Let’s have a little fun with this.
It’s April Fools’ Day, which feels like the perfect time to ask a serious question:
Where should dealers actually be spending their advertising budget right now?
If your answer is some version of “what worked last month” or “I have no clue,” you’re not alone.
You’re also not operating a strategy. You’re operating a habit.
And without real guidance or data, as David Raminick often suggests,
“you might as well light your money on fire.”
The Market Isn’t Static. Your Budget Still Is.
Most dealers don’t realize how much the ground is shifting under them.
Demand doesn’t move in straight lines anymore. It comes in waves. It reacts to incentives, inventory, interest rates, competitor pressure, even weather patterns. And it moves faster than most teams can keep up with.
But budgets? Budgets are still set like it’s 2018. Locked into the same channel mix. The same allocations. The same expectations.
Search gets its share. Meta gets its share. Maybe a little gets tested elsewhere. Then everyone sits back and hopes performance holds.
Sometimes it does. A lot of times it doesn’t.
But guess what??? Hope isn’t a strategy.
The Real Question Isn’t Just Where. It’s Also When.
“Where should we spend?” is the wrong question.
The better question is:
Where should we be spending right now, based on how the market is behaving today?
Because the right mix in week one of the month might be completely wrong by week three.
If your strategy doesn’t account for that, you’re always reacting late.
What Media Mix Modeling Actually Changes
This is where Media Mix Modeling stops being a concept and starts becoming a competitive advantage.
At Proficy Digital Inc., we don’t treat it as reporting. We use it as a decision engine that actively guides where budget should move next.
At its core, it answers a simple but critical question: If I move a dollar, what actually happens next?
Not just within a single channel, but across the media mix.
It shows you exactly where your budget should be for each channel and what adjustments, if any, should be made. It takes the guess work out of budget adjustments and removes risk from your advertising strategy.
Most importantly, it gives you direction in real time.
So instead of setting a plan and hoping it holds, you are adjusting spend based on how the market is actually behaving as it unfolds. Because without that level of guidance, every budget decision is just an opinion dressed up as a strategy.
What the Best Dealers Are Doing Differently
The dealers gaining ground right now aren’t guessing.
They’re adjusting in real time. When demand softens, they build it. When intent spikes, they capture it. When something works, they scale it immediately.
No rigid allocation. Just alignment with the market.
At Proficy Digital, this is how we operate. Media Mix Modeling guides where budget moves next, not where it went last. Because the goal isn’t to be right once a month. It’s to stay right as the market changes.
One Final Thought
April Fools’ Day is meant for harmless jokes, but your advertising budget shouldn’t be one of them.
If your budget doesn’t evolve with the market, it’s not strategy.
It’s a guess. And in this environment, that gets expensive fast.
Leave a Reply