BANDON, Ore. -

The topic of advertising in newspaper classifieds and its future is a common one being bantered about these days, but what are the actual numbers behind this ad channel?

In its latest Retail Automotive Summary, CNW Research looked into the dealer angle of classified ads and boiled down the statistics on how stores are using this channel to move used cars.

What CNW found is that while this resource is “still significant” among dealers, the blossoming number of advertising alternatives in the past two decades — including digital products from the newspapers themselves — have created new ad spend outlets and chipped way a bit at the print share.

“Since 1990, the use of classified ads as a primary means of selling products and the share of franchised dealers using newspapers has fallen from a high of 88.5 percent in 1997 to the current sub-65 percent,” said CNW president Art Spinella.

As for independents, they were in the neighborhood of 96 percent in the early 2000s, but have since dropped to 80.4 percent (the 2012 figure).

He added: “Because there are so many alternative means of advertising, a growing number of used-car dealers are spending additional money on new outlets.”

Consider this example from CNW. In the early 1990s, franchised dealers were typically using around nine advertising avenues for moving used vehicles.

But by 2004, that figure had eclipsed 12 methods, thanks to the Internet’s boom, before settling to 11.7 methods in 2012.

(That latter figure, Spinella noted, was a result of dealers “sorting through what worked and what didn’t.”)

Similarly, independents used 9.4 methods to sell used cars in 1990. Last year, they used 11.6 avenues and have been above 11 each year starting in 2004.

Joe Overby can be reached at joverby@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.