Subi Ghosh, EVP Partnerships at fullthrottle.ai, shares insights on how automotive dealers are underserved by fragmented ad vendors and the power of uniting competitors to better serve clients. She discusses the challenges of media misinformation, the benefits of leveraging premium data sources, and the shift away from traditional social and search advertising. Subi emphasizes collaboration among competitors to create more effective, targeted advertising strategies that benefit dealers, media companies, and consumers alike. The episode highlights the importance of execution, data-driven marketing, and industry unity to elevate automotive advertising.
Topics:automotive advertisingmedia fragmentationdata-driven marketingdealer challengespartnerships and collaborationpremium media inventorysearch and social advertising shiftsadvertising executionindustry unificationtargeted audience strategies
Dealers are spending more on advertising than ever… and according to Subi Ghosh, many of them are still playing the game wrong.
This conversation from NADA 2026 might be one of the most important shifts we’ve discussed on The Dealer Playbook.
She believes the real issue in automotive advertising isn’t traffic. It isn’t creativity. It isn’t even budget.
It’s fragmentation.
In this episode Subi Ghosh who is the Head of Partnerships at Fullthrottle and one of the driving forces behind Auto Media Marketplace breaks down why dealers are often buying media in silos, relying on diluted data, and unknowingly limiting their own performance. She explains how platforms fighting each other instead of aligning is quietly costing retailers reach, influence, and ROI.
And here’s the part that hits hard.
While many dealers are still pouring money into search and social the way they always have, behavior has shifted. Discovery has shifted. AI has changed how people find information. And the brands that understand how to unify premium media, activate real data, and collaborate across channels are starting to pull ahead.
Subi makes the case that this is no longer about buying ads.
It’s about infrastructure.
It’s about coordination.
It’s about influencing buyers before they ever type into a search bar.
If you’ve felt like your ad spend isn’t stretching as far as it used to…
If you’ve noticed performance becoming harder to maintain…
If you’ve ever wondered whether the platforms are truly working together for you…
You need to hear this conversation.
Because the shift is already happening.
And the dealers who recognize it early will not just compete better. They’ll operate at an entirely different level.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
02:57 Auto Media Marketplace Explained
04:57 Why Streaming + Premium Inventory + Data Layers Are Changing Advertising
05:41 From Search & Social to Full-Funnel Media: Staying Top of Mind in a New Era
06:47 Real-World Targeting Story: ‘Landman’ Ads, Audience Data & Influence in Action
09:24 Competitors as Allies: How to Align, Take on the ‘Big Fish,’ and Win Together
11:52 Unity on the Show Floor: Building a Cohesive Strategy Across Channels
13:43 Connect with Subie + Final Wrap-Up and Podcast Outro
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Intro
Auto Media Marketplace Explained
Why Streaming + Premium Inventory + Data Layers Are Changing Advertising
From Search & Social to Full-Funnel Media: Staying Top of Mind in a New Era
Real-World Targeting Story: ‘Landman’ Ads, Audience Data & Influence in Action
Competitors as Allies: How to Align, Take on the ‘Big Fish,’ and Win Together
Unity on the Show Floor: Building a Cohesive Strategy Across Channels
Connect with Subie + Final Wrap-Up and Podcast Outro
Select text to request an explanation
What's up gang we are here dealer playbook live at NADA 2026 at the Auto Media Marketing
booth with iHeart Media Automotive and Full Throttle I'm with my pal oh my gosh Subi hi
welcome to the show thank you for having me you've been running around like crazy
i have been actually not crazy with poison decorum it's been controlled chaos i would say yeah
you know it's been a really busy incredible conversations exciting like we talk about
like brain on fire you know you're really activated and coming up with all these really
great ideas and potential things that we can do together a type of event well and i'm glad
you say this because you're one of the most organized people i know and so what is your secret
for taking all of the energy and the conversations about what you do back to the office to like
actually put them into execution because i feel like a lot of people miss the execution piece
oh i completely understand that and i i wouldn't even say that i'm the most organized person it's
more of i want to prioritize what i know i'm most excited about that's going to have the
greatest impact and make sure that i'm communicating with the people that need to to do it and so for
some reason i'm able to to organize for others to make sure that those outcomes happen yeah
then for myself so it's more about for each conversation making sure i'm taking notes on
my phone of what is the one thing that we're excited about from our conversation that we can
pursue yeah because i think this industry is filled with visionaries people who are entrepreneurial
in spirit and have a lot of great ideas but are surrounded by teams so when there's an idea that
they come up with it's hard to follow through right because there's so many priorities that
take your day to day attention and so if i can help by uncovering what that idea is and making
