CJ Paterniti from D&S AutomotiveThe past three years have been a whirlwind for CJ Paterniti, owner of D&S Automotive in Mentor, Ohio. In 2023, he acquired the business his father began in the late 1970s and expanded into five more stores and a glass repair company, and he turned an industry slowdown into an opportunity to capture new customers at the end of 2025.
Paterniti shared with Autobody News how he used social media to geotarget new business using social media.
Lingering logistics issues from COVID-19, a dwindling workforce, and complications with tariffs compounded. After two really good years in business in 2023 and 2024, Paterniti found himself looking around for a boost as things slowed in 2025.
He’d already throttled expenses, cutting back on the monthly cookouts he was used to throwing for staff. To avoid eliminating much-anticipated events like the annual company Christmas party and without laying off employees, he knew he was going to need to do something different.
The “something” came to him as he dropped his kids off for lacrosse camp in the summer of 2025 at a local private school. He noticed cars pulling into the parking lot with stickers denoting other private schools, and he began considering targeting higher-income areas for customers.
Thinking outside the box
“We started geofencing those schools,” he said. “I was like, ‘Let's target the people that actually have the money, that have disposable income, that will spend $1,000 or $1,500 bucks on a $7,000 or $6,000 repair.”
He began considering where else people with disposable income might be — where they shopped, for food and homewares. He and his marketing team began, through social media ads, geofencing grocery stores and nurseries.
He figured if people could spend a little more on groceries and gardening supplies at higher-end stores, they could probably spend money on their cars. He sought to handle the repair process completely for these customers in the same way these stores handled the retail experience.
“I had to get creative on how we could draw some new opportunities to the door,” he said. “How do you get in front of people without them calling the insurance company first? We want to be the first call, 100% claims handling. We set the reservation for Enterprise — all the stuff that's been pretty much industry standard … Instead of sitting here wondering when the next vehicle is going to come to the store to be able to have the opportunity to close the job or help that customer in their time of need, I was trying to think outside the box.”
Building a social presence
The company has begun using financial information to drive social media advertising and now targets geographical areas where the median income level is more likely to produce customers willing to spend money on their vehicles.
“(It’s) using some financial information to really drive some demographic perspective on how to advertise in those certain areas versus just throwing up a billboard on the side of the freeway,” Paterniti said.
The company uses a third-party company that takes care of all marketing efforts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. Last year, he said, between these four platforms, D&S had 2.9 million views and is now being compensated by the platforms for its posts.
The company, Paterniti said, spends $1,000 to $1,500 a month, and the nominal amount it receives from platforms offsets this expense.
The D&S Automotive opening in Kirkland, Ohio. The Kirtland location is one of six body shops the company owns, along with a glass repair company.The result has been increased engagement with customers — and not just online. About two months after this strategy launched, D&S received about 300 additional calls. Paterniti isn’t sure how many sales these calls actually led to, but the fact that they came in, he feels, is significant. He attributes a significant part of the success to having a full-time dedicated social media manager who is paid, essentially, on commission.
“I have a full-time social media coordinator; I pay him to do this, and he's compensated based on the success of it. And so, his skin in the game is to create more views,” Paterniti said.
Social posts include things like before and after pictures and customer reviews, along with video and reels. Paterniti recently posted a photo he took with well-known car builder Dave Kindig, generating dozens of likes.
Local networking and charity work is also important for Paterniti. The company is active with local chambers of commerce; the Chardon location won large business of the year from its local chamber last year. And Paterniti hosts an annual cruise-in to raise money for an area children’s hospital each year and matches that money before donating it. All of these opportunities, he said, make for great content.
AI implementation
The company is also implementing artificial intelligence at its main location to help with answering phones at night and when customer service representatives are busy. For non-drivable vehicles, it’s able to dispatch tow trucks and do three-way calls with insurance companies. It also prioritizes callbacks, letting CSRs know if there’s follow-up needed.
Despite a desire to be ahead of the curve with technology and social media, it’s important to Paterniti to implement change he can measure. He does this by implementing no more than a few new processes at once, making sure he understands them as they develop. He’s interested in purchasing more locations, and this principal applies at that level, too.
“You can't change more than three things at once,” he said. “This is one of my mantras because then, you don't know what's a success and what's not right. You can't manage what you can't measure.”
RECAP: What D&S has done for social success
- Target customers within an eight-to-10-mile radius of private schools near each location.
- Canvas higher-end grocery stores and garden centers and target customers within a radius of those locations in relation to the company's stores.
- Decide where to advertise based on geofencing income levels that indicate a high likelihood customers will be willing to spend money on their vehicles.
- Run analytics on social media ads to see what’s garnering engagement.
Elizabeth Green