River City Ford

Estimated read time: 5 minutes

The Strategy Behind $260K a Month in Sales and 20X Return on Marketing

If you’re still thinking about investing in marketing for your parts department, consider this as your wake-up call.

Because while some dealers are still waiting around for parts shoppers to magically find them online, River City Ford in Winnipeg, Canada is out here racking up six figures in monthly online sales.

The best part is they’re doing it without adding headcount, learning how to use tricky marketing tools, or wasting time guessing what might work. Instead, they signed up with the RevolutionParts Marketing Agency.

“We were surprised at how quickly it started working,” said Kelly Marsden, Parts Manager at River City Ford. 

“The day they turned the marketing on, we had orders coming in. It wasn’t where it is today, but it was instant. You don’t usually expect to see results that fast.”

Now they’re seeing a 20X return on their marketing spend (ROMS). That means for every dollar they spend on ads, they make twenty dollars in sales. And because it’s working so well, they’ve scaled their budget up six times since starting.

“We started small, but once we saw how well it was working, we kept increasing our ad budget,” Kelly explained. “As long as we’re making more money than we’re spending, we’ll keep investing. If the growth slows down, we’ll adjust, but so far, the return keeps getting better.”

River City Ford’s Winning Marketing Stats

Marketing no-brainer

River City Ford didn’t wait to see if their online parts store would catch on. They started marketing right away.

“I always tell people, you can’t just open a store and expect people to show up if you didn’t tell anyone you exist. RevolutionParts built the website, and then telling people about it is where the RevolutionParts Agency came in soon after,” Kelly said.

And to be clear, River City Ford doesn’t have some massive marketing budget. They started with a small spend. What made the difference was their trust in the process.

“We didn’t want to mess around trying to market this ourselves. We’re parts people, not marketing people. The Agency team lives and breathes this stuff,” said Kelly.

Don’t call it luck, call it process

Kelly and his team treat their eCommerce operation like a serious business, and that means always working to improve their listings.

“You can’t market a pile of crap and expect it to sell. So we make sure our parts listings are clear and easy for a parts buyer to understand. No weird abbreviations. We add photos, call out left vs. right, and hyperlink every related item,” Kelly emphasized. 

One of their top sellers is a timing chain tensioner kit for F-150s, an obscure part not many stores even know how to list correctly.

“We turned that part page into a resource. The description tells you everything you need to know, what else you might need for the repair, and links to all those parts. We even caught other stores copy and pasting it. It’s so specific, we know it’s ours. But honestly, I took it as a compliment,” said Kelly.

AI with a Canadian accent

To beef up their listing descriptions, the team uses AI. But not the bland, robotic kind.

“We don’t just spit out generic descriptions. We actually train it on our tone. We’re a Canadian store, so we inject a bit of humor and local language. It still sounds like us, but it saves us a ton of time,” Kelly explained.

They’ve even built custom prompts to rewrite dry OEM copy into something a human might actually want to read. Most of their descriptions are now complete with clear titles, thorough explanations, and links to related parts.

“If a customer doesn’t understand the description, and we barely do either, that’s a red flag. So we clean it up, make it clear, and let AI do the heavy lifting in our voice,” Kelly said.

It’s the kind of smart system you need when you’re running lean. After all, River City Ford isn’t a massive eCommerce warehouse with an endless headcount. This whole operation started with Kelly packing orders on his desk. 

Inventory first, ads second

One of the biggest wins River City Ford saw with the RevolutionParts Marketing Agency team was surprisingly simple: only advertise what you actually have in stock.

“At first, we were running ads on everything in our catalog, including stuff on backorder or sitting in a warehouse somewhere. But once we started uploading real-time inventory quantities and focused our ad spend on parts physically sitting on our shelves, things changed fast,” Kelly said. 

The Agency team built a campaign around those in-stock, ready-to-ship parts. And customers responded.

“Conversion rates jumped. Because people don’t want to wait. Thanks to Amazon, they expect speed and transparency. If you show them something they can actually get in a few days, they’re way more likely to buy,” said Kelly.

That kind of level of attention from the Agency team is part of why River City Ford’s has stayed on board for years.

“With the Agency, it’s not just a ‘set it and forget it’ thing. They’re constantly evolving the strategy. What worked six months ago might not work now, and they’re on top of that,” reinforced Kelly.

Let the pros handle it

“I wouldn’t ask my house painter to wire the electrical. But that’s what some stores do, they hire car marketing agencies to sell parts online. It’s not the same game. That’s why we went with RevolutionParts Marketing. They actually know this stuff.”

That’s why River City Ford signed on with RevolutionParts Agency from day one. While other dealerships tried to DIY their marketing or handed it off to agencies with no experience in parts, Kelly and his team knew that selling parts online takes a different playbook.

“These guys have been in it with us from the start,” said Kelly. And the results speak for themselves.

“Look, we’re hitting $260K in sales over three days. We’re proud of what we’ve built. And a big part of that is RevolutionParts Agency.”

If you’re serious about growing your eCommerce revenue, take a page out of River City Ford’s approach:

1. Let the experts run your marketing.
2. Keep your product listings accurate, detailed, and clear.
3. Use tools like AI to move faster and smarter.
4. And most importantly, keep evolving.