Tom Letizia

Auto dealers are receiving the brunt of current economic problems, including swelling gas prices, a slowing economy and a credit crisis. Yet, new vehicle dealerships are still a boon to retail sales in the United States—accounting for 20 percent of all retail sales in the country at more then 675 billion dollars in sales per year, according to the National Auto Dealer Association’s 2007 study. Collectively, the more than 20,000 U.S. new vehicle dealerships recorded in the study spend annually a total of 7.8 billion dollars on advertising, with each dealer spending an average of $37,029 or 10 percent of its advertising budget on