Digital Media Consulting & Programmatic Advertising Strategy That Delivered 30% Lower CPL and 10x Better Performance
Building an in-house digital media team in the automotive industry isn’t just about reducing agency costs. It’s about gaining strategic control, owning your marketing data, improving campaign performance, and creating sustainable competitive advantage through digital transformation.
As Head of Digital Media and Programmatic Advertising Expert at Volkswagen Group Poland, we led the complete transformation of how media was planned, bought, and optimized across multiple premium automotive brands: Volkswagen, Skoda, SEAT & CUPRA, Porsche, and VW Commercial Vehicles.
Everything was done internally. Digital media strategy, technology stack selection, programmatic buying setup, marketing automation, and campaign execution. No external agencies. No outsourcing. Complete ownership.
Here’s the proven framework for building world-class in-house media capabilities.
The Challenge: Agency Dependency, Fragmented Data, and Lost Media Efficiency
When we joined as digital media consultant and programmatic lead, the situation was typical for large advertisers:
- Digital campaigns managed by external media agencies with limited transparency
- Fragmented media budgets across disconnected platforms and brands
- No direct access to campaign data or performance insights
- High media costs with unclear ROI attribution
- Slow campaign optimization due to agency response times
- Limited control over audience targeting and creative personalization
The business goals were clear:
Consolidate digital media operations across all brands
Regain full ownership of marketing data and advertising platforms
Reduce media waste and improve campaign efficiency
Build scalable internal expertise in programmatic advertising and paid media
Enable data-driven marketing at enterprise scale
But the biggest challenge? Technology and talent.
Each automotive brand serves different customer segments, has unique product portfolios, and requires distinct campaign strategies. Coordinating digital marketing across all of them meant one critical requirement: complete control of media planning, ad buying, performance measurement, and marketing analytics.
This wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise. This was a digital transformation project focused on efficiency, transparency, and measurable business impact across both brand awareness and performance marketing campaigns.
Step 1: Technology First – Choosing the Right DSP and Tools
Our first strategic milestone was selecting enterprise-grade platforms for programmatic advertising and campaign management.
Core Ad Tech Stack:
- Google Display & Video 360 (DV360) – Enterprise DSP for programmatic media buying across display, video, native, and CTV
- Campaign Manager 360 (CM360) – Centralized ad server for tracking, attribution modeling, and creative management
- Google Marketing Platform – Integrated analytics and audience segmentation
- First-party data architecture – Built on consented CRM data and website behavioral signals
We also began building a clean data architecture based on 1st-party data and consented CRM integrations – crucial for retargeting and audience segmentation.
From day one, we knew that performance marketing in the automotive space requires more than clicks. We were optimizing for cost-per-lead (CPL), qualified visits, and – ultimately – car sales.
Step 2: Process Integration – Building on Existing Infrastructure (Not Reinventing It)
One of the biggest mistakes in in-house media team development is creating isolated workflows.
Instead of building parallel processes, we took a smarter approach:
We mapped all existing corporate systems and workflows:
- Procurement and vendor management
- Invoice processing and financial controls
- Data privacy compliance (GDPR)
- IT security protocols and access management
- Legal review for advertising claims and brand safety
- Marketing operations and campaign approval flows
Then we integrated our in-house media team seamlessly into these proven systems.
This approach delivered three critical advantages:
- Faster time-to-market – No need to rebuild foundational processes
- Enterprise compliance from day one – Legal, finance, and IT requirements automatically met
- Scalability across markets – Framework could be replicated in other countries
This saved months of setup time and ensured our in-house model was built on a stable, scalable foundation that could support growth across European markets.
Step 3: Programmatic Advertising Framework and Campaign Playbooks
Scalable media operations require standardization and best practices documentation.
We created comprehensive operational frameworks:
Campaign Infrastructure:
- Unified naming conventions across all brands, markets, and advertising platforms
- Programmatic advertising playbook covering brand safety standards, viewability benchmarks, fraud prevention, contextual targeting guidelines, and creative specifications
- KPI framework aligned with business outcomes – moving beyond vanity metrics to revenue-driving performance indicators
- Quality assurance protocols for campaign launches and optimization
Brand Safety & Ad Quality Standards:
- Contextual targeting rules and negative keyword lists
- Publisher whitelists and blacklists
- Viewability thresholds (Active View standards)
- Fraud detection and invalid traffic filtering
- Ad placement verification
Our first in-house programmatic campaigns launched within weeks of platform setup.
Our first In-House campaigns launched within weeks – and the results spoke for themselves:
30% lower cost per lead
+27% higher viewability
100% ownership of data, accounts, and insights
This wasn’t just a win – it was validation that In-House teams can outperform agencies, even in complex verticals like automotive.
