dealers · 2026-10-08 · 27m32s
10-08 Meeting: BMW Advertising Strategy, Inventory Management & Holiday Campaign Planning
Meeting Information
> Date: 2026-10-08 11:04:07 > Participants: Rick (Speaker 1), Lance, J&L (Speakers 3–5)
Meeting Notes
- BMW advertising / market positioning — National iX3 heavy; little X5 beyond Spider-Man placement. Excess X3 stock; new X3 builds paused until December. Modest iX3 spend only; focus in-stock X3, X5, X7, 3 Series.
- Inventory / sales priorities — Used ~39 (low). Nov–Dec goal exceed 500 new. New over used for YE. X3 focus; 3 Series sells without heavy ads. Slightly better than market; annual new retail still over 100%.
- Budget — Sales already $7,000 → $4,500. Larger % lower-funnel (paid search, VLA); less display/demand gen. Expect fewer impressions/clicks; hold or improve cost per key lead.
- Meta used split — Split BMW vs non-BMW inventory ads. ~$200 of ~$450 Meta to non-BMW. Gabriel/Carly. Eval same for ABR.
- X5 logistics — Seven 2027 X5s on site/lot, all pre-sold, sellable after the 15th; can stay on website. Ads push remaining 2026s (incentives). Landing pages filter 2026-only until five clear; then include 2027 when non-pre-sold stock exists.
- Lease vs buy — Local market buys; advertise lease but prefer purchase for backend. Historical ~70% lease at one point.
- Service — Nearly matched last-year customer ROs by end of Sep; now ahead. Keep 10% offer; MY2022+ qualifier only if CP dips.
- Holiday — Fight Lexus December to Remember (starts ~Thanksgiving). BMW Road Home. Target closer to 120 new+used (was 107). Inventory ramps mid-Nov.
- AI — AI Max on X3/X5; expand X7 + 3 Series. Facebook Muse unknown. ChatGPT ads optional/mixed.
- Video — Add to demand gen; optional +$500 YouTube. Lance uploads to BMWJ YouTube for Google links; portal for raw. J&L circles EOM Oct.
- Visit — Mid-Nov in-person; avoid first week month-close. Target week of Nov 9; Lance usually Wed–Thu.
Next arrangements
- [ ] J&L: 2026-only X5 landing pages
- [ ] J&L: Meta used BMW/non-BMW split (~$200 non-BMW); ABR eval
- [ ] J&L: lower-funnel rebalance; AI Max X7 + 3 Series
- [ ] Lance: BMWJ YouTube Road Home / local video links
- [ ] J&L + Lance: schedule mid-Nov visit (~week of 9th)
0:00
Meta used split
BMW vs non-BMW inventory ads; ~$200 non-BMW of ~$450 Meta; Gabriel/Carly; eval ABR
0:00
X5 LP 2026-only
Filter LPs to remaining 2026s; seven 2027s pre-sold, sellable after 15th, stay on site
0:00
Holiday video
Road Home + local; Lance BMWJ YouTube links; demand gen / optional +$500 YT
0:00
Budget posture
$7k→$4.5k; search/VLA heavier; fewer clicks OK if CPL holds
0:00
Nov visit
Week of Nov 9 preferred; avoid first-week close; Lance Wed–Thu
0:00
X5 is here. The IX3 is here. BMW has spent a fortune advertising nationally the IX3. I haven't seen a lot of the X5.
0:11
I have not. I think they're waiting for the X5 to get off the lot.
0:14
Yeah, I haven't seen any X5 ads.
0:17
I haven't either. That was I spend all my time on BMW websites, so usually every time I get on Facebook, Instagram, yeah, both, both, YouTube, I'm always. Audi, Mercedes, BMW ads. Right. You're right. I haven't seen any X5.
0:33
Yeah. Which is okay. You know, I mean they're they're wanting to compete again. For some reason, they've decided they want to tackle the giant. They want to go try to take all of Tesla's cheddar. I don't know how that's going to work out, but the I've driven the IX3. It is a fantastic vehicle. Much nicer. But it's much higher too. So, we've got you know, like all of us, I think most of everybody's inventory have been either pre - ordered or there's not much that's going to be available that's not sold. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. So going out and beating a rock and screaming, you know, spin, spin, spin, IX, three IX, three IX, three. I mean, not for the five we're going to get. Yeah.
