Poorly planned, designed and executed advertising campaigns are costing car retailers the multi-million pound sum.

Following a study of the 322,000 trade advertisements posted on its website by over 3,000 dealers last month, fish4cars said it had unearthed several basic errors.

Of the adverts posted 17 per cent were not supported by a photograph. The website said that equated to a waste of 55,000 listings because photographs were the number one factor that prospective buyers looked for when browsing online. A lack of basic details about cars, such as failing to list colour, transmission, or the number of doors, was also a major error made by dealers. “It's worrying that despite the 2008 market being worth an estimated £110m, a large proportion of retailers aren't utilising their resources in the most appropriate way,” said Colin Mathieson, fish4cars sales director. “In our experience, we have found that a lot of businesses are wasting a huge amount of their online spend because they are making basic errors when it comes to submitting their adverts.”