Meet Engine by Drivers 1st
Driver Recruiting Follow-Up That Cuts Costs — Not Corners
Freight’s Down. Pressure’s Up. And Leads Are Getting Expensive.
Carriers are being forced to do more with less:
Freight volumes have been low for over two years straight
Margins are shrinking — but hiring demands aren’t
Advertising budgets are under the knife
Recruiters are stretched thin, managing too many leads with too little time
Meanwhile, driver leads keep coming in — but 95%+ of them go nowhere. In a down market, waste like that isn’t just inefficient — it’s a liability.
Engine solves it.
What is Engine?
You don’t need new software.
You don’t need more leads.
You need Engine.
Engine is a recruiting follow-up system designed to stretch your lead budget further — and fill your trucks faster.
It’s not just SMS. It’s not just email.
It’s a fully-managed,
hands-off system that works behind the scenes to:
Re-engage cold leads
Follow up intelligently over time
Drive more conversions from the same list
Make your recruiters more effective without adding headcount
Built for Trucking.
Backed by 17 Years in the Trenches.
Most marketing tools weren’t built for CDL-A driver recruiting. They were built for retail, eComm, or B2C sales funnels.
We’ve been recruiting drivers for over 17 years, and we’ve seen the cycles:
Freight
boom.
Freight bust. Carriers scaling up, then scaling back.
Engine was born from that pressure — designed to automate what recruiters don’t have time for, and recover the ROI that most lead campaigns miss.
The Recruiting Math Is Broken
Let's break it down
Lead costs are $20–$50 each
Only 3–5% of leads get hired on the first pass
The other 95–97% go cold
So you’re spending thousands...
...to talk to a few dozen drivers.
Engine fixes the follow-up gap.
So you get more hires, without buying more leads.
What Engine Does
Multi-channel automation
SMS, email, and other touchpoints — customized to your brand and tone
Timing that converts
Follow-up flows that mirror real driver decision timelines
Behavior-based logic
Messages that adapt based on driver responses, clicks, and engagement
Zero-handoff required
Our team runs it. Your team benefits.
Designed for This Exact Market
Carriers using Engine see:
Reduced
cost-per-hire
Better ROI
from lead spend
Recruiters focused on warm, ready-to-run drivers
A system that keeps working — even when freight slows down
You don’t have to scale your team to scale your results.
You just
need better follow-up.
Who isEngineFor
Mid-sized and large carriers feeling the pressure of freight recession
Recruiting teams operating lean
Carriers spending heavily on ads with low conversion
Fleets tired of lead waste, ghosting, and one-and-done outreach
Let’s Put Engine to Work for You
You're already generating leads.You're already paying for traffic. Let’s finally convert more of it — with zero lift on your end.