Step 4: Full-Funnel Digital Media Strategy – Awareness + Performance Integration
After proving the model with programmatic advertising, we expanded to control the entire customer journey – from first impression to dealership visit.
Paid Social Media: From Wasteful Spending to Qualified Leads
Most automotive brands burn budgets on social media with poor targeting and generic creative. We changed that completely.
By building automated lead generation systems on Meta (Facebook & Instagram), we eliminated manual campaign management and reduced response time from days to minutes. Dynamic product ads connected directly to inventory systems, showing users the exact cars available at their local dealership – with real-time pricing and current promotions.
The business impact? Every złoty spent on social media was tracked to actual test drive bookings and sales. No more “brand awareness” excuses for poor performance.
CRM Integration: Stop Wasting Money on Cold Audiences
Here’s the problem most companies face: their website collects valuable behavioral data, but advertising platforms never see it. You’re targeting strangers while your warmest prospects go ignored.
We synchronized website behavior directly with advertising platforms. Someone configures a Volkswagen Passat on the website? They immediately see personalized ads for that exact model with their saved configuration. Abandoned a financing calculator? Retargeted with competitive loan offers.
This wasn’t theoretical marketing automation – it was revenue-driving personalization that moved people through the funnel 3x faster than generic campaigns.
Direct Publisher Deals: Taking Back Media Margin
Agencies make money by marking up media costs. We eliminated that completely.
By negotiating direct
relationships with premium automotive publishers, we secured preferred inventory placements at true market rates. Programmatic guaranteed deals gave us predictable pricing and priority access to high-performing placements.
The Power of Connected Data: Personalization at Scale
All of this worked because we built one unified first-party data infrastructure. Every customer interaction – website visits, ad clicks, email opens, dealership visits – fed into a single view.
This allowed us to deliver truly personalized advertising:
- Users researching electric vehicles saw EV-specific messaging and local charging infrastructure info
- Someone near model changeover timing got competitive trade-in offers
- High-value customers received premium model promotions instead of entry-level ads
- Local inventory shortages automatically shifted ad spend to available models
This wasn’t just better marketing – it was better customer experience. People saw relevant messages at the right time, instead of spray-and-pray advertising that ignores context.
The result was true omnichannel consistency: whether someone saw a display ad, social post, or search result, the message matched their journey stage and reflected real-time business reality.
Step 5: Automation + Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)
Manual creative production doesn’t scale in modern digital advertising.
Managing thousands of ad variations across multiple brands, models, markets, and audience segments was impossible using traditional methods.
Our solution: Dynamic Creative Optimization powered by Google Marketing Platform
Technology Infrastructure:
- 1st-party & 3rd-party data
- Real-time pricing feeds (critical in automotive where pricing changes frequently)
- Cloud-based creative versioning
The Result:
Over 11,000 unique creative variants generated monthly – automatically customized for each user segment, product line, and market condition.
Without any manual creative production work.
This level of personalization would be impossible with traditional agency creative processes, which typically take weeks and cost thousands of euros per variation.
DCO delivered:
- Higher click-through rates from personalized messaging
- Improved conversion rates from relevant product recommendations
- Massive time savings in creative production
- Ability to test and optimize creative elements at scale
- Real-time adaptation to market conditions and inventory
Step 6: Scaling In-House to New Markets
After establishing best-in-class operations in Poland, we expanded the in-house model to:
- Sweden
- United Kingdom
Campaigns were benchmarked against agency-run campaigns. Results were audited independently by Ebiquity.
The findings?
In-House campaigns were up to 10x more efficient in performance KPIs, proving the model works across geographies. This validated that the model works across different markets, languages, media landscapes, and regulatory environments.
Why It Worked
There was no “luck” here. This project succeeded because we built with:
- The right technology stack (DSP, DCO, CDP, Ad Server)
- The right process integration (procurement, finance, IT, legal)
- An automation-first mindset
- And most importantly: a team that knew how to build, fix, and optimize – without outsourcing
We didn’t build for today. We built a framework that Volkswagen Group could scale across Europe.
The Business Impact of In-House Media
Here’s what this project delivered:
Strategic control over all digital media
Full data ownership and GDPR compliance
Faster speed-to-market with automated workflows
30% lower CPL and reduced media waste
Standardized reporting and dashboards
Budget savings through tech efficiency and direct deals
Ready to Transform Your Digital Media Operations?
Let’s discuss how to build high-performance in-house capabilities for your business.
Whether you’re just starting to evaluate in-house media or need expert help optimizing existing operations, I bring proven experience from enterprise-scale digital transformation.
Want to build an In-House media team?
Not sure how to choose the right DSP or design an automation workflow?
Need a partner who’s done it without outside agencies?
Let’s talk – we’ve done it, and we know the road ahead.