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Most dealership budgets get set by percentage of revenue, or by whatever last year was plus a bit. Neither tells you what to do. Start from the two numbers that decide it, then look at where the money should go.
New and used combined, or your target if you are planning up.
What you are willing to spend on advertising to move one car. Default reflects a rounded planning figure, not a target.
Monthly ad budget
$31,500
$378,000 a year
| Channel | Share | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Paid searchBrand plus city, core models, and conquest terms, with a serious negative keyword list. The waste here is usually negatives, not bids. | 30% | $9,450 |
| Paid socialReaches shoppers in the neighborhoods around the rooftop with actual inventory in the ad. Fatigues fastest, so it depends on the production line below. | 24% | $7,560 |
| Streaming and CTVKeeps the big-screen impression while holding the geography to your real trade area and the corridors feeding it. | 20% | $6,300 |
| Creative productionThe line most dealer budgets omit entirely. Without it, a tired ad can only be answered by moving budget or rebuilding audiences, neither of which fixes the ad. | 15% | $4,725 |
| Test and reserveHeld back for seasonal pushes, model-year changeover, and testing a channel before committing a monthly line to it. | 11% | $3,465 |
$4,725 a month for creative. This is the line most dealer budgets do not have. Without it, the only answers to a tired ad are more budget and new targeting, and neither replaces the ad.
These splits are starting points for a conversation, not optimal allocations, and nothing here is a promise about results. Your own numbers beat any benchmark: pull what you actually spent and what you actually retailed, and start from that.
The total is deliberately simple: units retailed per month multiplied by what you are willing to spend on advertising to retail one. That is how the number gets defended in a meeting, because both inputs are yours and both are arguable.
The split is where the opinion lives. Money goes first to demand that already exists, then to creating it, and fifteen percent is held back for creative production. That last line is the reason this tool exists. Almost every dealership advertising budget is a media budget with no production line, so when the ads fatigue, the only levers on the table are raising spend and rebuilding audiences. Neither one replaces the ad that got old.
Nothing here is a benchmark, an industry standard, or a promise. The splits are a starting point for a conversation. Your own history beats any default in this tool.
The production line in that table is the part we do. Cinematic spots for your store, cut for every screen, on a monthly cadence so the market never sees a stale ad.