As 2025 Comes to a Close: What Dealers Should Rethink for 2026

As 2025 comes to a close, most dealerships are already looking ahead to budgets, plans, and priorities for 2026. That is the right instinct. But the bigger question is not what to spend next year. It is what to change.

The automotive retail landscape did not shift overnight in 2025. It quietly exposed what is no longer working.

• Fragmented marketing.
• Overreliance on last-click reporting.
• Channel decisions driven by habit instead of outcomes.

Dealers who treat 2026 as a continuation of 2025 will fall behind those who use it as a reset.

Rethink how you define “strategy.”

Running ads on Meta, Google, streaming, and YouTube does not equal a strategy. It equals activity.

In 2026, winning dealers will stop asking “What channels should we be on?” and start asking “What role does each channel play in the sales funnel?”

Some channels should create demand. Others should educate and qualify. Others should capture intent. When every platform is asked to do everything, efficiency collapses. An integrated omnichannel strategy assigns one clear job to each channel and eliminates overlap, waste, and noise.

Move from reactive reporting to predictive planning.

Most marketing decisions are still made by looking backward. Last month’s results. Last quarter’s cost per lead. Last year’s sales mix.

Guess what? The market does not care.

2026 needs to be the year more dealers plan based on what is likely to happen, not what already did. Predictive modeling and forecasting are not about guessing the future. They are about reducing risk, allocating smarter, and avoiding late reactions when conditions change.

Rebalance the funnel, especially at the top.

When sales soften, most stores pull back on awareness and push harder on lower funnel tactics. It feels safe. It rarely works.

Dealers who grew in 2025 did not just capture demand. They created it earlier. Streaming, video, and social matter more when shoppers take longer to convert and competition tightens.

Starving the top of the funnel shows up months later in the showroom. 2026 should be about feeding it intentionally.

2026 will not reward dealerships that spend more. It will reward those willing to change what no longer works.

Treat creative as a performance lever, not a checkbox.

Creative is still one of the most underutilized levers in automotive marketing.

Static ads reused everywhere. Outdated incentives. Video treated as optional.

In 2026, creative needs to be dynamic, sequential, and aligned to funnel stage. Awareness creative should not look like intent creative. The same shopper should not see the same message over and over and over as they move closer to purchase.

Creative should adapt in real time, because performance does.

Elevate fixed ops from support to strategy.

Sales gets the attention. Fixed ops often delivers the profit.

More dealers are realizing that service is not just about retention. It is about acquisition, relationship building, and long-term value. Smarter marketing programs in 2026 will invest intentionally in service growth, conquesting non-brand owners, and building loyalty earlier in the customer lifecycle.

Marketing should support all dealership profit centers, not just vehicle sales.

2026 will not reward dealers who simply spend more. It will reward those who think differently.

Those willing to realign strategy, rebalance the funnel, and modernize how decisions are made will separate quickly from the rest of the market.

Cheers to a successful new year!