BY Kathy Crosett
Your auto dealer accounts spend heavily on their advertising. But are they advertising in the right channels? Are they getting the best results? Two recently published studies have analyzed the unique aspects of auto dealer advertising and how your accounts can optimize ROI.
State of the Automotive Market
Analysts predict that U.S. automotive sales will amount to 15.6 million units this year, down from the 15.9 million sold in 2024. Analysts also report that 81.8% of spending on new vehicles will go to trucks and SUVs. Meanwhile, internal combustion engines continue to gradually lose market share (75.8%) to plug-in hybrids (1.8%) and EVs (8.7%).
The Need for Top Ad Campaigns
With competition as tough as it’s ever been, your accounts must perfect their auto dealer advertising. One way to optimize ROI is to manage leads. Proper lead management allows dealers to understand the impact of their ads.
They also need to explore new forms of media. And to pay for these ad strategies, encourage them to check their co-op advertising and marketing allowance funds. You can help them with this task with a subscription to AdMall. This platform gives you weekly automotive leads and contains data on co-op funding plans.
Lead Management
Cox Automotive recently teamed with Perficient researchers to review the process auto dealerships are using to track leads. With only 33% of sales tracked to a lead, dealerships have little understanding of how well their advertising is working.
This study focused on multitouch attribution. The researchers estimated that the average new vehicle buyer spends seven hours researching their options online. On average, dealers have 62 touchpoints with a prospective buyer.
During this study, analysts found that “48% of car shoppers start their search on a marketplace site.” Other key touchpoints along the buying journey include search engines (23%) and the dealer website (14%).
Despite the many touchpoints, dealerships typically give the last one in the buying journey too much credit. They also overemphasize cost per lead. That approach isn’t helpful because it “focuses on volume, not value.” If your accounts aren’t taking multitouch attribution into account, they could be undervaluing specific media formats that are bringing them solid leads.
Help your accounts develop ad campaigns that allow them to more easily track and attribute proper value to each touchpoint in the vehicle-buying process. With that information, their auto dealer advertising investment will deliver better results.
New Media Formats
In another study, analysts reported on auto dealerships and their combined use of programmatic audio with CTV advertising. SiriusXM partnered with EMG, a streaming advertising solutions provider. EMG has worked with 1,400 dealerships on streaming campaigns. The study period covered eight years of vehicle buyer behavior.
In this case, the goal of the study was to measure dealership market share — specifically how it can be changed by the combined force of CTV and programmatic digital audio advertising. To measure market share, analysts compared changes in DMV records related to new vehicle registrations.
Analysts reported that dealers experienced up to a 21% increase in local market share when they used CTV and programmatic digital audio in their ad campaigns.
Co-op Advertising and Marketing Allowance Programs
Your auto accounts will be interested in better lead management or CTV combined with programmatic digital audio. If they complain that they can’t afford to increase their ad spending, bring up the topic of vendor-provided programs. Most automotive manufacturers offer some type of advertising support to their dealers. Whether it’s a formal co-op advertising or a marketing allowance program, dealers can tap into these funds.
AdMall contains all the information media sellers need to discuss this vendor marketing support with their accounts. Dealers may hesitate to use these funding programs because of their complexity. But Ansira research indicates that “affiliates who use the most funds and are savvy marketers see a 112% lift in revenue growth.” The best marketing channels in terms of revenue growth, as measured by Ansira in its survey, were purchased leads, referral programs, direct mail, reputation management, and paid search.
Conclusion
Analysts believe the second half of 2025 could be challenging for auto dealers as the impact of tariffs sets in. Auto dealer advertising can make the difference for your accounts, especially when they tap into vendor-provided funds designed to help them sell more vehicles.
Image on Pexels by Antoni Shkraba Studio.