1:25
Yeah, I mean, we can. Create something so that we're advertising it, you know, accordingly. But it's not worth, you know, out of your four thousand five hundred budget. It's not worth trying to dump fifteen hundred dollars on. Like we're trying to maybe spend one hundred, two hundred dollars tops on. Bingo. Yep. So I'm I'm aligned with you on that. I was going to say the only ad I've seen for the new X5 is that they did a big collab with like the new Spider Man movie that came out. Yeah. It was heavily product placement on there.
1:57
That was really about the only time I've seen anything in regards to the new X5, other than like stuff Lance has sent me on the pages he's building out for that. Yeah. So, you guys are so big. Ops being service is doing pretty well. I think that's one where we just kind of keep the ship steady. We keep our service offers as is, and then because I'm seeing good things on my end from the service side, I kind of want to focus most of this conversation on sales. In regards to like, I know you guys are struggling. I know like the whole market is struggling. Is there any area where maybe you guys are falling off compared to the market? Like in terms of maybe the new like 26 X3 sales, or I know there's only so many remaining X5s in stock, or any of the other cars in stock.
2:45
Yeah, you guys are lagging behind. I actually have more. Uh, more 26 X7s, and I do X5.
2:52
So yeah, I was. You know,
2:53
I'm not worried about either one of them. Those are not my hairy, hairy, scary. You know, for new for new car, used car. I don't know what it's gonna do. It's got a mind of its own. It's been so high, so so high, so high. Then last month, about about the middle of the month, everything dropped like an anvil in the book. So.
3:16
It's it's interesting. I don't know how to play it. Normally, I think I'm an expert at used cars, but right now, it's it's it's just a tough gig. We're we're a very strong CPO store, and that's that's basically all we sold last month. We're seeing with CPO, but it's yeah, all brand stuff.
3:35
So I'm I'm looking at a tool I have that kind of counts your guys's inventory. It was last updated on the third, so it's it's a bit out of date. Yeah, but looking at it here, you guys have like just on the use that's this yellow. You guys have, we'll say, thirty - nine cars in stock, give or take.
3:55
Yeah,
3:56
Help me out. Help me out. Is that a high number for you guys, or a pretty low number?
3:59
That's a low number. It is. It is a low number. But if you look at them, I'm going to focus the November, December. I'm trying to get. I'm trying to exceed the number of five hundred for my new cars. And I'm and I'm going to go after new cars wide open. Okay, if I sell a used car, great. It's not going to be, you know, I try to be one to one. I sell forty used. I want to sell forty new. Last last month I was one to one. I was one hundred and one hundred one percent. But but that's not my goal for the rest of the year. The goal is to sell new cars, new cars, new cars, and new cars.
4:39
Yeah. So looking at new. Yeah, new cars were down to 28 and pre-owned. Yeah, that was way. That's kind of been steady there. I mean, your ratio has kind of always been. Yep, yep. Maybe a little heavier on the used side, outside of maybe one month. But yep, yep. We dropped off here. Okay. Now, looking at kind of inventory here, obviously. I know you have a lot of X3s. That's probably one that we should heavily focus on. You said you weren't too worried about the X7s or X5s.
5:15
Not really worried about either one of those.
5:17
3 Series is that something that that's kind of what we had picked as our third incentive to kind of make sure that we're pushing. Is that something where? You know, that's just a car people aren't wanting to get into. Like, that's my opinion of a lot of the series cars.
5:31
The 3 Series is going to do what? The 3 Series cars are going to sell what it's going to sell if I advertise it or not.
5:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:38
It just, it's the bread and butter of our brand cars.
5:43
Yeah, those are just ones where you have to find the right consumer. Whereas, like the X3, X5, and X7, maybe to a lesser extent, I think are a little bit easier sales, just being. Bigger cars, to be honest,
5:55
But all of us have all all the dealers dealers in the market having excessive amount of X3s. Yeah, the reason they did that is because they're not they're not going to build any X3s. So that that number that I have right there, I will I will not receive another new X3 probably until until December.
6:16
And would those be the 27s that come in stock? I guess not. Correct. Correct. Cool. So that's not too bad then. No,
6:23
No, I'm not melting down about any of my new car inventory. Do you see a problem with it?
