They used to collect about 30% of what they invoiced suppliers for co-op reimbursement. Now they collect about 60%. They were thrilled. And they should be — doubling anything is hard, and their team earned it. But look at that number from the CFO's chair. 60% recovery means 40 cents of every dollar they billed never came back. That's money for marketing they already ran and already paid for. Imagine your AR team reporting that 40% of customer invoices went uncollected. Nobody

Whenever I say I work on "co-op marketing", I can see people's eyes glaze over. But if I ask: "Who owns the money your suppliers give you for marketing?", I get a response. There's usually a pause, then a name, then a slow realization that the answer involves three people, two spreadsheets and an e-mail inbox. The work just never got a name, so it never got a system. Naming it is the first step. What does your company call it?

According to a Borrell Associates study, roughly 40% of co-op funds (more than $14 billion annually) go unused. That is not a creativity problem. It is a governance and workflow problem: the same money, the same 40%, the same root cause on both sides of the channel - programs that run on spreadsheets, email, and memory. The ten practices below are what separate programs that run well from programs that quietly leak money. They come from conversations with the people who actua

Co-op funds are the same money. Most distributors just never send the invoice. Industry research puts unused co-op funds at roughly 40% of what's available — about $14 billion a year. That's not marketing budget that went unspent. For a distributor, it's a receivable that never got invoiced — money already earned by the products you stock and sell. Four numbers tell you whether you're capturing what you're owed: → Utilization rate on confirmed supplier budgets → Unclaimed dol

Every downstream co-op metric — utilization, participation, activity mix — sits on top of one leading indicator: portal adoption. What % of dealers with an allocated budget have actually logged in and transacted? If that number is low, don't bother analyzing the rest. The funds can't move through a door nobody opens. The fix is rarely more email reminders. It's making the funded side of the relationship visible: a dealer who can see their available balance, what it buys, and

Why Co-Op Funds Go Unused — and How to Fix It Executive Summary Across the manufacturer-distributor channel, co-op funds routinely go unclaimed. According to a Borrell Associates study, roughly 40% of co-op funds — more than $14 billion annually — go unused. That is money manufacturers allocated to grow their brands in local markets, and reimbursements distributors earned but never collected. This white paper examines the structural reasons funds go unspent, what the leak c

Roughly 40% of co-op funds go unused every year — about $14 billion, by Borrell Associates' estimate. The common explanation is that dealers "don't know the funds exist." Sometimes true. But the bigger reason is simpler: They tried once, and it was miserable. The claim form was a PDF. The guidelines were 30 pages. The pre-approval took three weeks. The reimbursement took three months. The dealer did the math on their own time and decided the funds weren't free — they we

How a governed platform cuts co-op overhead by 50% or more Co-op marketing programs should be revenue accelerators. Too often, they operate as administrative burdens — consuming hours every week on email chains, spreadsheets, inconsistent guidelines, and approvals that go nowhere. The stakes are larger than lost time. According to a Borrell Associates study, roughly 40% of co-op funds — more than $14 billion annually — go unused, in large part because the process of claiming

Real-time budget visibility for co-op marketing programs Here's a question most co-op program managers can't answer on demand: Where does every budget stand — right now? Not at quarter close. Not after two days of compiling spreadsheets from three regions. Right now. When you're governing dozens of promotions across multiple sales regions and offices, knowing who has spent what — and when — shouldn't require an archaeology project. But for most teams, it does. Budgets live in

That's not a rounding error. It's about $14 billion a year (Borrell Associates). For a manufacturer, every unclaimed dollar is brand exposure you already budgeted for — and never got. Four numbers tell you whether your program money is actually moving: → Utilization rate: what % of allocated dealer funds got claimed → Unclaimed allocations: the dollar amount sitting untouched → What's expiring in the next 30/60/90 days → What was forfeited last period, by dealer and region Mo

It went to opening email attachments. Cross-checking a claim against a PDF of program guidelines. Asking a dealer to resend a receipt. Re-entering the same numbers into a spreadsheet that three other people also maintain. None of that is marketing. All of it is validation labor — an invisible tax that never shows up on a budget line, because it's paid in salaried hours. Here's the uncomfortable math: if reviewing and validating claims consumes even one day a week per person,

A dedicated ROI calculator for co‑op marketing gives you a consistent, objective way to model the impact

Co-op budgets become easy targets when documentation is inconsistent, distributor participation is uneven, and claims are messy or incomplete. If reporting is delayed or stitched together manually from spreadsheets, email threads, and PDFs, it becomes difficult to connect activities in the field to results in the pipeline.

The biggest onboarding bottlenecks usually come from the manufacturer’s process, not the distributor’s motivation. Multiple versions of co-op rules, fragmented communication, unclear POP expectations, and slow approvals create confusion right when partners should feel most supported.

Lean marketing teams no longer need to choose between managing co-op administration and driving strategic growth. With automation and AI, they can support large distributor networks efficiently, consistently, and at scale.​

Closing this awareness gap starts with visibility. Dealers need a clear, central place where they can see their available balance, program timelines, and eligible activities without digging through old emails or PDFs. When information is scattered across spreadsheets, portals, and sales reps’ inboxes, dealers default to the path of least resistance: doing nothing or running campaigns without support.

Modern distributed marketing programs show that ease and clarity drive adoption. Partners are far more likely to participate when they can see what is available, understand the rules in plain language, and complete requests in just a few steps. Clear paths for “what to do next,” pre-built campaign ideas, and ready-to-use assets help local teams get into market faster without having to reinvent the wheel.

Dealer & Distributor Marketing Tech Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss in 2026

At CoMarket’s recent webinar, industry leaders Tom Zimmerman (SHIFT Sales Training & Consulting) and Chris Baldwin (True Digital Communications) tackled the roadblocks and outlined a path from administrative drudgery to strategic advantage.

CoMarket’s progress has been in-part fueled by meaningful community support and targeted startup capital, including a Burton Startup Grant made possible through the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and partner, Bounce Innovation Hub.