There are lots of reasons to connect your local print advertising to local digital landing pages. The biggest reason is that consumers want more information than what a newspaper ad or direct mail piece can give them and they are already inclined to go online for more information, so it makes sense to make it easy by adding a url or QR code to the print material you are already using.
This chart makes the point that consumers are willing to make the connection from print to digital.
In addition to providing consumers more information the value of linking to a localized landing page is that you can track the effectiveness of both the print effort and the landing page.
The reason your dealers like to have a landing page go with the newspaper ad they just built in your online ad builder is that there are no additional publication or print costs associated with this additional interaction with consumers.
It also makes sense for retailers to post a link to the landing page from their own site and from their Facebook page to further stretch the value of using the brand friendly content you provide for them.
Cheaper, better and faster are wonderful attributes for local brand marketing.