You text 5,000 customers. Fifty answer. The used-car manager calls it a waste; the BDC manager says the list was lousy. Meanwhile, nobody has checked whether those 50 replies included four owners ready to sell—or 40 people asking you to stop texting. That argument is happening before anyone has opened the right report.
A DealerRefresh article frames the question as a 1% reply rate versus 21%. The supplied excerpt doesn't include a publication date, methodology or campaign breakdown, so neither number belongs on your current benchmark sheet. But the question deserves attention: what makes a dealership text worth answering, and what is that answer actually worth?
A reply isn't a buying opportunity
An appointment confirmation, an overdue-service reminder and an offer to buy someone's truck have different jobs. Comparing their response rates tells you very little. Even within acquisition campaigns, a customer scheduled for service tomorrow is not equivalent to an owner whose last repair order closed two years ago. One already has a reason to interact with your store. The other may not own the vehicle anymore.
Then there's the counting. Does the dashboard measure unique customers who replied, or total inbound messages? Is the denominator delivered messages or attempted sends? Do STOP requests count as engagement? A vendor can report a mathematically correct number that is operationally useless.
I'd argue that a lower reply rate with more qualified sellers is preferable to a busy inbox full of clarification requests. If customers keep asking, “What is this about?” your campaign hasn't created interest. It has created work.
Run the 1,000-delivered test
Here's a hypothetical comparison—not an industry benchmark. Give two acquisition campaigns the same denominator: 1,000 delivered messages to unique customers. Campaign A produces 210 replies, 18 completed appraisals and four purchased vehicles. Campaign B produces 80 replies, 14 completed appraisals and six purchased vehicles.
That doesn't automatically make B the better campaign. Maybe its vehicles needed more recon, or the manager stretched further on acquisition price. But it tells you where to investigate. Reply rate measures the entrance to the funnel; purchases per 1,000 delivered messages measures sourcing output. Neither replaces a look at the cars you actually bought.
Keep the campaign economics separate from vehicle economics. Divide messaging expense, allocated platform cost and handling labor by acquired units to get campaign cost per purchase. Then evaluate each vehicle's acquisition price, recon and expected retail contribution. Otherwise, a cheap conversation can disguise an expensive car.
The first message creates a workload
A 5,000-customer broadcast at a hypothetical 8% response rate produces 400 responding customers. At five minutes of human handling apiece, that's more than 33 staff hours before appraisals. Responses won't arrive neatly spaced across the week, either. A campaign that generates interest faster than your store can handle it is building its own failure point.
This is why timing isn't just the hour you press send. It's whether someone with appraisal authority can act when the owner responds. If the customer is already coming through service, the opportunity may disappear when they collect their keys.
Test relevance before polishing the offer
Start with one eligible, permissioned service cohort whose vehicles match an actual inventory need. Split it randomly and change only the opening message. Keep the send window, follow-up coverage and offer logic consistent. Otherwise, you're comparing different operating conditions and calling it a copy test.
A useful opener identifies the store, explains the reason for contact and asks one answerable question: “This is Alex at Main Street Motors. While your F-150 is here for service Thursday, would you like a purchase offer? No replacement purchase required.” Use that only when the appointment, vehicle and offer terms are accurate.
Dealers using tools like AutoRelay can automate outreach and parts of the conversation. They still need a named owner for appraisal handoffs, clear permission and opt-out controls, and follow-up that doesn't interfere with the repair order. Software doesn't settle those responsibilities.
Before the next send, pull the last acquisition campaign and reconcile four counts:
- Unique customers receiving a delivered message.
- Customers expressing genuine willingness to discuss selling, separated from opt-outs and wrong numbers.
- Completed appraisals tied to those customers.
- Vehicles purchased within a defined attribution window, with campaign cost per purchase.
Use the same attribution window for the next test. If you can't connect a reply to an appraisal and a purchase, fix that reporting gap before sending another 5,000 texts.
See how AutoRelay helps dealers acquire inventory from their own service drive → getautorelay.com