sure that we're chasing it together with identifying the next steps well so and i mean you're the
head of partnerships at auto media marketplace uh i would say this i don't know if you're the take
the credit type i don't think you are but i will give you the credit you brought this all together
speaking about speaking about i mean partnerships and and all bringing everything together in one
place i mean gosh we've had i heart here comcast television a vision i have to say it that way
oh my gosh who am i missing rogu rogu next star for a common purpose like you you've seen a thread
through all of these things talk to me about what you're seeing from your vantage point and why it's
beneficial that that all of these entities come together yeah so auto media marketplace is not
a company it's a mission so full throttle is the the data and the the the actual um activation of
everything but what we found is that there's so much misinformation and miseducation in the space
when it comes to media there's also a lot of conflicting information and siloed like every
every platform has their own thing and it makes it really hard to serve your clients not just
in automotive in advertising in general and so my thought was and it's not even my idea Dave
Dave Wren our and Amal our our founders um if we can make it easier for people will we be able to
serve our clients a lot better and the reality is while all of these brands that we had just mentioned
our competitors experience is a good partner too on the data side versus the publisher side
if we can bring everyone together on the things that we all agree upon can we then serve the community
better by making advertising easier educating everyone sharing the latest and greatest in all
those different apps there's there's disney and netflix and spotify all of these fragmented places
that unless you have really experienced media people you're not really leveraging those
places for your clients yeah there's a there's a dilution that happens if you don't bring all
the you know this this came up when we did the panel yesterday i'm like oh my gosh this makes
all the sense in the world if anybody was feeling skeptical they should be feeling skeptical of
someone who is getting the diluted hand-me-down version of the data yes not that like and what
you're talking about is what i feel is tapping directly into the source yes so that you do have
the best opportunity to say okay now what do i do with this but it's also it's not just getting
access to streaming media it's premium content premium inventory direct from the sources we're
layering in both first and third party so what's in my database help me generate the right audiences
and influence the households by using all of these partners that serve me best that serve my
clients best based on their behaviors it's a very different world i don't think people realize that
this can actually be done and so that's where the education piece comes in let's talk about the
things we all agree upon even if we're competitors and shift the narrative surgeon social isn't
serving people the way that it used to and if we can help so there we've been obviously we have a
lot of data the thing that was most fascinating to me is that recently we've uncovered as people
were shifting dollars from search and social to media not only was search and social performing
better they're not we're not taking anything away but at lower costs so now we're serving
our retailers better we're influencing them throughout the entire funnel we're bringing
them further and further and we're staying top of mind in a way that we haven't been able to do
because search has been shifting chat gpt and ai's have changed the game in how people search
the algorithms have changed yeah search behavior has changed and so this is a great way to stay
top of mind and why don't we all come together with a singular mission join forces and really
elevate what advertising means and adtech means to all of our clients across every vertical
okay did you hear did you hear what she just said is that what you were gonna say i was gonna say
yesterday we were talking about how i watch landman uh on a service called vid angel i need
to tell you about vid angel it takes out all the stuff i'm watching it but you know what's so
interesting about landman they know the demographic of who's watching the show and so the commercials
are oh so manly yeah gear boots hats thing that the i found myself for the first time realizing
i was being influenced yes by wanting to feel like the characters in the show who are so cool
yeah and went to a store in dallas to try on clothes that they were talking about in the
i don't look good in them stop they're not for me but i think about the tremendous data layer
that actually powered the placement of that media like this is what i'm taking from what you're
saying that that that did in fact drive me to action because somebody was using a better
source of data to understand the audience and what could potentially move them to action because
in the traditional sense when you're building campaigns you have to know your persona so then
you're building it to say these are the age groups and income levels and interests that i believe
that is best for my audience versus let's load up technology that can function and process
so much more data than we can in a single second to tell me what those are and build that out
to then take the right interesting concepts and put them in front of the audiences that it's
going to convince and be interesting to rather than us trying because the reality is we find out
