Press / News Archive - Page 2 of 20

LotLinx Launches New Innovative Video Advertising Platform

VINtv™ Tailors Automated Video Advertisements to Dealer Inventory

CHICAGO – September 22, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, has launched VINtv, one of the industry’s most comprehensive and cost-effective video advertising platforms for dealer inventory. VINtv utilizes LotLinx’s /AI/ capabilities to position video advertising segments on the most effective channels and streaming platforms used by consumers in the car buying research process. As an inventory management tech leader, LotLinx continues to develop new and innovative tools for dealers to take advantage of across the automobile industry.

“Now more than ever dealers need tools that can help them place their inventory in front of consumers who are in the purchasing phase of their search process,” said Len Short, Chairman and CEO of LotLinx. “By maximizing their position in the video ad market space, dealers will be able to see an increased engagement rate with higher sales results.”

Now, with the ability to target a vast audience of mobile consumers, VINtv allows dealers to expand their inventory exposure by delivering valuable shopping sessions to the inventory or VINs dealers need to move most. By tapping into the mobile video market, LotLinx’s VINtv provides dealers with the power to reach more consumers across highly trafficked platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Google and OTT streaming services to put the right car in front of the right consumers.

Product features include:

– Automatic generation of 7s video advertisements for each VIN in a campaign
– LotLinx /AI/ targeting capabilities reaching “inventory ready” buyers
– Packages start at 50 VINs for $3,750

VINtv serves as a valuable tool for dealers to implement into their strategic marketing strategy when it comes to connecting with consumers today. As 70 million Americans engage in online auto shopping behavior per month with a 1/3 of auto research being done via smartphone and mobile devices, dealers are in need of the platform capabilities VINtv offers in order to position their inventory in front of those in the most pivotal points of the buying and research process.

By taking advantage of the value video holds when it comes to influencing consumers, VINtv can provide dealers with increased engagement and click-through rates while serving as a top of the line solution for their most pressing advertising needs.

For more information on LotLinx and VINtv, visit www.LotLinx.com and www.VINtv.com.

About LotLinx:

LotLinx is the automotive industry leader in VIN demand /AI/ technologies. Founded in 2012 and based out of Chicago, IL LotLinx provides a VIN Demand Platform™ that enables precision retailing via patented data science and /AI/ technologies. The company has been awarded the No. 1 spot on Crain’s Chicago Business’ 2018 Fast 50 list, annual recognition on the Auto Remarketing Power 300 list, several Automotive Website Awards (AWAs), and a spot on 2019’s Most Promising Automotive Technology Solutions list by CIO Review. LotLinx is committed to providing unparalleled technology to the direct benefit of the dealerships they serve. To learn more about LotLinx, please visit www.lotlinx.com

Dealer Marketing Choices During COVID are Learning Lessons

Recent LotLinx Study Analyzes Automotive SEM Spending Trends Amidst COVID-19 Hardships

CHICAGO – August 12, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today, on average, paid search spend per vehicle has increased, not decreased, since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Immediately following the pandemic outbreak, SEM spend across the automotive industry suffered massive cuts, but it is slowly on the rise. A recent LotLinx analysis found that SEM marketing for new vehicles is even higher than used despite inventory shortages. “SEM spend is still down about 15%, but because there is so much less inventory, it’s all concentrated on a small percent of inventory, so spend per vehicle is much much higher,” said Lance Schafer General Manager of Product and Technology at LotLinx.

As the new vehicle inventory shortage continues, there are fewer vehicles to shop online. This reduced inventory means organic traffic for available vehicles has significantly increased. That increase in organic traffic should be more than enough to sell those VINs, and dealers are finding that they don’t need to supplement with expensive paid campaigns.

Schafer advises dealers that proper data analysis is crucial to keeping track of trends like these and to streamlining marketing spend amid COVID-19 obstacles.

Jeremy Wiggains, General Manager of Vanguard Kia of Arlington, diligently monitored COVID’s influence over his SEM market. After realizing the trend of over spending, he was able to reallocate SEM budget to his LotLinx campaigns while many competitors pulled back on their advertising all together. The increase in in-market shopper traffic to both New and Used inventory enabled him to gain control of his market share and improve his sell rate to 67%. A recent LotLinx case study details Wiggains success with this approach.

LotLinx is offering dealers an opportunity to learn more about how dealerships can analyze their marketing spend and streamline their SEM efforts amidst fluctuating inventory levels. Visit LotLinx.com or email hello@lotlinx.com.

