CHICAGO -

On Monday, Cars.com launched Cars360, what it’s calling an audience extension solution designed to help dealerships extend their reach and influence shoppers even after they have left the site. 

As consumers spend more time online and longer periods of time in-market, site officials explained Cars360 is designed to keep a dealer’s brand top-of-mind throughout the consumer’s online journey by targeting relevant, local car shoppers across a network of hundreds of thousands of websites.

“Car shoppers spend as long as 19 weeks in market to purchase a vehicle, and during that process, they spend over 20 hours a week online. They’re browsing auto websites, but they’re also reading news sites, checking sports scores, planning out their weekends, shopping online or checking email,” said Rock Irvin, Cars.com’s manager of data and partnerships.

“Cars360 offers additional exposure to a highly targeted audience of local in-market shoppers who have expressed interest in a dealership's make on Cars.com,” Irvin continued. “The dealership’s brand will be seen by those shoppers across the web, providing dealers with a unique branding opportunity to influence potential customers even when they are not shopping on Cars.com.”

Irvin went on to mention that Cars360 does not require manual setup and regular maintenance. Dealers simply select their vehicle make and market, then either work with Cars.com’s graphic design team to create their ads in select markets or supply their own creative. 

Cars.com then can manage the process for them by tracking the vehicle searches completed by more than 12 million monthly unique visitors to Cars.com, driving awareness via display ads linking to either a dealership's website or to their dealer profile on Cars.com.

“While retargeting solutions can be effective in helping dealers re-engage shoppers who have already visited their dealership website, Cars360 draws upon Cars.com's vast, high-quality audience of in-market car shoppers to drive new traffic to a dealership's website or Cars.com dealer profile,” Irvin said.

“And unlike behavioral targeting, which targets individuals based on inferred shopping behavior, Cars360 reaches consumers who have explicitly demonstrated in-market shopping behavior by searching for a particular make on Cars.com,” Irvin went on to say.

For more information, dealers can contact their local sales representative or visit dealers.cars.com/Cars360.

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