Demand Generation in Automotive:
How Do Automakers Drive Demand for Connected Car Services?
Automakers are turning connected car capabilities into recurring, high-margin revenue streams by pairing precise audience targeting with always-on, data-driven demand generation programs.
Automakers drive demand for connected car services by combining account-based experience (ABX) programs, strong demand generation fundamentals, and disciplined marketing operations (MOPS). They use vehicle, driver, and journey data to identify high-value segments, orchestrate personalized offers across channels, and continuously optimize offers like safety features, infotainment, subscriptions, and over-the-air upgrades. When ABX, demand gen, and MOPS are aligned to common revenue goals, connected services become an integrated, measurable growth engine instead of a one-off campaign.
What Drives Demand for Connected Car Services?
Building a Connected Car Demand Generation Engine
To turn connected capabilities into reliable revenue, automakers need a structured workflow that links data, content, journeys, and operations. The steps below show how ABX, demand generation, and MOPS come together.
Step-by-Step
- Define demand objectives and revenue targets. Align marketing, sales, product, and aftersales on shared goals for activations, upsell, and subscription revenue across key regions and nameplates.
- Segment audiences using first- and third-party data. Combine telematics, ownership, fleet, and dealer data to define segments like “new EV owners,” “high-mileage commuters,” or “safety-conscious families.”
- Design ABX programs for priority accounts and segments. Build journeys for fleets, dealers, and strategic partners, while demand gen programs address broader consumer and prospect audiences.
- Map journeys and channel mix across the vehicle lifecycle. Use handover, onboarding, first-service, and renewal milestones as triggers for in-app messages, email drips, dealer outreach, and in-vehicle prompts.
- Activate campaigns with strong MOPS governance. Ensure data schemas, consent, scoring, routing, and integrations are in place so campaigns can scale without breaking compliance or reporting.
- Measure, optimize, and iterate. Track activation rates, attach rates, average revenue per vehicle, churn, and upsell performance; use insights to refine offers, creative, and channel strategy.
Comparing Connected Car Demand Motions
| Demand Motion | Primary Goal | Typical Channels | MOPS Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch Campaigns | Create awareness of new connected features and drive initial trial or activation for recent vehicle buyers. | OEM website, model pages, paid media, social, dealer campaigns, and showroom materials. | Campaign templates, consistent UTM structure, integration between ad platforms, web analytics, and CRM. |
| Lifecycle Journeys | Increase engagement, usage, and upgrades as owners move from onboarding to everyday use and renewal. | Email, SMS, OEM app notifications, in-vehicle prompts, service reminders, and dealer communications. | Journey orchestration, event-based triggers, consent management, unified profiles, and standardized data fields. |
| Account-Based Experience (ABX) | Influence strategic fleet, mobility, and dealer accounts to adopt, bundle, and promote connected services at scale. | Sales plays, outbound sequences, executive briefings, partner portals, and co-branded dealer programs. | Account hierarchies, role-based views, account scoring, opportunity attribution, and sales-marketing alignment. |
| Retention and Upsell | Protect subscription revenue at renewal and expand to higher tiers, add-on services, or bundled experiences. | In-app offers, renewal workflows, contact center scripts, usage-based email, and loyalty programs. | Subscription data integration, churn indicators, predictive models, and dashboards for renewals and cross-sell. |
Snapshot: Scaling Connected Services for an EV Launch
An automaker launching a new electric vehicle line wanted to increase attach and renewal rates for its connected services bundle. Marketing operations unified vehicle, app, and dealer data so the demand generation team could see which owners had activated services, which features they were using, and when they were most likely to engage. ABX programs targeted fleet and dealer accounts with co-branded campaigns, while lifecycle journeys nudged individual owners with onboarding tips, charging insights, and safety alerts.
Within 12 months, activation rates for new EV buyers increased, renewal performance improved, and connected service revenue per vehicle rose significantly. The key driver was not a single campaign, but a coordinated engine where ABX, demand gen, and MOPS operated from the same data, metrics, and playbook.
Automotive brands that treat connected services as a core part of their demand generation strategy—supported by robust ABX programs and mature MOPS capabilities—build a scalable, measurable revenue stream that extends far beyond the original vehicle sale.
FAQs on Automotive Demand for Connected Services
Leaders often ask where to start, how to prioritize investments, and how to prove that connected service demand programs are working. These questions come up frequently in automotive revenue marketing discussions.
Turn Connected Services into a Scalable Revenue Engine
Whether you are refining existing programs or designing your first connected car demand strategy, you can accelerate progress by grounding decisions in data, operations, and proven playbooks.