchen counter — the offer, re-surfaced on the customer's phone.
Meta Ads Days 0 → 34
Summer Savings Event creative served to audiences matched from the mail file — same offer, same look, in the feed.
Landing Page Always on · QR destination
Where every channel converges: an instant trade-value form and event offers — the source of the 467 tracked leads.
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Tell us your market and your inventory, and we'll show you exactly what a coordinated, mail-anchored campaign would look like for your dealership — and what it should cost.
Book My Free Campaign Plan Call →Frequently asked questions
Does direct mail still work for car dealers?
Yes. In this campaign, a single Las Vegas Kia dealership mailed 15,201 households for $17,000 all-in and matched 54 vehicle sales worth $1,930,104 within the response window — $315 per car and $113.54 in matched gross sales for every dollar spent. Nearly one in five vehicles the store sold in the window traced back to the campaign. Direct mail works best when it's coordinated with digital channels and measured by match-back to actual DMS sales records.
What is a good cost per car sold for dealership direct mail?
Automotive dealer marketing typically costs $400–$700+ per vehicle retailed across all channels, per NADA benchmark data. Here the blended cost was $315 per car — $246 on the database/buyback drop and $441 on the conquest drop. Both landed below the industry baseline for their type; retention marketing to a house list is consistently 40–60% cheaper per unit than conquest.
What is match-back attribution?
Match-back attributes sales by comparing a dealer's DMS sales records over a response window against the campaign's mail and lead files — a sale counts only when the buyer's household appears on the list. Here, DMS sales from 06/15 to 07/10/2026 were matched against the 15,201-piece mail file and the tracked lead file, producing 54 attributed vehicles. It's more conservative and trustworthy than click or coupon attribution because it ties results to real, closed transactions.
What's the difference between a database and a conquest campaign?
A database (buyback) campaign mails a dealer's own existing DMS customers with a personalized offer; a conquest campaign mails in-market households with no prior history at the store. Database converts at a lower cost per car because the audience already knows the store; conquest brings brand-new customers, often at a higher average ticket. Here database sold 35 cars at ≈$246 each and conquest sold 19 new customers at ≈$441 each, with a $3,654 higher average ticket.
How does Marketing Box run an automotive direct mail campaign?
As one coordinated, omnichannel program timed to a single in-home date. The anchor is a personalized mail piece — a handwritten-style buyback letter with a QR trade-value code and the manager's card. Around it run five digital channels: USPS Informed Delivery, a six-email sequence, MMS touches, Meta ads matched to the mail file, and an always-on trade-value landing page. The full sequence runs 34 days, and results are reported by match-back to the dealer's DMS — all on a data layer secured to SOC 2 Type II.
Methodology & sources
- Sales are attributed by match-back — dealer DMS sales records from 06/15/2026 to 07/10/2026 matched against the campaign mail and lead files. Gross sales figures are total vehicle sale amounts, not dealer gross profit. Lead total (467) reflects tracked responses across QR/landing page, calls, email, and SMS. Per-campaign cost allocations prorate the $17,000 total investment by pieces mailed. Dealer identity anonymized at the dealer's request; customer names and street addresses withheld. Report generated July 11, 2026.
- NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) advertising-cost-per-vehicle-retailed benchmarks — nada.org
- Cox Automotive industry research — coxautoinc.com/insights
- USPS Informed Delivery open-rate data — usps.com