No matter the media buy — print, direct mail, email, television, radio or online — one veteran dealer marketing executive believes there is one metric principal managers need to watch when it comes to promoting the store, inventory, special campaigns and more.

“I know when we look at an ad budget for a dealer, it isn’t so much based on what they spend. The metric we use is the ROI on the money spent. We’re not so much in favor of cutting budgets as much as we’re in favor of increasing your return on your investment,” said Rob Mudd, president of Mudd Advertising, which has helped guide dealers through the advertising world for more than three decades.

“I think that’s one of the bigger changes, as well … ROI needs to be at the tip of the tongue of every marketing guy working with a car dealer,” Mudd continued. “For every $1 spent, how many are you getting in return? I don’t think it’s so much about the spend as it is about the ROI on the money spent.”

Along with Mudd, Auto Remarketing reached out to several industry leaders to get their take on a host of issues from reputation management to compliance. With technology advancing quickly, dealers now have a host of choices of how to utilize their advertising resources.

The entire package, including strategic commentaries from Paul Potratz and Kathi Kruse, are contained in the Dec. 1 print edition of Auto Remarketing, a tool managers and dealer principles can use to plan for 2013 and beyond.

If you don’t already receive the print version of the industry’s leading publication, contact circulation director Lisa McGraw at lmcgraw@cherokeepublishing.com to get set up for a free subscription.