Overview
Industry
Automotive Finance
Region
United States
Company Size
Enterprise
Featured Solution
Personalization + Automated Journey Orchestration on Salesforce Marketing Cloud
About the Client
The client is a U.S.-based captive finance company serving one of the world’s largest automotive groups. They provide end-to-end financing solutions, including purchase loans, lease agreements, and loyalty programs across a portfolio of vehicle brands.
The Context
The client provides auto financing for some of the most recognized vehicle brands in the United States — Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram. For them, the months before a customer's lease-end represent a high-stakes window. It’s a chance to retain a buyer, introduce them to a new model, and close the next transaction before a competitor does.
However, the challenge was execution. With lease portfolios spanning multiple brands and geographic markets, the client needed a way to reach the right customers at the right time with offers tailored to their history, location, and intent. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was already part of the ecosystem, but the infrastructure to enable true personalization across the lease lifecycle did not exist.
Business Challenge
Here are the key gaps in the lease-end engagement model impacting customer retention and operational efficiency:
Manual Lease-End Outreach at Scale
Loan and lease offers lived on individual OEM websites with no centralization and no personalization logic behind them. A buyer in one zip code saw the same offer as a buyer three states away.
Offers That Missed the Buyer Entirely
MQL status was triggered by form fills, not behavioral signals. Sales were receiving volume with no reliable indication of actual intent.
Misaligned Brand and Dealer Experience
The client operates across multiple brands. This makes it difficult to serve consistent yet brand-specific personalized content, particularly for dealer recommendations tied to a customer’s zip code.
No Mechanism to Capture and Act on Intent
Customers approaching lease-end have different plans: replace, purchase, return, or undecided. But there was no structured way to surface that intent early and route communications accordingly.
A Structured Marketo Transformation
Here’s how Team Grazitti built a personalization-first lease-end engagement system on Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
- Intent-Driven Email Journey Architecture
We designed an email journey that first works on surfacing customer intent. Early communications prompt customers to indicate whether they plan to:
- Replace their vehicle with a new model
- Purchase the leased vehicle outright
- Return it
- Have not yet decided
- Every subsequent communication is shaped by that declared intent.
- Tiered End-of-Lease Campaign Cadence
Automated email campaigns were configured to trigger at 180, 60, and 30 days before lease-end. Each cadence serves a different purpose:
- 180-day touchpoint plants awareness and captures intent
- 60-day email reinforces the offer with brand-specific content
- 30-day message drives urgency and dealer engagement
- Timing and content adapt based on where the customer is in their decision journey.
- Zip Code-Based Personalization and Dealer RoutingUsing a Google Maps API integration, we dynamically populated outbound emails with the nearest dealership address, contact details, and directions based on each customer’s zip code. This eliminates friction in the path from email to showroom visit, and helps scale dealer-level personalization without manual configuration.
- Loyalty Benefits for Returning LesseesWe set up differentiated offers for customers with an active financial account and a prior lease history. Loyalty benefits, including promotional APR, priority scheduling, and brand-specific incentives, are surfaced automatically. This helps reward customer retention without requiring sales intervention.
- Brand-Specific Content Blocks via AMPscriptSince the client serves multiple vehicle brands, we implemented AMPscript-driven content blocks that dynamically assemble the right vehicle options and financing offers for each recipient. One email template architecture serves the entire portfolio without duplicating infrastructure.
- Personalized Credit Application OffersFor customers exploring purchase or replacement options, we extended personalization to the credit application experience itself. Loan offer amounts are dynamically surfaced based on zip code data. Marketing Cloud Personalization (formerly Interaction Studio) powers web banner personalization by surfacing relevant offers in real time.
- Service Cloud Integration for Email PersonalizationOur marketing automation experts connected Salesforce Service Cloud to the email personalization layer, enabling customer profile data to flow directly into every outbound communication. Account history, prior lease terms, financial account status, and engagement signals are used to tailor offer positioning and messaging tone.
Business Outcome
The most immediate shift was operational. Lease-end outreach moved from a sales-team-dependent process to a fully automated 180-day journey. The sales team's role changed from cold outreach at scale to high-intent follow-up.
On the customer side, the change is visible in every touchpoint. Emails reflect declared intent, carry dealer addresses matched to the recipient's zip code, and surface brand-specific financing offers. Returning lessees receive loyalty benefits relevant to their account. Visitors browsing the site get loan offers personalized in real time through Marketing Cloud Personalization.
Highlights
5.9 Million
Impressions Generated
6.2K
Customer Click-Throughs
10.4 Million
Behavioral Events Collected
383K
Customer Visits Captured
Conclusion
For the client, the lease-end window is one of the highest-value moments in the customer lifecycle. Team Grazitti transformed that moment from a reactive, manually managed process into a proactive, data-driven engagement system. With intent-capture logic, multi-cadence automation, and dealer routing, the client can now engage every customer with the right message, at the right time, through the right channel — automatically, and at scale.
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