6:28
I think it's kind of in line. I think.
6:31
I think it's actually. Actually, I think it's better this year than it's ever been. Last year, I was I was so overstuffed with X7 and X5, and the guys have done a great job of burning it and burning it down. So, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm not I'm not freaking out one way or the other. I'm more more worried about my old brand new cars than anything. Than anything. Just, just.
6:53
So let me take a look. So yeah,
6:55
I mean the only place we really do is.
6:57
Facebook and our used inventory ads. I'm trying to do the math here. So if you have 24 out of 39, so that's about 15. Yeah, yeah. On BMWs that you got in stock there, and it's like one or two of everything.
7:16
Right. It's not over. It's not. It's not out of the box by any means.
7:22
Yeah. I mean, if you want some extra help on there, one thing we can do is we run. They're called automotive inventory ads. They're just meta. They're ads on Facebook and Instagram. Where, if people looked either on your website at this particular, you know, let's just click Chevrolet, just so it filters it down. Let's say that they looked at this Chevy Silverado fifteen hundred on your website. We follow them across Facebook with these. But secondarily, what it does is that it captures them if they're looking for a similar car on other websites, other used car lots, Cars.com, etc. It shows them this as kind of a similar car. I think something we can do is kind of split. We typically just combine all the used inventory together. I think we can split our used inventory campaign between BMW and non-BMW, and maybe try and make sure that we spend.
8:16
An adequate amount on the non BMWs, if that makes sense to you, sir. Makes perfect sense. Yep. Cool. Then Gabriel, Carly, that's something we can work on on our end. Sure. And I mean, if that's really our biggest concern, because historically, this is not one to. Oh, I don't know why it popped me there. Total package. So I'm looking at data for September right now, and our spend has been scaled down. So historically, we spend about seven, seven to eight hundred dollars on Meta. Since we cut our budget down, I have about four fifty, I believe, allocated here right now. You know, I'll make sure that we try and spend about two hundred dollars on those. If that's okay with you, Rick,
9:07
I'm good. Good.
9:08
Yep. Cool. Then on that end, I'm good with that. In regards to some of the other inventory, we're focusing on the X3. We have creative built out for the 3 Series and then the X5. We'll turn up some spending on the X7 just because I know the X5 is brand new. I have some Lance. You sent me over landing pages for the X5 that you wanted, right, sir? Yep. Yep. Cool.
9:38
Yeah, I'll double check that we have those like site links in regards to the new 2027 X5, new 2027 X5, kind of built out on there. But then, really, I'm just trying to push as much with with X3, just because that's the one you have in stock, and frankly, it's the one that there's the most interest in overall. Really, on the new side, I'm just trying to push what you guys got, and that's yes, yes, really these top five cars, mainly the top four: the X5, X7, 3 Series, X3. And then a little bit of 5 Series when it comes from like a page search side.
10:12
I hate I hate 5 Series.
10:16
These like all these like ran not random but like the 3 Series, 5 Series, 4 Series, 7 Series like those have all been throughout other BMW stores I've worked with on the sales side. Those have all been harder on my end to advertise. To be transparent with you, right? The X3 and X5 always do really well. So, I'm happy to keep pushing this and the X5 as well. You said you got. Let me double check this because new X5 are the 2027s on the website. Yeah, you have seven of the 2027s on the website, right? And these are on. Yeah, these these are at the dealership now, right?
11:01
Yes. Yes, I just don't sell them yet. I gotcha.
11:04
When are you allowed to sell them?
11:06
After the fifteenth.
11:08
Gotcha. Okay. And they're.
11:12
All sold. I mean, every one of them are sold. Yeah.
11:16
Oh, really? Yeah. Do they need to be off? Do they need to be off the website now?
11:19
Yes. Yes. No, they no, they do not need to be off the website.
11:22
Okay. Yeah. No doubt. Cool. Okay. All we'll we'll still push. We're our advertising is pushing the remaining 26s right now because that's the incentive that we're running with it. So, Carly, let's do do me a favor. One thing we should do is make sure we update our landing page to only filter to the 26s until we sell these remaining five, because the headlines talk about the. I'm blanking on what the interest rate is this month, but.
