Stellantis's new Marketing Covenant, which reworks pricing, website, and digital advertising rules across the automaker's dealer network, goes into effect Oct. 1.
Ahead of the October date, a few folks from Stream Companies, an integrated advertising and marketing agency, walked attendees through the changes during a Sept. 3 webinar.
Driving the news: According to the Stellantis launch deck reviewed by CDG News, the covenant consolidates three separate compliance programs into a single framework built around four pillars.
The four pillars are:
Dealer/Market Accelerate Program
Certified Dealer Websites
Certified Digital Advertising
Compliance & Audit Policy
The webinar focused on four related but distinct changes: How pricing gets advertised on all outward-facing media, new website requirements, digital marketing and data-sharing standards, and how it all affects co-op reimbursement.
Behind the update: Brendan Riley, EVP of client strategy for Stream Cos., said during the webinar that it’s all about a transparency push.
"This is a framework designed to bring the customers a better experience of transparency," Riley said. "In order to do that, it's making sure that information can flow from the dealer to the vendor to the OEM…”
In short, Stellantis wants a uniform experience for its customers.
Steve Sexton, SVP of agency growth at Stream, said the shift is about meeting shoppers where they are.
He shared an anecdote about his wife, a schoolteacher with no ties to the auto industry, who got frustrated shopping for a car recently because she couldn't find lease pricing anywhere online early in the month.
In other words, an automotive-centric timing occurrence that may not be obvious to folks outside the industry.
"Average car shoppers don't care if it's the second of the month or the 30th," Sexton said. "All they care about is that when they want the information, they can go get it, and it's clear and easy to understand."
‘Every person’ prices: All advertised prices must be built the same way, which the guide lays out.
MSRP, plus dealer add-ons (doc fees, accessories, and a "market adjustment" capped at 3% of invoice), minus a dealer discount and any universal incentives, all arriving at a single minimum advertised price.
Additionally:
A dealer discount can't be combined with a market adjustment.
Starting with the '27 model year, the discount can't go below invoice (with a narrower 2%-below-invoice allowance for Ram light-duty trucks).
Conditional incentives, such as military, first responder, loyalty, and similar offers, have to be itemized separately from the headline number.
Can't combine incentives that aren't compatible with each other.
Can't advertise or display "dealer conditional" offers, such as dealer trade-assist cash.
Can't use "harmful" CTA buttons that imply additional discounts or pricing beyond what's shown.
Riley pointed out that the standard tracks closely with existing federal rules.
"Some of the main things you have to be on the lookout for is it has to be an every-person offer... It's just making sure that it's an every-person deal, and any dealer discounts will have a cap,” Riley said.
Paid searches: Brendan Anderson, who leads search at Stream, said the paid search rules start with the obvious… Don't bid on another Stellantis dealer's DBA name.
"This is for us a best practice anyways," Anderson said. "When you go after those competitor or other Stellantis dealer terms, it's typically very expensive, typically very low converting."
Other notes:
Loose keyword "match types" can create a campaign built around a generic phrase, such as "Ram dealer near me," to also fire on a competitor's name, even if it’s unintentional.
"You can go after that exact phrase, or Google has options to be a little bit more loose in the different keyword queries," Anderson said. "I think that's where a lot of dealers could get into trouble with this."
Riley said some overlap near a dealer's Primary Market Area boundary is inevitable.
"The biggest thing I could recommend to dealers and to digital providers is constant communication," Riley said.
Certified providers: Starting on Oct. 1, DAP reimbursement for digital marketing only flows through a certified provider, and that requirement includes more than just ad campaigns.
Riley said dealers should be checking three things in a provider:
Whether they can technically report performance data back to Stellantis and Shift Digital.
Whether they understand the pricing rules across every channel — not just the vehicle detail page, but homepage, email, and conquest offers, too.
And whether they can actually help a dealer take advantage of new audience data Stellantis is sharing back.
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Speed is the new bar: Riley said once pricing is standardized, speed becomes one of the only differentiators left.
It takes the industry, he said, an average of seven business days to get new promotions live, working out to about a quarter of the month spent not showing up-to-date offers.
"You don't want to waste 25% of the market not articulating those promotions," Riley said.
He added, however, that a dealer's own identity still matters: "It is your digital showroom."
A dealer's POV: Phil Pecoraro, operating partner at Murdock CDJR in Salt Lake City, told Daily Dealer Live host Sam D’Arc that he sees the covenant as long overdue.
"If you look at overall Stellantis, they're battling against each other and it just, the brand model's done," Pecoraro said during the Aug. 10 show. "Rebates are getting too high, residual values aren't great."
Pecoraro expects the pricing discipline to show up in the used market before long: "It usually takes about 12 to 18 months before that starts hitting."
He also expects the rules to change how dealers spend on advertising in a good way: "We'll actually spend more money on advertising knowing that if I get that customer, they click on my car, I can start working the deal as soon as I get a lead form."
He sees the nationwide inventory visibility piece as a good thing, especially regarding a certain competitor.
"It makes Carvana on a level playing field with all of us," Pecoraro said. "So now they don't have, you know, 7,000 or 8,000 new vehicles... their website... lumps together every single new vehicle they have in their complete network."
Compliance and penalties: Riley said dealers are accountable for every vendor and every employee who touches their business, not just the ads they submit for reimbursement.
"It's not just the tactics that you're submitting for reimbursement,” Riley said. “It's anything that has your name attached to it."
This all seeps into third-party marketplace listings, email communications sent to customers, and even employees' personal social media posts about pricing.
Stellantis’ guide breaks violations into three buckets: Pricing, website, and advertising, that accumulate as "strikes" over a rolling six-month window.
A third strike triggers a chargeback of the prior 90 days' delivery allowance and DAP contribution.
A fourth strike or beyond means forfeiting delivery allowance, DAP contribution, Tier 1 leads, inventory syndication, and Dealer Locate placement.
Website violations get a 10-business-day correction window before a strike is issued; pricing and advertising violations do not.
Looking ahead: Riley closed the webinar with three questions dealers should ask their vendors before October arrives.
Which website widgets and partners are actually certified to keep supporting the site?
Is anything currently qualifying for co-op reimbursement about to stop qualifying under the new rules?
Has your agency confirmed its data-sharing connection to Shift Digital is working?
"You really need to make sure that your current budget, you identify any gray areas," Riley said. "Making sure that your current budget, as it rolls over into 10-1, that you don't find out 90 days from there that you are now not getting reimbursed for some items that you were originally getting reimbursed for."
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