DriveChicago.com and Automotive Internet Media have partnered up to assist its dealer members to increase their exposure to automotive customers.

Tony French, AIM’s president, believes the partnership will help drive traffic toward the inventory, dealerships and brands that their dealer members possess.

“Automotive portals are fantastic for helping auto shoppers find vehicles,” French said. “DriveChicago.com is terrific for Chicagoland auto shoppers because they can see every dealership’s inventory without going back and forth between other sites.”

Prior to now, the DriveChicago.com website functioned like this: when customers modified searches based on vehicle preference and clicked a specific vehicle, a DriveChicago.com vehicle detail page would render. Now, that click will direct customers directly to the specific inventory page on the dealer’s website.

The program is designed to increase the level of trust between customer and dealer, the former which has a growing reluctance to submit their personal information to a third party. Dealer members who utilize this service are charged a small fee for every customer that is sent to their vehicle detail page.

“This program is a winner for our dealer members, and a winner for DriveChicago.com,” Dave Sloan, the president of the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, said. “Our dealers are getting great traffic directly to their website at a cost lower than market value, and at the same time they are reinvesting in more marketing to be spent on DriveChicago.com to provide them even more in-market customers. This marketing program will provide dealers with more options on how they reach Chicagoland auto shoppers.”