PMAs and DMAs fall short: why dealerships should advertise in their Local Market Area

PMA

A PMA is a legacy set of ZIP codes assigned as your “territory,” but it often doesn’t map to real buying behavior. It can include ZIPs with low retail relevance and exclude ZIPs that consistently produce shoppers. PMAs also routinely overlap with nearby same-brand dealerships, which can make your budget work harder than it needs to.

DMA

A Designated Market Area is built for regional broadcast, not local retail. Because a DMA covers many dealerships within the same brand, your message ends up chasing shoppers who will naturally choose the store closest to them. It’s a broad stroke for a strategy that requires precision.

Total Sales Market

Targeting every ZIP code where you’ve ever sold a vehicle can inflate your true market. Far-reaching ZIPs tied to one-off sales—or fleet and auction activity—don’t reliably contribute to future growth. Casting that wide of a net spreads out your budget without increasing your impact.

Your Local Market Area (LMA) reflects where your business actually happens. The Strategy Engine defines your LMA as the ZIP codes where over 80% of your new-car sales originate over the past six months—grounded in vehicle registration data from Experian. It filters out low-volume outliers, removes fleet and auction activity, and highlights the ZIPs that consistently drive your retail performance.

This is your core market. It’s where your message resonates most and where your advertising produces measurable return.

The Strategy Engine is a Connected TV (CTV) and Digital Audio media planning tool for automotive marketers inside EMG‘s Maven platform, modeled on 75 million attributed dealership conversions from thousands of historical automotive streaming campaigns. It blends that modeling with your store’s registration data to precisely define your LMA and then produces a strategy to grow your share within it.

It factors in population, media supply, automotive demand, and historical attribution to determine the right budget, reach, frequency, media mix, and audience targeting for your unique dealership. The interactive budget slider allows you to see how different spend levels influence reach, frequency, and projected local market share, ultimately grounded in your LMA.

Your PMA, DMA, or total sales market isn’t built for modern streaming strategy. Your LMA is. The Strategy Engine helps you target the right buyers in the right places—maximizing efficiency, impact, and market share growth.

Try it for free inside the Maven platform and see your true market come into focus.