11:58
It has the interest rate highlighted, as well as we have a headline for the lease offer. So I only want to drive those to the remaining 26s. Once you get 27s in stock that aren't pre-sold, then we should update the final URL to include both. All right. Yeah. Sounds good. Cool. So I was kind of asking this earlier, but let me ask again. So you guys. You know, new sales are down. New sales have kind of trended down really the last two months. I guess, yeah, we've kind of we're still in kind of the middle of where we have been, but it's definitely trended down since June. And I know the whole market is down. Are you guys down worse compared to the market? In line with the market, or maybe a little bit the same, a little bit better?
12:45
Better, yeah, a little better, a little bit better.
12:47
Okay. Yes, you look at our. Balance school card. Our new retail sales is still over over a hundred percent per year.
12:57
Okay, so you're you're a hundred percent right, and I know you weren't like raising the alarm, but it's still good to kind of talk through this. I think we got a decent plan in mind for trying to make sure that we're pushing this, and then focusing a little bit on the use side for those non pre owns because honestly, with.
13:18
You guys have most people like who I'll just say come in for an X3. Do they come in? They're looking to they're looking to purchase the car, not necessarily lease the car.
13:27
No, no, they're coming in to buy the car.
13:29
Yeah, you guys are.
13:30
I don't give a damn about leasing the.
13:33
Car. Fair enough. No, let them take it out of there. Take it really. Yeah, yeah,
13:38
But I can't make it. It's hard to sell them any back products on the lease. Yes, they buy a car. I can truly talk around to buy entire wheel glass.
13:48
Your your guys's market is definitely a stronger buyer's market compared to like I'll say the Northeast for example or Florida, so that I understand. BMW is a weird one where, like, I'll take the BMW owners I know as like my example, but I know a lot of people who they'll lease BMWs just to get like the newest one every two or three years or so. So that's why I kind of ask when it comes to like an X3.
14:12
You must know my wife.
14:16
I was thinking of a former boss of mine, not here at JNL, but those I — that is a lot of BMW owners I've known that didn't buy that. Yeah,
14:26
We sell seventy percent of the cars.
14:30
Oh, you lease seventy percent of your cars?
14:33
Yeah, yeah. At one point, interesting.
14:35
Yeah, we definitely want to make sure we advertise the lease price, but we. Buying is kind of the best way to go about it, if you ask me. But we'll make sure we're advertising.
14:47
For your customer and for us. Yeah. The longer they own it, the more it's going to break. The more money I can make in the shop. As is. Understand what you mean,
14:56
Does it? I understand that. So, actually, speaking of the shop, I know you guys are doing well there. We all. One thing I'm curious about is, are a lot of the repair so one thing that this. Kind of this data here lies about it pulls in all the repair orders. It doesn't necessarily separate them out between customer pay and warranty pay. Are you guys doing pretty good on customer pay right now?
15:22
Yes, yes, we're doing. Okay, guys got the auto place.
15:26
Okay, that's fantastic to hear.
15:29
At the end of September, I was literally negative two customer repair orders from last year.
15:35
Okay. Oh wow, for the whole year?
15:39
For the whole year. The whole year.
15:41
So now we're in the green.
15:43
touchdown.
15:44
That's awesome. Good job.
15:45
Sort these out. Then I, like I said, I won't rock the boat when it comes to service. I've had some, I've had some tweaks that we've made on some others that have kind of helped focus a little bit heavier on customer pay. But I'll keep those in mind for when we need them. Because one thing we have is let me pull up our service and parts offers. So we're running. We updated this 10% off service. One thing that technically anybody qualifies for this offer, but one thing that has helped in the past is adding a qualifier for this. Adding like only for I don't know whatever model year you kind of want to set that bar at, but like model year 2022 and older. Typically, when people are out of warranty, is another way we can look to go with this. If you got if your ratio of.
16:37
Warranty to customer pay is ever thrown off. That would be kind of my thought process. But you guys are doing great, so I like I said, I don't want to rob. I'm sorry.
16:47
We'll say stuff like that out loud. Customer pay's got to be way better than your warranty.
