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Q2 2025 Automotive Industry Recap: Key Challenges & Trends

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Q2 2025 Automotive Industry Recap: Key Challenges & Trends

The automotive industry experienced a complex second quarter in 2025, shaped by a blend of steady sales performance, shifting consumer behavior, and broader economic pressures. While some automakers and segments delivered strong results, ongoing affordability concerns, evolving electric vehicle demand, and the early effects of new global tariffs added layers of uncertainty. For dealerships, Q2 reinforced the importance of agility—both in inventory strategies and customer engagement efforts—as the market continued to evolve in unexpected ways.

Published: July 9, 2025

Automotive Internet Media | Digital Marketing Agency

Q2 2025 Auto Industry Challenges and Trends

Sales Highlights by Segment

  • Minivans made a surprising comeback this quarter, with models like the Toyota Sienna and Kia Carnival posting notable sales gains as families prioritized space and versatility.
  • General Motors led the U.S. automotive market for the first half of 2025, powered by strong demand for its SUV and pickup lineup.
  • Hyundai reported its best-ever first-half performance, with Q2 sales rising 10% year-over-year.
  • Electric vehicle (EV) trends were uneven: while the Nissan Ariya showed growth, other EVs like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Hyundai Ioniq 5/6 experienced sales declines, signaling a potential recalibration in EV shopper preferences.

Tariffs Begin to Disrupt Global Sales

Newly implemented U.S.-China tariffs began to impact global luxury auto sales. Brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche signaled slower projected growth as pricing pressure and geopolitical uncertainty influenced buyer confidence and dealer strategy.

Inventory & Incentive Adjustments

In several markets, tighter inventory conditions were reported following strong sales early in Q2. Some brands, particularly Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram (CDJR), focused on clearing older model year inventory amid limited factory incentives on newer stock—prompting a shift in promotional focus for many dealers.

Key Trends to Watch in Q3 2025

📉 EV Rebalancing

After a period of overproduction earlier in the year, automakers are expected to shift Q3 strategies toward affordability, with increased marketing around hybrid options and practical pricing. While long-term EV adoption remains on track, near-term demand is being reshaped by price sensitivity and infrastructure concerns.

📈 Luxury & SUV Momentum

Despite economic headwinds, luxury SUVs and high-end EVs continue to gain traction. Dealers with inventory in these categories may find opportunity in targeting affluent buyers looking to upgrade.

🛠️ Fixed Ops & M&A Growth

Fixed operations remain a reliable profit center, prompting more dealers to invest in service, parts, and collision repair capabilities. At the same time, buy-sell activity is picking up, with larger dealer groups expanding through acquisition in metro markets to increase efficiency and scale.

🌐 Digital Retailing Is No Longer Optional

Digital-first car shopping behavior remains the norm. Buyers expect transparent pricing, flexible finance tools, and seamless online-to-showroom experiences. Dealerships embracing VIN-specific ads, live chat, and personalized outreach will stand out—especially as more shoppers re-enter the market in Q3.

The Bottom Line

Q2 2025 revealed both challenges and areas of growth across the automotive sector. According to Cox Automotive, overall dealer sentiment remained cautious—particularly among independent dealers—though franchised retailers showed more optimism. As the industry moves into Q3, success will depend on how well dealers adapt to evolving inventory dynamics, pricing pressures, and rising expectations around digital engagement.

Want to stay ahead of the curve? Automotive Internet Media can help you optimize your digital marketing strategy and connect with more in-market car shoppers. Contact us today to position your dealership for growth in Q3.

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20%-50% of Car Dealer Website Traffic May Not Be Human

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20%-50% of Car Dealer Website Traffic May Not Be Human

by automotiveinternetmedia | March 24, 2025 | Website Traffic, Automotive Industry

Non-Human Traffic

In the digital age, car dealerships face unique challenges. One of these is the issue of non-human web traffic. Studies suggest that 20%-50% of car dealer website traffic may not be human. This includes bots, crawlers, and fraudulent clicks, which can distort analytics data. Digital ad fraud is a significant concern. It can lead to wasted advertising budgets and ineffective campaigns.

Automotive Internet Media has analyzed non-human traffic across hundreds of automotive websites. Through our findings we help dealers optimize their online advertising strategies and target potential customers more effectively.

What is Non-Human Web Traffic?

Non-human web traffic is visitors to a website that are not human; these are frequently “bots” that load web pages, crawl pages, scrape pages, and falsely load ads. Not all of this non-human traffic is malicious – crawlers and search engine bots are good bots.

Non-human traffic can mimic human behavior, inflating website traffic numbers. This skews the analytics data that dealers rely on.

Recognizing the Signs of Non-Human Traffic

What are the indicators that website traffic is non-human? The following can point to traffic being non-human:

  • High Bounce Rate
  • Low Average Session Duration
  • Abnormally High Click Through Rates
  • Unusual Traffic Spikes
  • Unusual Geo Locations

Monitoring and Optimization: Ensuring Traffic Quality

Better quality media will have less non-human traffic and thus provide better outcomes. Monitoring campaigns and optimizing them to minimize non-human traffic is an integral part of what your agency and any paid media vendors should be doing. Eliminating poor traffic sources and placements will maximize the amount you are spending on driving real consumers to your website. Less non-human traffic means less advertising waste!