About LotLinx:

LotLinx and CBT News Partner to Share Proprietary Market Data Findings with...

The CBT News MarketCenter powered by LotLinx arms dealers and automotive partners with the necessary global, local, and brand-specific data to make the smartest decisions for their business.

CHICAGO – July 6th, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today its collaboration with CBT News to offer dealers access to its proprietary, real-time buyer activity and sales data. The CBT News MarketCenter powered by LotLinx will be available through CBT News’s platform beginning July 6th, 2020, providing dealers with the industry’s ultimate and only source for a complete and accurate daily view of how shopper volume, VDP engagement, and sales are tracking for specific brands and locations.

Providing a deep dive into the CBT News MarketCenter powered by LotLinx, the collaboration also includes a weekly video segment featuring Jim Fitzpatrick, Co-Founder of CBT News, a LotLinx expert, and a special guest dealer to discuss weekly market moves and trends. The CBT News MarketUpdate will cover national week over week sales trends including best and worst-performing markets and how dealers can use the essential data to take specific steps to better achieve their business goals.

“As online shopping increases and dealership operations decrease, the strongest dealers will be the ones who smartly track and manage their online presence at this time,” said Len Short, Chairman and CEO of LotLinx. “This collaboration not only gives dealers access to unbiased, real-time data on their markets, but also provides expert insights on how to use that data to set their dealership up for success.”

For nearly a decade, LotLinx technologies have been aggregating market and demand data across more than 30,000 websites to fuel their TURN™ platform. Tracking over 100 million shopper interactions, LotLinx’s data provides global, local, and brand-specific views of an individual store’s market in real time. Because of the quick-changing nature of today’s market, the company is making key proprietary data findings freely available to all members of our industry.

“The LotLinx team has developed an invaluable tool that revolutionizes the way dealers can analyze data,” added Jim Fitzpatrick. “We’re excited to share this knowledge with the CBT News community and beyond to better inform of what is really happening within our industry in real time.”

The complete market data set is updated daily and available to access any time at LotLinx.com and CBTNews.com, where dealers can also catch the CBT News MarketUpdate series.

About CBT News:

CBT Automotive Network is a highly targeted, multi-media platform for retail automotive professionals. With digital channels including a daily newscast, informative website, daily eNewsletters, webinars and 9 network shows hosted by the industry’s top trainers and thought leaders. CBT is your dealership’s “go to” source from the showroom to the service drive. To learn more about CBT News, please visit www.cbtnews.com.

About LotLinx:

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Contact:

Mary McDonnell

312.985.0304

marketing@lotlinx.com

LotLinx Accepts PCG’s Vanguard & NextGen Leader Automotive Website Awards

PCG Companies recognizes proprietary /AI/ product suite, LotLinx TURN™, at the 2020 Automotive Website Awards.

CHICAGO – February 16, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today its recognition in the 2020 Automotive Website Awards. PCG Companies’ Brian Pasch founded the AWAs in 2008 to recognize the best vendors in automotive digital marketing. Since then, they have become a benchmark in the automotive industry for innovative products in technology, design, search marketing, and social media.

Through an extensive process, experts at PCG review, research, and rate the leading products for dealers to incorporate into their process or showroom. This year, LotLinx was proud to accept the NextGen Leader award in Marketing Automation in addition to the prestigious Vanguard award for their proprietary /AI/ product suite, LotLinx TURN™.

In an effort to recognize innovative thinking, PCG created the Vanguard award. Brian Pasch, CEO and Founder of PCG Companies explains, “When you examine the definition of a Vanguard, I think you will agree that it’s very appropriate: A group of people leading the way and in the forefront of new development or ideas.”

“PCG’s thorough review and research is a testament that those recognized in the AWAs are truly the best solutions for dealers to incorporate into their business. It’s an honor to accept both the Vanguard and NextGen Leader awards,” noted Len Short, LotLinx Chairman and CEO.

The AWAs took place the night prior to the start of the National Automotive Dealers Association Convention (NADA) where LotLinx will be exhibiting at Booth #3394C. The Wynn hosted the award show which presented dozens of awards to the best website and technology products on the market for car dealers, with over 150 industry leaders in attendance.