16:52
I'm I'm I'm not speaking it into existence. I'm just telling you what I've done for others and trying to make sure you guys know that we can pivot around our strategy. It's it's flexible for whatever your business needs. If at the end of the day, Rick. But other than that, I think we're in a good spot in regards to our strategy. Just kind of reiterate, we're gonna shift our focus around a little bit more on used. I'm still gonna not spend too much on used, but I'm gonna try to focus more on those OEMs that aren't BMW. Trying to push some of those out of your inventory. For the new side, we're gonna focus heavy on what you guys have in stock. Those four models right there: X3, X5, X7, and the 3 Series.
17:36
And we cut our budget down from seven k to forty five hundred. There is going to be a larger percentage of spend on our lower funnel stuff, like paid surge and vehicle listing ads. We're going to see our display and demand gen spend go down. The only major caveat that I want to call out with that is, and frankly, this isn't something most people care about. But if I don't call it out, sometimes people freak out. We're going to serve less ads. We're going to get less clicks. But the goal at the end of the day is that we keep our key lead, our cost per key lead, in the same boat, because we're frankly we're not going to be spending as much. I expect our number of key leads to go down. That's just how it works. But if we can keep this same level of efficiency or improve, I'm going to call it a win at the end of the day,
18:20
Rick. I'm with you.
18:22
Cool. Then that is everything on my end. Are there any questions on top of your head, sir?
18:28
No, no. I just want to. We need to kind of put a game plan together for December. We need to start thinking about what we want to do because Lexus has December to remember that I have to fight against every year. Yep. And I'm not going to let him whip my ass this year. I'm going. We're going to figure out how to how to take it to him. And they start December to remember in November. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. The week of Thanksgiving. Correct.
18:53
Yeah. Yeah. BMW will be running running the road home. Yeah.
18:56
We're doing the road home.
18:57
Usually starting in November. So we just need to do a better job. We may we may push it even harder. A lot of their venues are often not that great. So we might build it on our own. Yeah, they're advertising. Do a do a do a do a. We can do a banner. Yeah,
19:12
Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm I'm not afraid to spend money there because it's last year. Last year we did a hundred and seven. That's new in years last year. So I'd like to hit closer closer to one twenty this year. We're gonna have we're gonna have inventory. Yeah, more inventory. It's gonna be here. Just talking about the end of the middle of November. On it's just gonna be. They're gonna be dropping cars every damn day.
19:40
Gotcha.
19:41
Because they want to make all those wholesalers by the end of the year. They want to go off.
19:45
Yeah, they don't give a shit. They understand. Where do we start with any and all AI levers we can pull? To make sure our stuffs coming up in long term conversations of using AI with Facebook, Facebook pushing news, Google pushing Gemini. I want to make sure that all the people that are increasingly using AI on a personal level level are able to see as much of our show as possible. So, think about that. Are we kind of flipped on for all those things,
20:14
Or so we're flipped? We're flipped on for our model campaigns, the priority model campaigns, the X3 and the X5 for Google's AI Max, which, Unfortunately, I don't have insight into how often we show on like the AI overview there. Yeah, but is on for there, and it does say that that is part of the placement package that includes. When it comes to like Facebook's Muse or they've they've called it other things over the years, that is not something I'm aware of being able to show ad placements on. But I can take that as part of something for me to look into.
20:47
Yeah,
20:47
I don't know that they have that yet. But also, some of this is just the SEO content being being useful to the audience, right? But some of it, some of it is some of it is some of those levers we have to make sure. I just kind of wanted to. I know you and I did it, talked about it. You know, I just wanted to kind of refresh and like talk about which campaigns are on, which ones might we turn on if we haven't already. I don't know.
21:09
What do you think about it? We can turn on the X7 and maybe the 3 Series ones. I wouldn't want to expand it past our focus models, to be honest with you. The other campaigns I think do very well as is. If we felt the need to, we can look. I can dig into like where else could we expand it. But I would want to keep it very more. I would want to keep it a little bit tighter focus on like where's the best like people who are trying to do AI research on the X3 or the new 2027 X5.
21:45
Integrating an ad into that, if people are looking like, where's the best place to buy a new BMW, you guys are really the only game in town there. So that's my train of thought with some of the other campaigns because we we don't need it there, in my opinion. One one thing, I'll throw out, and I have to talk to my director about it. We have tested on the service side for another BMW dealership, ChatGPT ads. It is something that we can look into doing, but the results on it have been mixed. Like it's not nearly as good as like paid search or vehicle listing ads. And on some places, I wouldn't say it's better than display and demand gen. But it is a lever that I have available that we can look into.
