In the not too distant future, dealerships will be challenged to make use of their first-party data as the digital advertising landscape is poised for a cookieless future. Tracking and targeting consumers has become increasingly difficult. On top of that, the rise of privacy concerns and regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have many consumers already opting out of third-party cookies altogether.

In addition, dealers must also consider strict Federal Trade Commission (FTC) privacy, data security and encryption policies – and the potential hefty fines associated with them.

These factors are posing a tough challenge for dealers trying to effectively target and market to potential customers. However, there is a solution. PureCars’ existing marketing platform, combined with the recently acquired Customer Data Platform (CDP) from The AutoMiner. The result? The industry’s first and only encrypted customer data platform with automated data hygiene — that connects directly to a dealer’s ad accounts.

But First, What's First-Party Data?

First-party data is information that’s collected directly from consumers through interactions with a dealership’s website, other digital properties, or in-person interactions. This can include details like contact information, browsing history, and purchase history. Unlike third-party data, which is collected from external sources, first-party data is owned by the dealership.

Why Is First-Party Data Important To Dealerships?

Having this data makes it easier for you to retarget and nurture your audiences based on what you know about them.

Without the ability to use options like audience matching, dealerships will need to rely on their own first-party data to understand and engage their customers in a more personalized and relevant way.

This means that dealerships can use their first-party data to create more personalized and effective marketing campaigns, without the need for cookies. For example, you can easily segment your audience based on their stage in the purchase life cycle — like customers that have the end of their lease coming up.

“Wait, Don’t I Already Have This Data?”

Most dealers do have a CRM or a DMS, but it’s important to note a CDP is not the same thing. A CDP focuses on your customer data and creating specific audiences you can use for marketing outreach. The AutoMiner CDP is particularly unique in that it’s the only one that also cleans and appends your data.

What we’ve found, in most cases, a dealer’s DMS and/or CRM is filled with inaccurate and unreliable customer information — a real pain point that has plagued the industry for years. This poor customer data leads to a significant waste of ad spend, either from incorrect customer information or reaching out with irrelevant messages.

How To Make First-Party Data Work For Your Dealership

By merging The AutoMiner’s CDP with PureCars’ marketing technology, your dealership’s data can be cleansed, consolidated and easily deployed across a wide range of marketing channels. This combination results in more efficient and accurate ad targeting.

The key item that really makes The AutoMiner’s CDP stand out is the untangling of your data. After ingesting your CRM and DMS data, our CDP will clean and append the data — by filtering it against a number of secure industry databases — to ensure you have the most current and accurate customer data available. And, it’s then stored in a secure data lake.

From there, your dealership’s first-party customer data is a treasure trove of audience insights that you can customize depending on your strategy — and easily create customer segments. With PureCars’ industry-leading marketing platform, you can then make use of it to target customers with any outbound marketing channel, including digital advertising, social media, email, direct mail, text and BDC. All of this can be done with a goal of increasing profitability in sales and service.

Since we have access to all of this data, dealers also get precise attribution reporting to optimize their strategy and ad spend.

Marketing With First-Party Data Is A Dirty Job, But We’re Here To Do It

When you can clean and take action on your first-party data, it offers limitless marketing opportunities for your dealership. With our combination of clean customer data and the leading marketing technology platform, you’ll experience benefits like improved costs per conversion and reduced ad waste.

The future of automotive marketing will be reliant on ultra-targeted marketing with your dealership’s secure first-party data. It’s going to be essential for dealers to compete in a crowded market. That’s why PureCars is making that future available to dealers — today.