What a buyer has already settled before they ever call the store, what makes a driver hand one shop their keys instead of another, and who else has to agree before it's done — modelled from ten years and 500+ businesses of that research, then pointed at the place you want to be: test drives that show up, and service bays booked out weeks ahead. You see the read before you commit a dollar.
Test drives that show up
Service bays booked out weeks ahead
577%
ROI in 67 days. $224,219 in camp enrolments on $33,100 of ad spend.
Pear Tree Camps · Education · Summer camps
2,500%
return on ad spend, with 292 job applications in 30 days.
NH New Horizons Staffing · Healthcare staffing
$20M
in sales by DŌST Bikes. We built the brand, the store and the marketing it ran on.
E-commerce · E-bikes
Agency-wide results from three different industries.
An independent Porsche specialist in North Vancouver since 1985, with owners who want very different things: routine and specialist service, a full restoration, a track build, or a car shipped in from another province or the US. On top of that, a Canadian parts store. We researched how each of those owners searches and decides, then planned the new site page by page around them, so every one of them finds their own path from the first screen. The research came first, the same way it would for your business: what a local owner checks before booking a service, and what an owner in the US needs to see before shipping a car across the border.
Most agencies start with your business. We start with the person on the other end of your sale, because that is the part that decides whether any of this works.
There are two customers behind every automotive business, and they search in opposite ways. The car buyer researches for weeks before anyone at your store knows they exist — on the marketplaces, on Google, on the manufacturer's site, mostly on a phone and often late at night — searching by model, trim, kilometres and price rather than by dealer name. By the time they reach out, they have usually chosen the car and are choosing where to get it. The service customer is the reverse: a warning light, a noise, a tire, an inspection due. They search close to home or work, skim the reviews, and call the first shop that looks honest and can take the car this week.
The buyer compares the same vehicle across stores, and not only on price. What decides the shortlist is how fast and how straight the answer comes back to two questions — is it still here, and what is the real number out the door — and what the reviews say about the sales experience rather than the cars. The service customer compares on something else entirely: whether they will be talked into work they do not need. Whether the shop explains what it found, whether it knows their make, and how long they will be without the car. Price matters less than the fear of being taken.
Rarely alone, and rarely on the lot. A car purchase usually has a second person — a partner, a parent, a business partner — plus a financing approval and a trade-in figure, and most of the deciding happens before anyone walks into the showroom. The visit confirms a choice that was already mostly made. Service decides differently: the first visit is a test of trust, and the shop that passes it tends to keep the car for every service after, and often the next car in the household. What closes both is the same thing you would want from us — a clear answer, a real number, and no surprises after you say yes. That is why we run our own sale that way.
This is modelled from ten years and 500+ businesses of doing exactly this research — and it is the part of what we do that a competitor cannot copy in an afternoon.
Start with the one your sales floor or your service bays need most, or run all four. Each is built around your market and your drivers.
New and used, franchise and independent.
Your shopper has done most of their deciding on a marketplace before they contact you, and your sales floor and your service department are really two businesses with two different customers sharing one name and one website. We build for both and measure them separately, so a strong month in service does not hide a soft month in sales — and so you can see which enquiries actually became appointments that showed.
General repair, maintenance, tires, brakes, diagnostics.
You run on repeat customers and word of mouth, and the job is to be the shop a new driver trusts on the first visit — then to keep them for the life of the car. That is won on reviews that mention honesty, a website that answers "do you work on my make?" at a glance, and a booking that is easy at the moment the warning light comes on.
Collision and body, detailing and protection, performance and restoration, parts and accessories.
Higher tickets, longer consideration, and a customer who often knows more about the car than the person selling to them. What wins is evidence of the work — the before and after, the specific make, the specific job — shown to a small, particular audience that will travel for the right shop.
The sourced read of your market and your customer is shown to you before any delivery work is paid for. If the numbers do not hold up, you will know before you have committed anything.
Scope, timeline and price are set in a client-approved 90-day plan. No add-ons at the end — the same out-the-door number your customers want from you.
