KNOREX Ltd. (NYSE American: KNRX) unveiled the results of a high‑stakes automotive media effort that ran throughout the Black Friday shopping weekend—a period traditionally marked by soaring ad costs and fierce competition for consumer attention. Leveraging its AI platform, the company reported that a national digital awareness campaign was able to generate more than 54,000 tracked visits to participating dealerships, all while maintaining display cost‑per‑thousand impressions (CPM) below $2.50 and a cost‑per‑acquisition (CPA) under $4.
The data points, released from Sunnyvale, California, and Singapore, offer a concrete look at how programmatic buying can bridge the gap between online engagement and offline footfall, a challenge that has long haunted automotive marketers.
A Black Friday Test Bed for AI‑Powered Media Buying
Black Friday is often described as the “wild west” of retail advertising, where demand spikes, inventory moves quickly, and every additional dollar spent can quickly erode margins. For automotive brands, the stakes are even higher: dealers must balance national brand awareness with local showroom traffic, all while competing against a flood of consumer‑goods promotions.
KNOREX chose this environment deliberately. By partnering with a leading U.S. automotive digital engagement and reputation‑management platform that services thousands of dealer rooftops, the company set up a national campaign that would stress‑test the XPO platform’s ability to allocate budget, optimize creative, and drive offline conversions at scale.
How XPO Orchestrated Over 106 Million Impressions
The XPO engine coordinated a mix of high‑impact video and performance‑oriented display assets across a media inventory that delivered more than 106 million impressions. The platform’s real‑time bidding algorithms continuously evaluated inventory quality, audience relevance, and cost metrics, adjusting spend on the fly to keep CPMs within target ranges.
Video units, priced between $3.40 and $4.20 per thousand impressions, were paired with display slots that consistently stayed under $2.50 CPM despite the seasonal price surge. This balance allowed KNOREX to sustain a high volume of impressions without inflating the overall media bill.
Engagement Numbers That Translate to Physical Visits
The campaign’s video component alone generated over 6.9 million interactions—a figure that reflects both viewability and user‑initiated actions such as clicks or taps. Engagement rates peaked at 28 percent, a notable achievement given the cluttered media landscape of Black Friday.
More importantly, the AI platform linked these digital touchpoints to real‑world outcomes. Using offline conversion tracking, KNOREX documented more than 54,000 dealership visits that could be directly attributed to the digital effort. This metric provides a tangible answer to the long‑standing question of how many online impressions ultimately drive showroom traffic.
Cost Efficiency Under Pressure
Maintaining cost efficiency during a period when many advertisers see CPMs double or triple is a significant accomplishment. KNOREX’s managed services team reported that display CPMs remained below $2.50 throughout the campaign, while video CPMs hovered between $3.40 and $4.20.
Even more striking is the reported CPA of under $4 per dealership visit. In an industry where dealer acquisition costs can easily exceed $20 in a competitive season, keeping the CPA at this level suggests that AI‑driven optimization can materially improve the economics of automotive media spend.
The Role of AI in Real‑Time Decision Making
XPO’s AI engine performed three core functions in real time:
- Bid Optimization – Continuously adjusting bids based on inventory performance, audience signals, and budget constraints.
- Creative Sequencing – Dynamically selecting the most relevant video or display creative for each impression, preserving audience relevance and preventing fatigue.
- Cross‑Channel Budget Allocation – Shifting spend between video and display channels to maximize overall conversion efficiency while respecting the campaign’s cost targets.
Automated decisioning eliminated the need for manual, hour‑by‑hour adjustments, allowing the campaign to stay agile amid rapid shifts in Black Friday demand.
Executive Insight: “We’re Moving Beyond Engagement”
“This campaign reflects the strength of our unified AI architecture and our ability to execute at national scale,” said Abhishek Kumar, Vice President of Product and Engineering at KNOREX. “Automotive advertisers are moving beyond engagement metrics and demanding measurable business outcomes. Our platform’s ability to convert awareness campaigns into dealership visits—while maintaining cost efficiency during one of the most competitive retail periods of the year—demonstrates the performance capability and scalability of XPO.”
Kumar’s remarks underscore a broader industry shift: advertisers are no longer satisfied with vanity metrics such as view‑through rates or click‑through percentages. Instead, they seek direct attribution to revenue‑generating actions, a demand that AI‑powered platforms are increasingly able to satisfy.
Why This Matters for Automotive Marketers
The automotive sector has historically struggled with attribution. While digital channels excel at capturing interest, translating that interest into a test drive or a sale often requires a physical showroom visit. The KNOREX results suggest that a unified AI platform can reliably tie digital exposure to offline footfall, offering a clearer ROI narrative for media planners.
Moreover, the cost metrics achieved during Black Friday demonstrate that AI can keep media spend disciplined even when market prices are inflated. This could encourage more automotive brands to allocate a larger share of their budgets to programmatic channels, confident that the technology can protect margins.
Competitive Landscape: AI vs. Traditional Media Buying
Traditional media buying relies heavily on human planners and static rule sets, which can lag behind rapid market fluctuations. The XPO platform’s ability to adjust bids, swap creatives, and reallocate budgets in milliseconds represents a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate without sophisticated AI.
Other ad‑tech vendors are also investing in AI, but the KNOREX case provides a concrete, data‑driven example of performance at scale. As advertisers evaluate platform options, the ability to demonstrate sub‑$4 CPA during a peak season may become a decisive factor.
Implications for Multi‑Location Retail Beyond Automotive
While the campaign focused on automotive dealers, the underlying technology is applicable to any multi‑location retailer that needs to convert national awareness into local visits—think home‑improvement stores, appliance chains, or even large‑format grocery retailers. The success of XPO in a highly competitive environment suggests that the model could be replicated across other verticals seeking measurable offline outcomes.
Looking Ahead: Scaling AI‑Driven Attribution
KNOREX’s leadership views the Black Friday results as validation for broader adoption of XPO across enterprise‑level clients. The company anticipates that as more advertisers demand accountable media spend, AI platforms will become the default infrastructure for programmatic campaigns that need to tie digital impressions to offline actions.
Future developments may include deeper integration with dealer management systems, real‑time inventory feeds, and predictive analytics that forecast showroom traffic based on digital activity trends.
Bottom Line
The Black Friday automotive rollout provides a rare, data‑rich case study of how AI‑powered programmatic buying can deliver both scale and measurable business impact. By generating over 54,000 tracked dealership visits, maintaining display CPMs under $2.50, and achieving a CPA below $4, KNOREX demonstrates that sophisticated AI can keep media costs in check while delivering tangible offline results.
For automotive marketers, the takeaway is clear: the era of “digital awareness only” is ending, and platforms that can translate that awareness into showroom traffic—especially during peak retail moments—will earn a competitive edge.
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