About LotLinx:

###

Media Contact:

Mary McDonnell

marketing@lotlinx.com

200 W Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60606

LotLinx Expands Proprietary /AI/™ Product Suite With Release of /AI/50

The industry’s most advanced /AI/ platform automatically identifies and corrects inventory risk.

CHICAGO – February 14, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today the expansion of their proprietary /AI/ product suite, LotLinx TURN™, with the release of LotLinx /AI/50. This streamlined new product allows dealers to solve inventory challenges, maximize profit margins, and accelerate sales pace by applying low-funnel shopper demand to campaigns of 50 strategically chosen VINs.

After several years of building one of the largest databases in the industry, LotLinx has found the right combination of market, dealership, and VDP data to give the most accurate look into the probability of a vehicle to sell. This holistic view of a dealer’s lot can prevent thousands of dollars in misplaced marketing spend.

“Dealers are wasting advertising in the marketplace. Sure, it’s driving a bunch of traffic, but if you look at it, it’s driving traffic to the cars they are going to sell anyways,” explains Len Short, LotLinx Chairman and CEO. “This is a treadmill that dealers are on. They need better tools. They’ve never had the ability to flex and manage demand to the specific units they have to sell. That’s what /AI/50 allows – The ability to aim.”

/AI/50 is a seamless addition to LotLinx TURN™, a platform that sends incremental, highly-engaged shoppers directly to dealership VDPs based on market demand and current inventory objectives. The TURN™ platform provides valuable metrics on VDP engagements, marketing spend, sold VINs, shoppers targeted, and more.

/AI/50 puts the machine in the driver’s seat by allowing artificial intelligence to select a dealership’s top 50 VINs in need of marketing exposure. A complete and total lot analysis along with real-time market trends teaches the machine which VINs are on the right track to sell, and which VINs could benefit from a specialized strategy. Dealers can enjoy the benefits of understanding which VINs are in demand, and marketing those cars directly to the shoppers who want to buy them.

Dealers fear not: /AI/50 campaigns are entirely customizable. Dealers can choose their preferred level of involvement, whether that be sitting back and allowing the machine to choose all 50 VINs, or hand-selecting individual VINs alongside their dedicated strategist.

Key Features of /AI/50:

– Let the machine do the heavy-lifting – Customize your inventory strategy and sales priorities and let /AI/ do the rest.

– Get an expert’s opinion – Work with your dedicated LotLinx strategist to evaluate your lot and the /AI/-chosen VINs.

– Achieve the best results for your spend – Properly allocate your exposure to the VINs you most need to sell to boost gross margin.

This announcement marks another significant milestone for LotLinx, which recently earned two additional Automotive Website Awards (AWA), including one for its TURN™ platform. LotLinx will also be exhibiting at Booth #3394C at the NADA 2020 exposition. The LotLinx platform currently helps improve inventory turn and profitability for dealers like Smart Motors Toyota, Fremont Motor Company, and Florida Fine Cars. For more information, download their latest White Paper, The Omni-Channel Power of LotLinx /AI/.

About LotLinx:

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LotLinx Traffic Quality Doubles 2020 vs. 2016

GM of Product and Technology shares secrets behind the AI Company’s leading automotive shopper targeting network

CHICAGO – Jan. 14, 2020 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today that their automotive shopper targeting technology has reached an all-time high in regards to quality of engagement seen from traffic delivered to the dealer site via their vehicle ads.

“Think of our /AI/ as a musical conductor – treating each ad channel as an instrument, giving each vehicle its own symphony. We optimize for quality by targeting individual shoppers based on demonstrated purchase intent, not channels,” LotLinx GM of Product and Technology Lance Schafer explains. “While popular sources like Facebook and Google often do provide the best traffic for dealer inventory, we also convert high-quality shoppers from other channels with less name recognition just as often. In other words, the cymbal matters as much as the bass drum.”

This announcement marks another significant milestone for LotLinx, which recently earned two additional product Automotive Website Awards (AWA) and will be exhibiting at Booth #3394C at the upcoming NADA 2020 convention. The LotLinx platform currently helps improve inventory turn and profitability for dealers like Smart Motors Toyota, Fremont Motor Company, and Florida Fine Cars. For more information, download their newest White Paper, The Omni-Channel Power of LotLinx /AI/.

