Burt Lewis said:

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Oh man - I thought I responded to this, but I never hit the "Post Reply" button.

Anyway - Love it!

Max_Fullpath said:

I think the conversation around CDPs is as relevant today as it was 2 years ago. All I suggested is that you might want to take a look for yourself. All good if it's no longer of interest to you. I started posting here again because of a recent post that hit my inbox this morning.

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I agree the CDP conversation is still alive and well. What I took some offense to was being called out after 2 years of silence. Normally, people who bump a thread add to the conversation with new information rather than picking at old things that have been quiet for a long time.

Welcome back. Hopefully, in the future, you will check the dates on things before jumping back in.

Ummmm.... welcome back to the conversation from 2 years ago

I’ve used their link-building and audit combo before, and it helped patch up some weak spots on my site without any guesswork. If you want to see the same setup I tried, you can check the details, since it covers their services and how they handle reporting in a pretty straightforward way.

ryanlucia said:

You're building an Ai experience on the website so when Ai comes to your website it interacts with it?

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Yes.
Websites are build for humans. AI is an intelligent machine that has a mission (created by its user). AI acts on behalf of it's user's mission.

DJ nailed the spec:

DjSec said:

he real strategy now is topic gaps, not keyword gaps. You create a knowledge network that is designed to feed the AI's.

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MattCopley said:

@Brad Burlingham based on what we saw with a few of the Audi stores on our platform the move to the new OADD site was an existential disaster. The CMS is puposefully painful to operate (far worse than DDC) and EXTREMELY limited in it's structure. You also roll up as a subdomain of the OEM giving you very limited ability to differentiate from on or off brand competitors. Our flagship Audi store saw close to 80% collapse in traffic overnight, had their worst 3 weeks in store history before going back to dealer.com, and later moving to an out-of-program website provider. Here's the daily performance story A) - Before Google indexed the OADD site
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Here's after OADD site indexing (audi would not allow a programmatic migration of all of their SEO content)
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And Here's where they are now on an off program site and with all their migrated content infrastructure
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Added Average position in search trend for context as well . 3.6 across 205k impressions ain't too shabby for one day.


Proceed with caution. Have a contingency plan to bail out and bury that OEM site in the darkest corners of the internet if you need to.

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So doesnt that mean you give up all of your coop? we were forced to move to the new site.

JK,
I'm building a twist to this theme, hopefully beta soon. Love to ping you and talk about this to run a test on your site when we're ready.

My Take:

Jeff Kershner said:

The main goal of the LLM.TXT files is to assist with content discovery. Similar to the website's sitemap showing Google different pages, we are mapping all your content to LLM tools to help improve placement and rankings in AI and SEO simultaneously.

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JK,
Ahhh... you can pass on that offer. it's a moneygrab.

@Ryan Everson Is all over this concept. He was 1st to break news about this right here on DR, it's called WebMCP. Ryans Post
Structured Data is Critical for Dealers To Get Into AI Search Results

Brother Ryan also posted another where CloudFlare customers can buy a "LLM.txt" like replicate for AI bots to navigate your site.

jackcarlson said:

We are seeing so far an average of 39% increase in engaged time/session & 30% increase in session duration when our information is front and center, and legacy VDP bits are pushed below.

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As a fellow merchandiser, our clients with the shittiest VDPs see the highest lifts

Once your product shows that level of lift, then, they...

RESPECT YOUR AUTHORITAH!

jackcarlson said:

@joe.pistell Yeah, it's not great...I'll bring it up with them today in our sync.

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Jack,
lobby hard for a review of this. Shoppers LOVE to look at gallery photos. Make sure the spinny-clunky-video-thingy improves shopper engagement and interactions.

Why? Because your product's ROI is tied to the entire VDP UX. EXAMPLE: If the shoppers don't get hooked on the photos, they wont read your helpful content.

You will find that when sales slow and dealers tighten up, they cut vendors. IMO, your product is 1000x better than that clunky-carvana-copy-cat widget.

OPINION:
@jackcarlson LOVE what your building. If u have any ppl in this store that listens to you, the spinning video is a choppy mess.
2025 Buick Enclave Preferred Alliance OH | Lavery Automotive Sales and Service 5GAERARS7SJ304088

joe.pistell said:

How long before Claude announces a car shopping plug-in?
#Short CARS, CARG, TRUE, etc
#Long AN, SAH, GPI, PAG, etc.

@Eric Miltsch I bought long dated OTM puts on CARS and CARG. lol

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I think we will see more ecommerce solutions before anything for cars. But yes, something is coming that nobody can anticipate.

I like the short plays for sure!

What products would you all like us to add to the list?

Dan Sayer said:

I will add though, that I'm painfully aware that the prices of automotive retail tools/software/etc is typically 2-10x more than functionally similar tools in other industries. Our higher revenue per customer is the excuse they use.

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The issue is historically integration costs. Mostly from DMS companies, but others (cough....Cox....) are sneaking up there. I think AI costs are going to start having a large impact soon.

John_pol said:

The cost of CarGurus for dealers has gotten out of control.
Every year there’s another increase.
dealerships can’t keep absorbing endless price hikes.

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It's really a question of ROI then. Is it bringing you value? Vendors with an easily measurable ROI, where that ROI is good at whatever the dealer accepts as good, typically avoids expense discussions. Vendors like CarGurus, AutoTrader, Edmunds, CarFax Listings, etc have started partnering with "attribution BS meters" like Clarivoy, to prove their contribution, or the dealer itself subscribes to inspect for themselves. I'm of the mindset that classifieds have a major hand in our Used strategy BUT understanding how to measure attribution, or what level of attribution we accept, is a real challenge. IF Used cars as a department is failing, it is typically first because of processes at the start. Buying vehicles, merchandising, pricing, and Sales process are typically broken which then puts inspection further on the expense side of the department (gross heals all wounds). Departments with high-turn and better than average front and back, typically manage their expenses to Guide and then just keep it running. The temptation during that success is to further increase profit by trimming expense which can sometimes create a gap in momentum. Cancelling the tools that may very well be the ones assisting in the current success is a risk.

I will add though, that I'm painfully aware that the prices of automotive retail tools/software/etc is typically 2-10x more than functionally similar tools in other industries. Our higher revenue per customer is the excuse they use.

We, as an industry, have under-weighted the complexity of car shopping.

We know:
• Car Shoppers dont know cars
• they juggle hundreds of variables
• their goal is to make a confident decision.
AI IS A PERFECT FIT FOR THIS TASK.

One small example:
In 2019, 11 million VINs were built in over 620,000 unique configurations (not including paint).

We know that used car are like snowflakes, no two are alike. IOW, AI will know the 2019 automotive hierarchy library, but, when AI is comparing 2019 Chevrolet Traverse's side-by-side, it's completely dependent on what's seen on the VDP.

AutoMagic Labs looks at GEO thru the 'task assistance' lens. We know that an AI shopping assistant's mission is to deliver choices that stand out to the end user (the car shopper). We're building an AIX (AI Experience) with the intent to make the AI Assistant look smart(er).

This vision is the tip of a very deep iceberg. I've been preaching that our VDPs are polluted and NO ONE sees it.

AutoMagic Labs is building the machine-to-machine future and the biggest winners are car dealers.

How long before Claude announces a car shopping plug-in?
#Short CARS, CARG, TRUE, etc
#Long AN, SAH, GPI, PAG, etc.

@Eric Miltsch I bought long dated OTM puts on CARS and CARG. lol