By Valerie Vallancourt, VP of Marketing at Outsell

In November, Outsell announced the results of a comprehensive, multi-year data study conducted with RXA and Experian. The study encompassed 5.6M consumer relationships across 960 dealers, and 18.7 million vehicle transactions - leveraging data from Experian’s Auto Response Analysis on 2.5 million sales and 16.2 million service visits over a three-and-a-half year period. It examined the effect that AI-driven marketing has on customer loyalty, repeat business and service visits, and calculated the incremental lifetime value of customers due to AI-driven lifecycle marketing.

The study found that engaging a customer with AI-driven lifecycle marketing results in:

• 65% higher odds of that customer repurchasing at the same dealer
• A 25% increase in service visits over three years

• $427 in incremental profit per customer

The study confirmed what Outsell has been telling dealers for years: that AI-driven lifecycle marketing improves customer engagement, revenue and profitability. This is the clearest picture we’ve seen yet of the impact that AI-driven lifecycle marketing has on the Automotive consumer at every stage of the buying cycle. This concept is particularly important now, when auto sales are softening and dealers are looking for ways to increase retention, boost service and profitability.

When most people hear the term “AI-driven marketing,” they may think of clumsy robotic systems that spam out awkward mass email blasts. (Or maybe they think of HAL from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That’s definitely not it.)

AI-driven marketing for auto dealers means using computer algorithms to scale targeted, automated campaigns to reach more people. It’s like your best salesperson, inside software, carefully crafting messages that market to people as human beings and reach them at just the right moment and at the right cadence to be the most helpful.  

It remembers everything about a customer and every transaction: when they bought or leased, when they had service, how they felt about it, and much more. It knows what’s most useful to people. And it learns how they like to be spoken to and how often. It engages people with messaging crafted by highly skilled experts. Over time, it becomes more helpful to each consumer, because the messages and offers become even more personalized and refined.

Common dealer objections to using AI-driven marketing include:

• Complexity: While this may sound complicated, software tailor made for auto dealers actually makes it very easy, masking the complexity and doing most of the heavy lifting.

• Staff: Some owners and managers believe that their staff will object to this approach. We’ve found that any concerns quickly dissipate when salespeople see the quality of engagement and the leads that come in from AI-driven campaigns. Within days, salespeople are typically clamoring for their new ‘most-likely buyers’ reports.
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• Cost: The ROI on this approach has now been proven. What other technology does your dealership use that’s resulting in an incremental profit of $427 per customer? My guess is none.

So what’s holding you back? Put AI-driven marketing on your list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2020.