About LotLinx:

###

Media Contacts:

Mary McDonnell
312.985.0304
marketing@lotlinx.com
200 W Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60606

LotLinx Welcomes Neal Gann as President

Seasoned executive with a history at successfully-acquired dealer marketing organizations joins to help lead the AI company’s growing team

CHICAGO, Sept. 17, 2019 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today that award-winning automotive marketing executive Neal Gann will join the company’s senior leadership team as President. Gann’s track record of generating efficiencies and growing revenue makes him a key player in maintaining the accelerated growth LotLinx continues to experience.

At LotLinx, Neal will initially lead Channel Partnerships, OEM relationships, and Marketing – including the next launch of their AI-powered search engine marketing solution, SEM /AI/. Neal joins the LotLinx team from a five-year tenure at Showroom Logic, at which he led the company to win Google Innovator of the Year, top four consecutive years on INC’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Private U.S. Companies list at position #26, and ultimately sell to Raycom Media/Pure Cars.

In addition to Showroom Logic, Gann has held several executive positions over the last 20 years that include AutoBytel and HomeNet.

“With his relentless drive for success and an unrivaled ability to nurture partnerships, Neal will be of great value to the team,” says LotLinx Chairman and CEO Len Short. “When I first met Neal years ago, I knew I wanted to work with him someday. We are very proud to have him on the team.”

“I’ve been in the automotive digital marketing space for 20+ years and have always admired LotLinx for its innovation,” adds Neal. “Len and the team have developed a tool that revolutionizes the way dealers and OEMs approach inventory sales strategies. I’m excited to bring my expertise and background to LotLinx, and look forward to helping our customers and partners succeed.”

This announcement follows the recent addition of Sean Peoples, marking another significant milestone for LotLinx as it continues to release AI-powered product updates that improve inventory turn for dealers.

About LotLinx:

###

Media Contacts:

Sam Bolda
312.971.9283
marketing@lotlinx.com
200 W Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60606

Auto Industry Sales Exec Sean Peoples Joins LotLinx as Chief Revenue Officer

Established sales strategist with a history of leading rapid organizational growth joins to accelerate expansion of the AI company’s national customer base.

CHICAGO, Sept. 3, 2019 — LotLinx, the auto industry’s leading VIN Demand Platform™, announced today that veteran sales executive Sean Peoples will join the company’s senior leadership team as Chief Revenue Officer. Peoples’ proven track record of accelerating growth for early stage, private automotive tech companies makes him a valuable asset in fast tracking the penetration of LotLinx solutions in car dealerships across the nation.

At LotLinx, Sean will focus on scaling the LotLinx sales organization as he has done with other major players in the auto industry. Most recently, Sean comes from a six-year tenure at CarGurus, working with founder Langley Steinert to build and grow the sales team as the company grew into a publicly traded organization with a market cap of 4.69B (source: yCharts). Prior, Peoples led Edmunds’ move to direct dealer sales, growing the group from inception to over 90 – tripling the revenue from that business line in the first 12 months of the initiative.

“During my ten years in the automotive industry, I’ve gotten to know a lot of key players. There is just a small handful of them who are cut above the rest, and Sean is one of them.” says LotLinx Chairman and CEO Len Short, “Sean is smart, seasoned, and exactly the right guy to take us to the next level.”

With regard to joining Len on the LotLinx team, Sean adds, “The product offering that LotLinx has right now is really exciting. After looking under the hood at the newest iteration of the TURN platform, I see something unlike anything else in the marketplace. I’m excited about the opportunity to grow dealer awareness of this intelligent application that allows them to actively manage their business, giving them the competitive edge they need to achieve higher volumes and gross margins.”

This announcement marks another significant milestone for LotLinx as it plans to release a revolutionary update to its award-winning TURN platform – of which Peoples’ team will be leading the implementation among new dealerships. The LotLinx platform currently helps improve inventory turn and profitability for dealers like Smart Motors Toyota, Fremont Motor Company, and Florida Fine Cars. LotLinx has served as a key participant and sponsor at many industry events including Digital Dealer 27, DealerSocket Conference, DrivingSales Executive Summit, and PCG’s AAAS.

About LotLinx:

###

Media Contacts:

Sam Bolda
312.971.9283
marketing@lotlinx.com
200 W Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60606

Top Closer Magazine: Using Inventory Intelligence to Boost Dealer Margins

Source: Top Closer Magazine

By: Kelly Kleinman from Dealership News

Sixteen thousand cold calls and a Heaping Helping of industry praise later, and LotLinx has become a car dealer’s best friend. It hasn’t been an overnight success, though. As Advertising Veteran/Angel Investor turned Founder of LotLinx Len Short explains, it all started in the early 2000’s with his search for investment opportunities. He found that, although the majority of vehicle research takes place online, inventory search in automotive was antiquated and “broken.” Seizing the opportunity, he partnered with Co-Founders Jason Knight and Rob Vucic in 2012 to start an inventory marketing company that would bridge the gap between auto retailers and consumers – and just so happen to be on the forefront of the next major technological revolution.

