Great episode today! A great portion of wasted spend (aka fraud) is perpetuated by vendors that made it through to OEM certification. The OEM doesn't know what to look for and I think that's a fair statement if you've ever challenged an OEM rep on their certified partner solutions. The OEM lacks true understanding so an intermediary, who takes a reoccurring commission from the dealer fee for their certification of vendors, is really the point at which the fraud starts. The product review teams at Shift, Internet Brands, FordDirect, etc seem like they're making decisions based on relationship and financial benefit more than actual inspection of the vendor's credentials and qualifications. If at this stage of inspection, the OEM would align with some of the "beacons" in our industry, like Gary and others, they'd not only save dealer's money, but their own co-op marketing dollars.
The other area where OEMs get snowed is through their non-dealer-product partnerships. For instance, white label media buying platforms that they use for their own campaigns and programs using dealer co-op funds. Incentivizing dealers to receive match funds, etc for model campaigns through specific channels and short timeframe boosts.
I think those of us on DR, for the most part, could pull up any dealer's analytics and immediately spot waste.
I noticed a couple comments from both retail and vendor employees eluding they knew the who the bad players were. What is preventing us from calling them out?
I'll throw out one. I spend almost all my time in BDC operations now, so I'm not in analytics as much as I was last year, but my CMO just spotted this one last week. The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is one of the media platforms I was referring to that is currently running an OTT program for Mazda on particular models. It cost us $7,000 in co-op funds (and if I hear another vendor say "free money" I'll puke). 100% OTT, no display no retargeting, no search. My CMO had educated himself on OTT this last couple years and was suspicious whether there was enough OTT inventory in our Mazda DMA for that type of spend. How is The Trade Desk spending that money without the OTT inventory needed to cover? Well, if you look at our GA right now, guess who is leading the charge with Users spending an average 18 seconds on the site? No one at Mazda could answer, or for that matter, could understand what was being shown to them. They say they'll look into it, but who at the OEM is going to be able to really dissect that to hold The Trade Desk accountable?
To those dealers that are looking at partnering with any vendor in the website or ad space, if you can't have your own or have access to your accounts on their analytics platform, stay away. If you are unsure of what to look for, educate yourself, find a partner like Gary or others, or find a friend in the dealer world or 20Group network.
Here is a great place to start if you're a Learner
Google Analytics 4 : Google
Stay frosty out there!
I guess I better add the website and ad companies that I trust (but still inspect) as well:
Steering Innovation - currently use (small company)
Cannonball Digital - currently use (small company)
Dealer Inspire - former employer (we use DDC but only because at the time they covered all our OEM programs and DI did not)