months and years later what has shifted because people go back to research and then we evolve
yeah oh so now this particular manufacturer says this age group and these behaviors are what we
want to target whether it be aspirationally or you know from the past of what we've learned
versus in the moment right i want to shift gears slightly it's still it's adjacent to what we're
talking about but you said it a two or three times and i know this is something that you
have been a huge advocate for okay for years should i be nervous no no the hamsters in my
brain the hamsters getting there you brought up competitors coming together yeah
you've advocated for this for a long time because it's like yeah we're competitors but are we actually
like do we have more so how do you facilitate that conversation because there's a there's a
problem in the hulls people people doing that evil side eye to their competitor and you're like
guys there's an opportunity here how do you convince board unquote competitors to see the
common thread and come together like this that's what i've been working on for the last year and
a half right of going to these big huge corporations and trying to convince them to abandon the
instinct to differentiate versus a line right if we align every company whether it's we did we
had these discussions about search a few years back right and in this in this instance there are so
many things that every single pitch from every single one of these companies that is the same
that we all agree upon but if we then look at who are we competing against that is much bigger than
us right we tend okay we tend to abandon the large fish to fight against the smaller over pennies
to get the dollars yeah but because we say dollars to get that fish is too big and it's
going to eat us so i'm going to ignore that right but what if we can all rally together
and have a school to attack that big fish do we stand a better chance of taking those dollars
and making them count for a mutual win across the board the retailer or the dealer in the
automotive instance is then getting better quality advertising far more targeted better
return on their investment to increase their visibility and brand exposure and conversions
for sales or service that's a win for them the media companies are then getting their media out
there and their brands out there and they're winning we are it's a mutual win across the board
right because everyone's gaining something and i think that is what's missing because i've you're
just looking for an individual win versus a win across the board i can then convince these people
to say let's improve the industry because a rising tide lifts all boats and i've really felt that
energy here this is why i wanted to talk to you about it because like there's been no even though
you know you go around the auto media marketplace uh space here the booth everyone's got their space
but everyone was integrated yes like there wasn't just i heart people over there and just you know
univision people like everyone was mingling and working together and i think that's an inspiring
um demonstration of unity yes that our industry needs there needs to be more unification especially
especially tap tap tap in the world today tap tap tap we need more there's more that unites us
than divides us right because then what you're doing is not focusing on the negative right of
of you know loading up your arrow what you're saying is these are the things we all align upon
but here's what makes us super unique in this space we have a broadcast company we have tv stations
we've got audio we and so you get to shine for the things that you do best and thereby instead of
saying give you know just focus on us as an individual everyone it we're serving the retailer
better and we're all winning because we're able to to identify the the pros of each singular
thing and put it together for a much more cohesive and valuable strategy
guys i love you know that i love you i love you and people don't know this we've been friends
since we were children 20 years 20 years which was when we were six years old correct that's
exactly how old i um okay i want to as we wind down i this is your camera like that like that
show where they eat the wings and everything that's hotter and hotter this is this is your
camera how can those listening and watch and connect with you and learn more i'm very easily
accessible on linkedin my email is subi.gosh at fullthrottle.ai and i'm happy to connect on
socials because i think the more we communicate and engage and and help each other we improve the
industry and i think that's my core what activates me so please connect with me if you have any
questions or even ideas if there's ideas that you have for all these people in the marketplace i
want to hear them because i can take it to them and they're so willing to work together to improve
our industry and i that's so exciting to me this is my good good dear dear friend subanthony
gosh head of partnerships auto media marketplace with full throttle here at the auto media marketplace
booth live at nada 2026 uh this concludes yes our live streaming ended on the highest note
i could end on here at nada at auto media marketplace subi thanks so much for joining me
thank you for having me yes hey thanks for listening to the dealer playbook podcast
if you enjoyed tuning in please subscribe share and hit that like button you can also join us
and the dpb community on social media check back next week for a new dealer playbook episode
thanks so much for joining
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