Unlike most other automotive marketing solutions today that focus on audience, LotLinx flips things by focusing on VINs and using technology to accomplish real dealer inventory sales objectives. They have developed a patented artificial intelligence (AI) technology that pinpoints the most influential shopping moments in the vehicle buying process to deliver in-market consumer demand to specific vehicle pages on the dealer site.

Their solutions help dealerships become more efficient and resilient to the impacts of bloated inventory stocks or aged units by moving vehicles when it’s most profitable. Currently, as vehicles age, dealers turn to price reductions as a means of boosting sales. Without LotLinx, most dealers move less than 35% of inventory at or around listing price.

While markdowns are an easy lever to pull, they should not be considered a best practice by any means. Marking down slow-moving inventory not only sacrifices profit on those units, but also degrades the value of other similar vehicles on the lot. (Why would someone buy a vehicle at list price if there is a similar unit on the lot that is cheaper?)

LotLinx is essentially saying, “Don’t drop prices until the vehicles have been adequately promoted! Price vehicles at reasonable market prices, use smarter marketing strategies to drive consumer demand to those vehicles, and sell cars at a higher profit. You can make a choice to LOSE gross by dropping price, or USE strategic promotional dollars to retain higher margins.”

THE CRED TEST: At Dealership News, we have access to the Google Analytics of hundreds of car dealers. We can see which vendors deliver, and which vendors do not. Google Analytics, love them or hate them, are agnostic. We can see that LotLinx traffic to VDPs is higher-quality than any vendor in the industry. Their traffic arrives with purpose, does their research, and is considered “sticky,” suggesting they stick around on the VDP for more than a few minutes and engages with the vehicle’s photos, chats, etc.

For additional credibility, a major portion (if not all) of most dealerships’ LotLinx budget can be covered by co-op dollars. Right now, LotLinx is considered “co-op approved” by the following OEMs: Alfa Romeo, Audi, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, GMC, Hyundai, Jaguar, Jeep, Kia, Land Rover, Maserati, Mazda, Ram, and Subaru.

What’s it going to cost a dealer? To put AI-vetted consumer demand on a specific car, you pay on average $50 per VIN.

/AI/ can’t close the sale for you. It comes down to the personnel and lead converting skills within each dealership. But they can get your closers closer to a conversion than anyone else when it comes to your inventory.

Their team of strategy experts offer free dealer inventory consultations that go in-depth to look at vehicles that make the most impact on margins.

Automotive News: A New Way of Thinking

Why more new-vehicle dealers are looking at AI to gain a competitive edge

Hannah Lutz – March 24, 2019 — About a decade ago, dealers began to adopt what’s known as velocity selling, based on the premise of pricing vehicles transparently and competitively to turn inventory faster. Companies such as vAuto analyzed dealership inventory and identified which vehicles dealers could price below the market average to increase their turn.

But “once everyone started to use same technology, the advantages started to go away because then it just became, ‘We’re lowering our gross; we’re giving away profits just to turn inventory,’ ” said Jeremy Alicandri, managing director at automotive consultant Maryann Keller & Advisors.

Today, more dealers are turning to artificial intelligence to set themselves apart and boost their bottom lines.

Artificial intelligence is defined broadly and has a few distinct levels, and dealerships are still only scratching the surface of intelligent data. While not all retailers have embraced the tools, dealership use of AI can do more than enhance the customer experience; it also can bolster store profitability.

There are hurdles to clear, such as trusting a process that’s difficult to understand, but with a plethora of data, many dealers are using AI to get more efficient. Not only can they better deploy employees, whose time can be freed up through AI tools, but they also can make better pricing and inventory choices and sell vehicles faster.

Turning cars

Tom Gage, chief strategy officer at vendor LotLinx, has seen machines improve a store’s overall financial health. One potential candidate for AI assistance: the regimented markdown schedule dealerships have to move cars off their lots.

Thomas Gage, LotLinx Chief Strategy Officer

“The only lever they know is marking down the car, which has to be the most costly way to stimulate demand in the market,” Gage said.