Live dashboards with projection against actual, including the months we miss. You do not have to take our word for any of it.
Month to month. 30 days’ notice. Nobody is locked in. Your accounts, data and content stay yours.
10 Years in Business$100M+ revenue generated500+ clients
B Corp Certified
Google Partner
30 minutes, free.
We will walk you through what we already know about how drivers in your market choose a dealer or a shop, and what we would do about it. You will get something useful out of the call whether you hire us or not.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
Before the call, we run a 200+ point audit of your full online presence, so we arrive already knowing your starting point. On the call, we’ll walk you through:
Bring your goals and challenges. We’ll bring the data.
Prefer to start from your own market?Ask for the Automotive Growth Audit — a 30-minute read of how drivers in your market search for, compare and choose a dealer or a shop. It is the same Growth Strategy call, framed entirely around your side of the industry. 30 minutes. Free to book, no obligation.We will not add you to a list you did not ask for.
10 years · $100M+ revenue generated · 500+ clients
In their words · Reviews ★★★★★
Clients from other industries, working with the same in-house team that would run your account.
“If I have a client who needs something up in three weeks, you guys will just do it… I never hear no, or ‘it can’t be done’.”
Theodora Jean
Founder & CEO, Coldwater Communications
“Everything that Setsail has designed for us, we try to incorporate that now in all of our presentations, including investor materials.”
Dorthy Cheng
Executive Assistant, CleanDesign
“You made yourselves part of Charlo. You made yourselves part of my story.”
Lia Psomiadis
Founder, Charlo
“We changed our direction of our business and Setsail has been matching that pace each and every time that we made that adjustment.”
Blake Voyer
Microworks Handyman
“I’ll immediately hear from somebody… It’s just handled. It’s just white glove considerate handled without a white glove price tag.”
Melanie Clarance
Co-Founder, AetherEV
“Creating a real strategy with KPIs that aren’t out of touch… this isn’t a pie in the sky story, this is an actionable work plan.”
Lucas Ens
Economic Development Officer, City of Prince George
“We’ve been working with Setsail for 7 years for all our marketing materials, website design, product design, videos, photos. They’ve been great. Responsive, responsible, great materials.”
Larry Knurik
VP Logistics, GVA Brands
“It’s been really easy, smooth, and it’s been a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Antonio Zivanovic
Founder, ElektraFi
“Tom and Jason are a thrill to work with… The direction and strategy that they bring to the table is top notch.”
Gordon Lai
Surface 604
“If you’re looking for a marketing team that really gets it and delivers outstanding results, Setsail Marketing is the way to go.”
Sam Atakhanov
Founder, DŌST Bikes
Your account brings together the specialists your plan calls for, with one team responsible for the work.
Account Strategist
Models how drivers in your market choose a dealer or a shop, owns your 90-day plan, and reports back in appointments and dollars, not clicks.
Paid Search Specialist
Runs your Google and Meta campaigns, keeps the sales and service budgets apart, and cuts what isn't booking anything.
SEO & Local Specialist
Gets each location ranking for the makes, models and services drivers nearby search for, and keeps its Google Business Profile up to date.
Web Developer
Builds and looks after the site, so a driver on a phone can book a test drive or a service in a few taps.
One team of 30+ specialists, 100% in-house.
You talk to the people doing the work.
Sales and service sit side by side in the live portal, so neither one hides the other. Check it between customers, read the monthly report, or message us when a number looks off.
Starting numbers
Day one: you know where you stand
We record your starting numbers before we touch anything, so every win after that is one you can see.
Live progress
Every week: you see it moving
Progress shows up in your portal as it happens, so you never wait for a report to know.
Monthly report
Every month: you know what your money bought
What we expected next to what happened, in a report you can read in five minutes.
90-day plan
Every cycle: steered
Every 90 days the plan re-forms around what’s working, so your budget keeps flowing to the work that pays.
What's included depends on the plan you pick.
If one of those sounds like your store or your shop, book the call. If we can't help, you'll hear it from us first.
Setsail Marketing
Vancouver, BC + Beaverton, OR
