Anyone using iHeart's XVin solution - looking for feedback

[Ryan Everson]

I am with Cox Media and we have a similar product.

One of the main differentiators of going direct to Cox, Cars.com (Cars Social), Edmunds (Ad Solutions), CarGurus (RPM), etc for dynamic inventory ads like these is they actually have the in-market audience data from their marketplace websites so it is TRUE remarketing. No secret sauce or magic targeting technology is needed.

 

[MarcyMMDealerAdvocates]

Ryan - thanks for taking time to weigh in! You are an awesome authority on ALL things digital Kevin - we have a client who has used XVin. It is very similar to Lotlinx in terms of targeting and where ads are shown. I would venture to guess it is a white labeled product. Regardless, it had about the same # of monthly views/traffic as Lotlinx - direct to VDP pages, but not much time on site. I would say depends on your current digital marketing mix on whether this would be worth adding or if youre money bettter spent elsewhere...

 

[Ryan Everson]

Funny timing, yesterday one of our dealerships received a pitch for XVin, but it wasn't iHeartRadio making the pitch, nor were they mentioned.

So, who is behind XVin?

The #1 and only (relevant) Google search result for "XVin": This DealerRefresh thread.

 

[Chris Scott]

I have been pitched Xvin on multiple occasions and have asked quite a few questions without ever getting a clear answer. Their presentation clearly shows Autotrader and other 3rd party sites as where they grab "clickstream" data. When I asked how they capture that data, I was told this was "their proprietary technology," which I know is not the case. However, any direct questions they are unable or unwilling to answer, which is obviously by design.

Things I have picked up on:
Programmatic Display product (does not include social, even though it is pictured)
Not sold on CPM basis (this is my biggest complaint, it is extremely overpriced for a display product).
Captures search intent data and/or auto intenders
They still use Google UA - GA4 numbers vary drastically

They claim "assists", which in reality mean nothing. On 4 store account ($3k each), the traffic lead to 0 lead form conversions. While the campaigns generate a lot of website traffic, I really question why they never result in a lead form conversion. The lack of transparency really bothers me. I should add that I worked at iheart for 9 years until 2019 and have previous experience with iheart automotive digital products.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Define high quality? Does the car move off the lot or not? Who cares about vdps if it doesn't sell. Low funnel buyers who want the specifc vin they deep linked too don't send a lead, and don't need to click through multiple pages. Verfiy this is the car they want to buy...go to the dealership and get it! Average days in campaign on Lotlinx is from 11-20 days before its sold. Are there times when Lotlinx has no impact? Of course, as with all. Lotlinx isn't about leads or conversions. Conversions as you said are very low. Low funnel Buyers don't need to email or text or want to be bothered by a follow up call. They want to buy the car. Lotlinx is not for dealers who define success with a high vdp count nor for dealers who want "leads". Lotlinx is for dealers who want to move inventory. It's not for everyone. I had a dealer say.."i don't know how Lotlinx does it but the cars I put in campaign sell and that is all I care about".

Is an ad like this driving high quality ready to buy shoppers?

 

[Dave Lemmon]

All of these products are interchangable and are all just based on LL...which is bizarre, because I still think that's a bad product to begin with.

It's like there's a guy on every corner in a trench coat whispering "you want cheap VDPs? I got cheap VDPs".

Everyone has cheap VDP views. Run 80% of your budget towards AIA, run another 10% on an open audience on GDN and pepper in a couple other bad channels. Take the inventory feed and either manually select aged VINs or just create an automated "aged inventory" sub catalog. You are now generating VDP views for about a nickel. Mark it all up with a non transparent fee and sell it as a "product" and you can keep 60% of the spend and deliver VDP views just under a dollar, but tell some story that uses "AI" a bunch and people will love it.

Dealers have to stop buying the hype on all these products.

 

[ASuave]

They claim "assists", which in reality mean nothing. On 4 store account ($3k each), the traffic lead to 0 lead form conversions. While the campaigns generate a lot of website traffic, I really question why they never result in a lead form conversion.

Feels like the answer to the lack of transparency point is right in that paragraph.

If there’s no measure of leads/click to calls or actual calls/chats from the traffic, then what’s it bringing you in value..?

Traffic in and of itself isn’t valuable. Dealership websites are not media companies or news sites striving for the most readers in their market. All visits are not created equal, which is where conversion metrics become critical to the assessment of what you spend your money on.

 

[Ryan Everson]

I have been pitched Xvin on multiple occasions and have asked quite a few questions without ever getting a clear answer. Their presentation clearly shows Autotrader and other 3rd party sites as where they grab "clickstream" data. When I asked how they capture that data, I was told this was "their proprietary technology," which I know is not the case. However, any direct questions they are unable or unwilling to answer, which is obviously by design.

Things I have picked up on:
Programmatic Display product (does not include social, even though it is pictured)
Not sold on CPM basis (this is my biggest complaint, it is extremely overpriced for a display product).
Captures search intent data and/or auto intenders
They still use Google UA - GA4 numbers vary drastically

They claim "assists", which in reality mean nothing. On 4 store account ($3k each), the traffic lead to 0 lead form conversions. While the campaigns generate a lot of website traffic, I really question why they never result in a lead form conversion. The lack of transparency really bothers me. I should add that I worked at iheart for 9 years until 2019 and have previous experience with iheart automotive digital products.

One of our stores recently signed up for XVIN, I'll let you be the judge of whether the traffic is quality or not:

• 0 leads
• 0 click to calls
• 90% of XVIN traffic did not interact with the VDP photo carousel whatsoever

 

[George Nenni]

One of our stores recently signed up for XVIN, I'll let you be the judge of whether the traffic is quality or not:

• 0 leads
• 0 click to calls
• 90% of XVIN traffic did not interact with the VDP photo carousel whatsoever

Yes, both the display and email component suffer from low quality. Especially the email campaigns. If you use Behavior Flow explorations, you'll see the traffic drops to the footer of the page and clicks Privacy Policy and Staff pages also, which of course could be additional bot signatures.

 

[gavin.bannerinsite]

One of our stores recently signed up for XVIN, I'll let you be the judge of whether the traffic is quality or not:

• 0 leads
• 0 click to calls
• 90% of XVIN traffic did not interact with the VDP photo carousel whatsoever

Attack of the bots!