But LotLinx, which customizes marketing campaigns to specific VINs, and companies like it can use AI to better predict when a car will age out.

Dealers should weigh which vehicles need to be turned quickly and which justify a higher price, Alicandri said. Now, dealers “actually have a computer telling them this is what you should do with this car.”

For example, if a Nissan store and a Ford store each have a used F-150, the Ford dealership would do a better job selling it, so an AI tool may suggest the Ford store price it higher.

“The tools have become so accurate now that they can actually predict how long it will take to sell, how long on the lot as well as a suggested sale price,” Alicandri said. “That’s a really strong evolution of how this transformation has occurred.”

Leverage the data

AI’s efficiency largely relies on the amount and quality of a dealership’s data. CarStory’s AI tool, for example, can identify vehicle images, down to the trim level, without any human intervention after the initial training process, said Chad Bockius, CEO of CarStory, an inventory management app that uses predictive analytics to determine how long used vehicles will remain on the lot.

The company processes billions of photos, Bockius said. “For us to do that, it required an ungodly amount of data.”

At one dealership, CarStory found more than 300 merchandising errors in an inventory of 480 vehicles.

For AI to be functional, data is critical, said Ryan Soffa, executive vice president of business development for automotive consultant Motormindz. “The key is, do you have enough data? Do you have good data, clean data that you can actually use to build a formula to come up with something to be solved?” he said.

Historically, dealers have relied on simple averages to manage their inventory, said Bockius.

“They’ve taken all the data in the market and added it all up. Fifty percent of you are going to perform better than this number, and 50 percent of you are going to perform worse. But here’s the average,” he said. “It’s not very sophisticated. The biggest issue is, it ignores the dealer’s performance.”
AI considers factors specific to the dealership — such as market demand, supply, competition and sales history — factors that would be overwhelming for a human to comprehend. No human should be trying to organize and analyze such immense data pools, said Len Short, CEO of LotLinx.

“It’s like, no one should be mowing their lawn with a pair of sewing scissors. It makes no sense,” Short said. “It moves too fast; there’s too much data. It’s gone beyond the ability of humans.”

Dealer Brian Benstock can attest to that.

While most questions can be answered with data in the dealership management system, it’s impossible to have staffers mine that enormous database while still interacting with customers, said Benstock, vice president of Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura in New York City. Data mining was helpful 15 years ago, he said, but today, data usage needs to be smarter and analyzed by a machine.

“The data is useless without intelligence behind it,” he said. “The intelligence enables us to serve our customers the right message at the right time.”

Dealer resistance

Still, dealer skepticism is persistent.

“Dealers are reluctant to trust it until they understand it,” said Chris Glenn, COO of Motormindz.

And it can take some work to prove AI tools out. They need experience with data to learn, and they get smarter over time. Sometimes, the first iteration of an AI product needs adjusting, Glenn said. “AI doesn’t make perfect decisions as soon as you plug it in.”

Setting expectations can solve misconceptions around AI, said Jeff Cole, managing director of engagement solutions at Digital Air Strike, an automotive marketing company offering AI tools and bots.

“It requires ongoing training,” Cole said. “Dealers will not be successful with any type of new technology if they [think] you just press go and everything is going to be perfect.”

Bockius of CarStory tells dealers to allow three months to see results. During that time, his tool gets smarter with every new piece of data it absorbs. “My performance on Day 1 is not going to be nearly as good as my performance on Day 90,” he said.

Though many dealers are reluctant to change the tried and true, others say they’d rather be on the forefront of AI technology.

“The only one who likes changes is a wet baby,” said Benstock. “We are hanging onto a world that no longer exists. The sooner we realize that, the better we’re going to be.”

View the article here.

About LotLinx:

LotLinx is the automotive industry leader in inventory marketing technology. Founded in 2012 and based out of Chicago, IL LotLinx uses a proprietary artificial intelligence platform to Sell Cars Smarter™ by aligning overall dealer sales objectives to inventory marketing strategies and tactics with unparalleled efficiency and precision. The company’s rapid growth has earned it the No. 1 spot on Crain’s Chicago Business’ 2018 Fast 50 list as well as a spot on the Auto Remarketing Power 300 for 2018. LotLinx is committed to advancing the frontier of automotive digital marketing to the direct benefit of the dealerships they serve. To learn more about LotLinx, please visit www.lotlinx.com.