Brian Pasch addresses the digital marketing challenges car dealers are facing today

How are you addressing your marketing measurements in today’s digital landscape? Joining us on today’s show Brian Pasch, Founder, and CEO of PCG Companies, also the host of CBT’s monthly series, Auto Marketing Now, to discuss marketing measurement challenges for car dealers and agencies today.

One of the challenges car dealers are facing, is trying to make their operations as efficient as possible. Pasch poses the question, has their digital retailing platform disrupted measurement? He says, the conversions that were normally tracked by marketing agencies have now been replaced with digital retailing forms and no one is measuring results. Digital retailing tools are becoming the primary dealer website.

Some advertisement channels are not optimized for lead conversions, which makes things even more complicated. Car dealers are getting mixed signals. Pasch says, the second challenge here is there is a whole host of high-quality traffic channels that are not being tracked because car dealers aren’t forcing their website company to track all the actions people are taking. If we don’t get smarter now, as privacy laws are changing, there might be a shakeup in the marketplace.

There has been a lack of vision by the digital retail companies to see how they impact marketing and they’ve done a poor change of educating the agency market, says Pasch. He says he encourages the listeners and the car dealership managers who watch CBT to do one simple thing. Schedule a call and ask your digital retailer and agency, can you tell me what people are doing, when they click on my ads? You need to prepare now that you are able to do so.

Pasch says he’s holding everyone accountable. It’s everyone’s problem to get things worked out. He says it’s just odd in 2021 that not a single OEM has published a standard for their dealer network. The next thing that needs to be fixed is that the OEM program managers have to get more serious about measurements that the car dealers can inspect.

Pasch ends the conversation by discussing the upcoming Digital Marketing Strategies Conference and what attendees can expect from it. The conference takes place in Napa Valley, California, from July 11 to July 13. Pasch says this event is for people who want to be ahead of the thought curve on what’s next. They will be discussing new ways to use data to power a better retail experience, communication strategies, and changes in marketing. The event will be in-person and virtual. Click here to register now.

Did you enjoy this podcast with Brian Pasch? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by submitting a letter to the editor here, or connect with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.