Streaming advertising platform Dealer Stream signed a partnership deal in March with Blockboard, a competitor whose technology helps reduce ad fraud and waste, at about the same time the Trump administration announced its tariffs on automobile imports.
As the two promoted their new agreement, dealerships suddenly became more concerned about costs and how the tariffs might impact the bottom line. The CEOs of both companies said they are confident they can succeed in the current climate with a message of cost cutting and greater efficiency for streaming advertising.
“When we can eliminate fraud, we can actually save [dealerships] about 30 percent on average with the fact that we’re able to reach a 100 percent real human,” Dealer Stream co-founder Owen Moon told Automotive News.
Blockboard co-founder Matt Wasserlauf in a separate interview said: “We are helping our advertisers do more with less.”
Moon launched Dealer Stream in October 2024, a year after he and his co-founders sold their marketing and technolgy company Fixed Ops Digital to dealership software provider TradePending. Dealer Stream, which employs six people, provides streaming advertising for franchised dealerships using connected TV and online video strategies. Its technology will allow Dealer Stream customers to facilitate test drives and service leads.
Blockboard, established in 2019 in New York City, has a platform that relies on blockchain and artificial intelligence to help make digital ad spending more efficient and also reduce ad fraud and waste. The company, which employs 100 people and generates $50 million in annual revenue, said its technology enables targeted ad placements, real-time assessments of data and analysis of steps a customer takes during a digital ad encounter.
Blockchain is a system that helps maintain records of multiple transactions in a linked computer network.
Kerrigan Advisors’ proprietary annual OEM Survey of over 100 executives reveals that the majority of respondents are worried about the financial impact of Chinese automakers’ growing global market share, and most expect that the EV transition to be slower than expected. The survey also queried executives on their outlooks for dealership valuations and profitability, as well as their expectations for the future of dealer networks and facility requirements.
Dealer Stream and Blockboard’s combined partnership can help reduce digital advertising fraud, something commonplace with streaming advertising, said Moon, who serves as Dealer Stream CEO .
“It’s not necessarily malicious,” Moon said. “Companies are smart and technology evolves; they steal impressions. They steal those opportunities to reach real humans.”
Blockboard’s technology works in multiple ways to prevent fraud, both for dealerships and consumers looking to service vehicles or buy cars, Moon said.
“Blockboard really helps us with that because their technology has built-in fraud-blocking technology using the blockchain,” Moon said, because it performs several verifications to make sure users are real humans when they send out advertising calls to publishers.
Blockboard long interested in automotive
Blockboard works with many industries, Wasserlauf said. The Dealer Stream partnership is its first major jump into the automotive industry, except for one or two dealerships across the country that have sampled the technology “and have been very happy,” he said.
Wasserlauf said he has been interested for some time in taking the plunge into automotive and previously tried to break into the business through manufacturers. All have been entrenched with long-term providers such as Google.
“They have been hell-bent on staying with those existing platforms,” Wasserlauf said. “That’s why we’re super excited about this partnership.”
So far, Dealer Stream has about 60 dealership clients, a quick gain due in part from Moon’s previous contacts from his Fixed Ops Digital days. Customers include Feldman Automotive Group in Detroit and its Mark Wahlberg dealership division in Columbus, Ohio.
Moon said he had been in touch with Blockboard since October, building their technology relationship gradually with a “crawl, walk, run approach.”
“When we started to utilize their software for our company, we instantly saw an increase in results,” Moon said.
Discussions about their now-exclusive partnership began around Thanksgiving.
Moon said the partnership’s goal is focused on expansion within reason.
“What we want is good clients that are interested in putting together better campaigns, better creative and really using this type of strategy to increase their sales business, their service business and even vehicle acquisition,” Moon said.