22:33
Yeah, yeah, it kind of it kind of gets to like what you were saying. We're going to need them or start giving us good good analysis, right? Like hey. Here's where how many times your shit showed up for Google, and here's something in chat. Chat, GPT, the same thing. Like, how good are we going to be able to tell? You know,
22:52
Yeah. Unfortunately, Google is gatekeeping their AI overview data. Yeah, yeah. My assumption is because it's probably not great, but that that's just that's just me thinking out loud on that. But Google will probably roll that out. My guess is in 2027. They're updating a lot of stuff in 2027. The other thing that, speaking of like November and December, that I think would help a lot is if whether it's a generic BMW video or Lance, whether it's something you whip up, I would highly recommend that we get video added to our marketing mix for Google. Whether that's incorporating it into our current demand gen campaigns or launching a YouTube video, I think that's going to be your best bet to stay top of mind for these people who.
23:42
Are looking to buy a luxury car for Christmas, but maybe not necessarily set on whether they want to get a 27 X5 or a Lexus TX or something along those lines.
23:52
Yeah, yeah. But they're running.
23:57
Out. And you know that would be the most cost-effective cost effective cost efficient way to do it. If you want to step it up, we could. I can talk more about like OTT streaming, being able to show. Ads on like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, all that stuff. But I don't need to. I've I've sang that song before. I don't need to go more into it. But most cost - effective way, literally we can integrate it into demand gen, no extra cost. Like it's literally just our current ad spend that's there. A YouTube campaign, I'd maybe ask for like an extra five hundred bucks in ad spend to be able to run it. And Meta, we can just incorporate it into our current ad spend as well.
24:38
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I can go on. You know. You know. Spend some time grabbing a few, a few bits of content.
24:48
Yeah, I would. I would greatly appreciate that.
24:52
And then you'll be able to use BMW Road Home Creative in the portal too.
24:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
25:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay,
25:01
Cool. Yeah, if we do any video, if we do any video, I need a YouTube link for Google. So that's just kind of the that's the endpoint that I need there for the creative, but I will make a note to circle back on that at the end of October because I assume that creative will be ready some point middle of November, like right before Thanksgiving, similar to Lexus with December.
25:27
Yeah, yeah. We'll keep an eye. Sometimes they give it to us like November one to one, honestly. Yeah. So. As long as we have it, I can get it uploaded to YouTube. The links that you guys will need, then also you can just give you guys the raw video. Well, I guess y'all can grab the raw video, right?
25:45
Yeah. Yeah. As long as it's in the portal, we can grab it. Yeah. But for a video on YouTube, I would want it to come from the BMW Jackson channel that you guys already have. I would assume. So I would need you to do that. Got it. Got it. Cool. Anything else top of mind, gentlemen? Before I let you all go,
26:06
I don't know if I don't know if Lance had talked to you, Rick. I'm trying to schedule a trip down to see you guys. I was thinking November. wasn't sure if Lance had brought that up. I was texting with him yesterday a little bit, but I was looking at sometime in the middle of November to to come down, do an in person visit, and maybe game plan a little bit about December with you guys in person.
26:32
Wasn't sure if you had dates top of mind or kind of what you were thinking. I was looking at maybe the second or third, third weekend of November before the holidays get rolling.
26:42
The first first week's enough for me. We're closing the month very first five to seven days.
26:51
Yeah, copy that. Lance, do you typically go? Would you go be going heading up there the week of the ninth?
26:58
Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right,
27:01
I'll have that circled.
27:02
Yeah, typically Wednesday, Thursday. Perfect. Is what I'm going to.
27:07
Buy. All right, and then we'll we'll text more about that to get that ironed out. But looking forward to seeing the operation in person,
27:16
Man. Sounds good. Sounds good. Oh yeah.
27:18
Oh yeah. All right, gentlemen. I appreciate y'all's time. You guys have a great rest of your day.
27:24
And y'all too. Thank you. All too. Thanks, guys. Goodbye. Goodbye. See ya, sir.
27:30
I like those guys.