In today’s automotive market, consumers are beginning most of their car buying journey online, with car buyers spending 59% of their time researching online (Autotrader) and an even greater share of traffic coming from mobile sites according to L2 Gartner. With car buyers spending more time online in comparison to visiting a dealership showroom, auto dealers can harness a substantial amount of shopper data to entice and retain car buyers with personalized retargeting messaging and offers.

The problem for the industry is that it is just not happening.

Amazon’s experience is a leading example of personalization

Personalization has seen a wide adoption as a marketing tactic; according to eMarketer, 90% of marketers report usage in some way. E-commerce and tech giant Amazon is leading the charge as seen on their homepage which is filled with personalization options including recently viewed items, new product recommendations (heard of AmazonBasics?) and even call-to-actions across all their product lines like Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Echo Dot.

Nearly everywhere you look from Best Buy to local affiliate sites for Verizon Wireless, it is clearly an overwhelmingly effective and in-demand approach. In fact, eMarketer says that 78% of consumers now expect this level of personalized experiences.

So what is taking auto dealerships so long to implement these concepts? Maybe their website vendors don’t make it easy because they have evolved into clunky content management systems (almost being forced to by OEM compliance and customer requests). Maybe all the vendors adding uncoordinated widgets and gadgets is being mistaken as personalization. Or, maybe it is just that dealerships find it hard to understand. But we need to face the facts – this is important and it needs to happen now.

Personalization sounds harder than it really is

Auto dealers are often unaware of the amount of accessible first-party data on their website that are readily available to use to customize the experience from one shopper to the next. Combining this data with the right combination of content management and marketing automation will drive better engagement and conversions from the car buyers by making it easier for them to find what they are looking for. There are endless possibilities with this type of personalization.

Let’s walk through some examples. Dealerships can add a shopper history widget that allows their visitors to quickly navigate back to their previously viewed and favorited VDPs and see additional recommendations based on that list. Automated emails in conjunction with a shopper history widget can help remind shoppers of their car buying journey with follow-up emails listing these previously viewed and favorited cars, prompting them to come back with customized offers.

Auto dealers can start implementing personalization today

Sure, there are some basic capabilities provided to you by your web vendor, but you need to demand more for the benefit of your shoppers. Start taking note of what you see as a consumer at the retailers you visit and imagine your website with similar functionality. And ask your vendors to see how they can help make this a reality. Doing so will allow your rooftop to connect better with the prospects and customers in a more purposeful and personalized way. The results from this type of experience aren’t immediate, but as you adapt your website and messaging, you will begin to see increased time-on-site, improved quality conversions and maximized ROI from your existing advertising spending.

Auto dealerships have been known to buy most of their media from the large platforms, namely Google and Facebook. According to the aggregate data of all our current active clients under our analytics program in May 2018, Google paid traffic accounted for 52.56% and Facebook paid traffic for 18.16%. At Orbee Auto, we’ve spent a significant amount of time with our customers educating them on the importance of broadening their reach – especially for retargeting their shoppers – to all available inventory on the web. If you have marked someone as interested with a cookie, why does it matter where they are when you want to show them an advertisement to come back to your website?

AT&T’s confirmed acquisition and planned integration of AppNexus into their advertising and analytics division signifies the telecommunication company’s plan to challenge Google and Facebook for digital ad dominance. The automotive industry is leading the way with digital and TV advertising, and with AT&T acquiring AppNexus, who was under fire for ad fraud last year, what will be the automotive industry’s implications in the digital advertising market?

Dealerships need to put real efforts to reach beyond Google and Facebook

While we see some traffic from outside the common walled gardens, these efforts are usually by third-party agencies or service providers, with the auto dealership themselves not actively seeking this inventory. Dealerships are uneducated about the potential, and with 43% of inventory available outside of Google and Facebook, that’s a big opportunity loss. For instance, we see traffic from Yahoo and Inktomi (a platform acquired by Yahoo in 2003), which is now Verizon Wireless. We see traffic from Bing. However, it’s not enough.

The “Open Internet” and the risks of buying media there

Many of our clients will recognize the relevance of this transaction because for months now, Orbee has been educating them about the “open internet” by using AT&T and Verizon as examples of the vastness of inventory available. It’s debatable if it is even “open” given the recent acquisitions of AppNexus by AT&T, AOL and Yahoo by Verizon Wireless, and even FreeWheel by Comcast and so on. In fact, some of these transactions are allowing these companies to become walled gardens themselves, especially since the Justice Department recently approved AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, making it a behemoth of a telecom and media company.

The key point though is that the “open internet” is still immature in terms of tools for brand safety, verification and data management. AppNexus has been known to be riddled with bots, and it’s important to use filters, whitelists and blacklists and every other feature available in real-time auctions. Heck, I don’t even see people using dayparting and that’s ad serving 101. You must control what domains and apps you show ads in; you must optimize on impressions and clicks and actions depending on your goals; and you must watch this like a hawk.

Far too many times, we have calls with dealers red-flagging the very inventory managed by the exchange that AT&T just acquired. In May 2018, we have seen bot traffic as high as 86% for AppNexus IP addresses. To be clear, our reports show the bot traffic for the visitors that actually arrived from traffic sourced within this exchange. This only makes me wonder about the quality of the impressions behind these campaigns.

This is a boon for automotive dealerships who have the right tools

We have encouraged dealerships to gain more transparency over the traffic that their partners are generating and to own and almost hoard the first-party data that their websites are producing from this traffic. This is more important than ever before with the move by AT&T.

Dealerships can’t keep turning the blind eye and just wonder “did I sell more cars?” Your money is being wasted, your brand is being exposed and you’re not spending energy focused on the long-term cultivation of your shoppers whether they are in the market today or if they’ll buy a car in 3 months. It matters now.