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About Automotive Internet Media

Automotive Internet Media, AIM, is a leader in digital marketing and technology, headquartered in Hinsdale, Illinois. Our team specializes in media buying and campaign optimization for automotive dealerships across the United States.

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The Smartest Ad Spend in Automotive

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Data Driven Targeting has revolutionized the way automotive digital advertising can be delivered. It has enabled dealerships to be precise in how and whom they target, and improve how effectively they manage their ad budget.

 

To reach auto shoppers with marketing in today’s digital climate, dealerships need highly accurate and relevant advertising campaigns. Multiple touch points from different channels usually precede the purchase of a new or used vehicle. In the digital environment, the consumer-purchasing funnel might involve touch points from channels such as paid search (i.e., Google Ads, CarClicks Inventory Marketing, etc.), social media (e.g., Facebook ads) and email campaigns. This makes it important to understand the complex customer journey across marketing channels prior to a vehicle purchase.

 

Consumers are multitasking with different devices which lowers the attention towards each channel and thus complicates the dealership’s abilitiy to get the attention of the shopper to their ad promotion. For example, a shopper may be watching TV and shift attention back and forth between their smartphone and TV. Today, consumers are getting bombarded with ads from different channels on different devices, which can be overwhelming causing them to block their attention to the ads.

 

We at Automotive Internet Media, Inc. saw an opportunity in the automotive industry to build an advertising product that moves from mass advertising to individual-level personalized vehicle ads that breaks through the clutter and grabs the auto shopper’s attention.

 

We have built a product that leverages proprietary algorithms to determine which auto shoppers are most likely ready to buy. We place the code on your website that allows us to create an individual user profile for each shopper that visits the dealership website. Our algorithms are enhanced with machine learning and big data; note that I didn’t say artificial intelligence!

 

Once we determine the individuals to target, we begin delivering ads. Data Driven Targeting drives new sales by serving dynamic personalized inventory ads to attract and inspire each auto shopper. We target those auto shoppers at the right moment in their purchasing process.

 

It is also very important to recognize the auto shoppers across different devices. Over 72% of buyers use at least 2 devices and switch at least 3 times before they purchase. Our cross-device matching technology and a shopper identify graph ensure we deliver an integrated ad experience which helps gain efficiency in ad delivery, costs and results.

 

Media buy is critical for success. Our ads are served on the largest network of premium publishers in the automotive industry. Other networks may have more publishers, but Data Driven Targeting has better ad placement on higher quality websites.

 

Data Driven Targeting will increase auto shopper engagement, efficiency and consumer purchase behavior. Data Driven Targeting is one of the most effective products in automotive marketing by enabling a personalized vehicle offering to every visiting auto shopper.

 

Convert auto shoppers and maximize sales with Data Driven Targeting.

Automotive Internet Media Interview with ACV Auctions

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AIM’s President and Co-Founder, Tony French, talks with the Regional Director of Sales at @acvauction, Tony Dipanni. Both discuss how ACV’s 20 minute auctions on your dealership’s lot can help grow your sales during a Chicago Automobile Trade Association event. Check out more details here: www.acvauctions.com

More about AIM: Automotive Internet Media is a premier digital marketing agency serving the automotive industry. Our suite of products includes CarClicks, Data Driven Targeting and Social Clicks. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out our website for more information, at www.aimyes.com

Dale Pollack Predicts in 16 Years There Will Only Be 26 Dealer Groups After Mass Consolidation!

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Dale Pollack predicts in 16 years there will only be 26 dealer groups after mass consolidation!

AIM recently attended an event at the Chicago Automobile Trade Association that featured Dale Pollak, Executive Vice President for Cox Automotive, as the keynote speaker. He provided an abundance of information to help dealers navigate the automotive industry today as well as he made some bold predictions based on analysis conducted by Cox Automotive about the future.

In addition to mass dealership consolidation, Pollak projects that the automotive industry will constrict by six million sales by the year 2034. His reasoning for this is mainly because of three reasons:

    • Trend of less Millennials buying cars.
    • More people are using rideshare services.
    • Autonomous cars will be more prevalent in the coming years.

If his predictions come true, the whole automotive industry would be greatly affected.

Do you agree with Pollack’s predictions? Let us know your thoughts!

 

 

List of Ten Cars Americans Loved and Hated in 2016

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The New Year is days away and there have been many impressive updates and debuts within the automotive industry during 2016.
From more brands breaking into electric models to technology-filled interiors, 2016 has been a great year for many brands and we found a list of those brands that Americans either loved or hated.

Ten Vehicles that Made the List for 2016

  • Infiniti QX50
  • Mercedes-Benz GLE
  • Volvo XC90
  • Audi TT
  • BMW X1
  • Honda Fit
  • BMW 6-Series
  • Fiat 500L
  • Chrysler 200
  • Kia K900

Check out more on the latest list from AdvertisingAge.