National Auto Parts Advertising Costs by Medium – A Quick Overview

Thinking about a national ad campaign for your auto parts brand or website? Here’s some pricing info for a handful of common advertising mediums that parts manufacturers and major retailers like to use. The rates can range dramatically from one opportunity to the next, so obviously the numbers will include a wide range of values.

All numbers have been pulled from official media kits. However, because advertisers keep getting mad at us for sharing links, we’re no longer linking to the official PDFs.

NOTE: The data below shouldn’t be used to determine whether or not a particular advertising opportunity is a good deal – it’s basically here to help marketers put national advertising costs in perspective.

National Automotive Magazines

Popular magazines like Hot Rod, Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords, or 4-Wheel and Off-Road will sell full page 4 color ads for as much as $30k to $90k per issue. Magazines with a smaller (yet still national) audience like Super Chevy or Classic Trucks might sell the same 4 color full pager for $5k-$20k per issue.

If you go with a full page black and white ad, you can cut the prices in half. Back yourself down to a quarter page? You can cut the prices in half again.

Still, if you want to advertise in one magazine for one year, you’re going to at least $10k a year on ads…and that’s going to get you a small black and white ad that most readers will never see.

National Automotive TV Shows

While most viewers don’t know it, nearly every product featured in a syndicated cable TV show like Truck Tech or Two Guys Garage (to name a couple) is a paid placement.

• A short segment (0:30 to 1:30) “at the bench” or just after a commercial break can be had for as little as $5,000 and as much as $20,000.
• A longer segment that includes an interview can be $20,000 to $50,000.
• Costs vary by time of year, the number of sold segments, the salesperson you’re dealing with, and the state of the economy.
• All segments are “packaged” with a small run of commercials, which aren’t worth nearly as much as the segments, but can’t really be negotiated out.

Basically, it’s difficult to spend less than $10k on TV. And you can pay many times that amount depending on the number of times your product is featured, the popularity of the show, etc. Some advertisers cough up $50k for a handful of segments and a few dozen 30 second commercial spots.

NASCAR Race Team Sponsorship

If you’re interested in becoming  a title sponsor of a racing team for an entire race season, the costs can easily exceed $1 million per year. However, some up-and-coming racers who don’t have much of a following will let you buy title sponsorship for just one race…the cost of something like this starts at $20k per race and goes as high as you’d like.

Nationally Televised Motorsport Event Sponsorship

Title sponsorship for a nationally televised national motorsport event vary widely depending on the event, when it’s televised, etc. Suffice to say, it’s not cheap. According to Media Life Magazine, title sponsorship of NHRA events averaged about $300k per race back in 2011. Prominent NASCAR race sponsors likely pay at least $500k+ per race, with high profile sponsorship at something like the Daytona 500 costing at least twice that amount.

The Point…

National auto parts advertising via traditional media is expensive. When you compare the cost of:

1. Ongoing search engine marketing (both advertising and organic placement)
2. Ongoing social media marketing
3. Ongoing content marketing
4. Pay-per-click advertising
5. Facebook and Instagram ads
6. YouTube advertising

Traditional media is much, much more expensive. And, unlike online marketing, you likely have no idea if your traditional ads make money (most of the time, the ROI is shakey).

So yes, the point here is that you should contact us. Online marketing is a great value.