TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
Would your dealership pass the TikTok trust test?
Here's the test: a shopper sees your inventory ad, then clicks into your profile to check if you're actually legit before they believe a word of it. If there's nothing there, or nothing real, you just lost them, and you probably don't even know it happened.
Organic content builds the trust. Ads just multiply whatever's already there.
Also in today's email:
The one filter every AI pitch should have to pass before you sign anything
The $50 oil change post that turned into a full-time technician pipeline
A tiny mouse living higher up a mountain than any other mammal on Earth
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
Reading time: 4 min and 51 sec
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TikTok Isn't a Sales Gimmick Anymore. It's a Full Funnel.
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TikTok has moved from experimental side project to a mainstream part of dealership marketing. The dealers seeing real results are the ones treating it as relationship-building, not just an ad platform.
TikTok is no longer a novelty for dealerships. It's become a mainstream tool sitting alongside Google, Facebook, and Instagram in a growing number of marketing plans.
📊 Where Dealers Are Already Using It
Showcasing inventory to shoppers early in their search
Promoting service specials to drive fixed-ops traffic
Recruiting technicians through day-in-the-life content
Running TikTok's own Automotive Ads product, matched to shopper behavior and live inventory
❝ I don't have an issue with hiring technicians anymore. ❝
🎙️ Want the full conversation?
Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion, additional context, and the conversations that shaped our perspective.
Here's what separates TikTok from every other ad channel a dealership runs: people actually click into your profile before they trust you. On Facebook, an ad is mostly the whole interaction. On TikTok, a shopper checks the account first.
Organic content builds the trust. Ads multiply it. Running ads without any organic presence isn't a smaller version of the same strategy, it's missing the exact thing that makes the ads convert. Worth noting: TikTok's tone is informal, but the FTC still treats every post as an advertisement, same disclosure standards as any other channel.
Del Toyota's New First-Look Lender
Heather Karkoska, Finance Director at Del Toyota and Del Chevy, assumed Upstart's lending box would be narrow. Instead, her team started getting approvals across the entire credit spectrum for thin-file buyers, established-credit shoppers and everyone in between.
That's why this family-run store in Pottstown, PA moved Upstart into a first-look position on most deals.
What won her over:
✔ Higher LTV advances that structure deals other lenders can't, especially on older-model units
✔ Same-day funding with fewer stips than other lenders
✔ Hands-on support from her Upstart dealer relationship manager
✔ Approvals broad enough to say "yes" to more of her customers, without chasing bigger down payments
As Karkoska tells other dealers: "At first, you have to just get comfortable with using the Upstart portal, and then you'll find a lot of opportunities out there for your dealership to grow."
Stop Buying AI. Start Solving Your Most Expensive Problem.
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On Auto Collabs, our friend Dave Perry argues that most dealers buy AI tools before defining the problem they're supposed to solve. Run your next pitch through these before you sign anything:
Can you state the problem in one sentence, with a dollar figure attached?
Is this a system of action, or just another dashboard?
Does it scale your people, or quietly replace them?
❝ It's not a toaster. It's not something you buy, plug in the wall, and now you've got it. ❝
— Dave Perry
His sharpest stat:
Every extra question in a service booking flow drops completion odds by 7%. Fixed ops is 15% of revenue but half of profit, worth the checklist before you sign anything.
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Malls Are Busier Again. Here's the Lesson Hiding in Why.
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Are malls busy? Auntie Anne's must be giving out samples.
People aren't just shopping. They're spending an afternoon, and that's a lesson for your showroom too.
Shopping center visits are up across every format in 2026, driven by a broad mix of consumers, not just high earners. The reason: a mall visit rarely starts with "I need to buy something."
A few dealerships already get this, running real espresso bars instead of vending machines. Small hospitality touches change whether a visit feels like an errand or something worth sticking around for.
Price Transparency Pays Off for Manufacturer Websites, JD Power Finds.
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Transparency beats speed?
Clear pricing online is turning browsers into buyers before they ever call.
OEM website satisfaction jumped 18 points among mass-market brands, driven largely by clearer pricing, incentives, and build-and-price tools. Shoppers who leave a website with a clear price picture are nearly twice as likely to actually consider buying.
Porsche and Dodge led their respective segments. The lesson extends past OEM sites, straight to your own inventory listings.
🚥 Auto Industry
Hyundai is buying full control of Boston Dynamics and plans humanoid robots on its factory floor by 2028, right as its own union strikes over automation and job security.
NHTSA is drafting new autonomous vehicle safety rules after Waymo incidents involving construction zones and school buses, aiming to finalize standards before the end of Trump's term.
New EV transaction prices fell again in June, the sixth straight month of year-over-year declines, though incentives are still running nearly double the industry average.
Cox Automotive's affordability index slipped slightly in June as loan rates hit 9.58% and prices outpaced income growth, even as buying power stayed better than a year ago.
💰 In The Customer's Wallet
IMAX's CEO revealed why there still aren't more 70mm theaters, even as demand spikes following Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey." Turns out building one is a lot harder than just wanting one.
A tiny mouse species was found living at 22,000 feet in the Andes, higher than any other known mammal on Earth, thriving in conditions with almost no oxygen. Absolute unit, pound for pound.
TSMC is investing another $100 billion in Arizona after profits soared 77% last quarter, on top of what it's already spent. The AI boom keeps writing checks nobody thought would clear.
Hasbro and Nintendo just signed a multi-year deal to make toys based on The Legend of Zelda. Somewhere, a 40-year-old is already clearing shelf space.
1920: Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer who invented the three-point seatbelt, was born in Härnösand, Sweden, one of the single most important safety innovations in automotive history.
1955: Disneyland opened its doors for the first time in Anaheim, California, forever changing what a theme park could be.
1975: The American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft docked in orbit, the first joint space mission between the two Cold War rivals.
Thanks for reading, Friend! Don’t forget…
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