LiftKit Transforms Automotive Marketing with Dynamic Image Tools
LiftKit elevated its inventory management and marketing capabilities, creating seamless workflows that empower dealerships to showcase vehicles effectively across multiple platforms.
the customer
A leader in automotive inventory marketing
LiftKit specializes in providing automotive dealerships with intelligent tools for inventory marketing, merchandising, and mapping. Starting as a print magazine over two decades ago, the company evolved into a digital pioneer with a mission to simplify how dealerships manage and market inventory.
LiftKit processes data from multiple sources, cleans and normalizes it, and ensures that vehicles are presented consistently and professionally. Their platform serves as the single source of truth for dealership inventory, delivering data to websites, search engines, and advertising platforms.
In the highly visual world of automotive sales, where buyers make decisions based on the quality of a vehicle’s photos, LiftKit has positioned itself as an indispensable partner for dealerships.
the challenge
Turning visual bottlenecks into business opportunities
For LiftKit, high-quality photos are non-negotiable. Dan Collingridge, CTO of LiftKit, explains: “Whether buyers browse on a marketplace or on a dealership’s website, the first thing they notice about a vehicle is the photos. We needed tools to ensure every image showcased vehicles beautifully and consistently.”
However, the team faced three major challenges:
- Page speed concerns: dealership websites were penalized by Google PageSpeed Insights due to uncompressed, unoptimized images. This hurt mobile performance and search rankings.
- Cluttered photos: many dealerships lacked the resources to take clean, professional photos, resulting in images with distracting elements like background clutter and watermarks.
- Scalability issues: LiftKit’s in-house tools required storing multiple image versions (e.g., original, background-removed, resized), which was inefficient and costly.
the solution
Empowering dealerships with intelligent photo tools
LiftKit partnered with Imgix to solve these challenges by integrating dynamic image processing directly into its platform. This allowed the team to deliver optimized, professional-looking images with minimal effort.
Image optimization at scale:
With smart defaults for image optimization, LiftKit achieved an average image compression of 55%, reducing file sizes while maintaining visual fidelity. Faster loading images improved dealership website performance and mobile experiences.
Background removal for professionalism:
Dealerships could instantly remove cluttered backgrounds and replace them with clean, branded settings, improving visual appeal. “Now, every car photo we process is showroom-ready,” said Collingridge.
Real-time adjustments and scalability:
Dynamic URL-based parameters eliminated the need to store multiple image versions. LiftKit simply stored one original image, and Imgix generated variations on demand.
Enhanced advertising compliance:
Watermarks, which often led to rejected ads, were automatically removed during processing, ensuring images met platform requirements without additional effort.
the results
Better visuals, faster workflows, greater impact
With empowered image workflows, LiftKit achieved measurable improvements across its platform:
- Faster website performance: Optimized images load in just 37 milliseconds, improving user experience and search rankings.
- Reduced storage needs: Storing only original images simplified infrastructure and reduced costs.
- Improved ad placement success: Watermark removal ensured compliance with platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Marketplace.
- Increased productivity: Dealerships now manage visuals seamlessly, without the need for manual editing.
A future driven by visuals
LiftKit’s innovative use of real-time image processing has positioned it as a leader in automotive inventory management. By empowering dealerships to deliver professional, optimized visuals effortlessly, LiftKit continues to redefine what’s possible in the industry.
For dealerships and beyond, the LiftKit story shows how a focus on smart visual tools can unlock new opportunities, improve workflows, and create better customer experiences.
