This topic was an enigma to me for years. In digital marketing, exclusivity isn’t exactly possible. We all buy ad space on the same platforms- Google, Facebook, YouTube- and we all pay the same price for that ad space, we all adhere to the same ad formats and restrictions, all of our ad content is subject to the same algorithms.

When exclusivity was presented to me as something like a privacy concern, that didn’t really make sense to me either because 1) dealers shouldn’t be getting involved with a vendor they don’t trust and 2) all of the relevant information is publicly available. I can see everything you’re doing just by looking as an outsider. I can tell what your keyword/model/offer strategy is based on how you appear in test searches. I can tell pretty accurately how much money you’re spending on social and search based on your visibility. I can tell by your content how much you’re focused on vehicle-specific offers, which typically translates to a heavy traditional media budget and an emphasis on lead volume. This is digital; there is no hiding anything. Privacy doesn’t exist on the internet. Everything you do is out in the open for your competitors to see, and this is why (in addition to audience behavior trends and technological advances) it is so important for your marketing strategy to be versatile.

More recently I’ve been hearing sentiments about [duplicating strategy] and this was when I started to see the bigger picture. It is true that most of the larger ad providers in our industry use a turn-key approach to digital marketing. It makes sense for them because of the volume they manage. This isn’t necessarily a nefarious method. But this could absolutely lead to market saturation. So again I’d have to ask… why would a dealer partner with a vendor that isn’t providing a versatile solution?

This is the gray area. Vendors tend to exploit this space by saying things like, “custom templates” and “custom audiences” and “custom keyword strategies” which actually only translate to [according to your inventory]. Okay, great, so we all agree that Ford dealers aren’t looking for the same shoppers a Chevy dealer is looking for. Now what about the content? If all we’re changing are the keywords based on the dealer’s OEM models, that isn’t a custom audience strategy. Telling a Ford dealer that I’m going to look for Ford shoppers is not a selling point. 

A custom audience strategy requires collaboration. I need you to tell me which areas you’re not pulling from, and I need to show you on my market map if it’s because there’s no opportunity there or if it’s something we’re missing out on. If it is something we’re missing out on, I need to be able to tell you if it’s because we aren’t in that space, we aren’t making an impact in that space, or because someone else is making a bigger impact in that space. If we talk about models, we need to talk about market messaging. We need to consider the alternative offers being presented in that space, and the audience behaviors, and economic priorities, and cultural relevance…

In all this you can probably see why I didn’t understand how my dealers could even be concerned with exclusivity. How am I going to adapt to your dealership’s specific needs if I’m just copying what I’m doing everywhere else? Now I know this is attributed to a very real experience dealers are having with some of the more popular vendors, and I get it.

So how can I resolve this concern for my dealers without just saying that my definition of ‘custom’ is different?

It was recently explained to me like this: “[We fall into a rut so we try something new and it works for a while, but then everyone else gets it and it’s not new anymore, so it stops working and then we fall back into a rut.]”

This was more of a product perspective as opposed to a marketing perspective… and I get it. It is the nature of the ecosystem; someone builds something new and goes around selling it to everyone, which diminishes the value of the product. The question is; why does new work in the first place, and why does it lose its value when it becomes trendy? What is the power of “new”? And in this articulation, I saw it…

Distinction. That’s it. New just means different, and people like different. All car dealers are the same, right? You’re all just lying so you can get as much money from customers as possible. That is the stereotype. But when you do something different, it means you are different. Just this morning I sat through a product demo. The presenter was fishing for the location of my dealerships, saying they needed to make sure my stores wouldn’t conflict with any exclusivity agreements they had in place. They went on to explain that their product loses some of its value if everyone else in the region is using the same thing. (This was after they pitched custom templates.) I asked what would stop me from just saturating the space with a different app provider? Silence.

My final conclusion from all of this- and the position I hold now – is that dealer exclusivity is all about dealer branding. Standing out, being set apart, earning shopper loyalty. That’s branding. Dealers want something no one else has. Great news… every dealership already has something their competition never will; their brand.

When I come in with VIN Driven and I get hit with, “Who else in the area is using it?” I can save us all some time and cut right to the chase; “What if I told you everyone has it except you?” Do you want it because everyone else has it? That’s a conversation. Are you going to refuse my product because you want to be different? That’s a conversation. Those are productive conversations. What if I tell you half of your local competition is using it and half is not? How will you decide the value of my product? The same way customers decide the value of yours; brand.

Am I different? Am I special? Do I really understand what I’m talking about? Do you believe I really want to help you? Do I sound like everyone else? Do I provide the same experience my competition provides? 

Do you?

Even if there was no competition- no copycats, no knock-offs, even if there were no new innovations to compete with… eventually new won’t be new anymore because it will be culturally outdated. If the value of your product depends on exclusivity, then it isn’t a valuable product. I can’t protect my dealers from all of these constant changes and new shiny objects just by signing an exclusivity agreement. But I can protect my dealers from imminent change if we are having these productive conversations and figuring out what the real objectives need to be. That requires a versatile marketing strategy. Data analysis has evolved enough that we can effectively see in real time how consumers respond to everything you say and do in the public digital space. If we keep ignoring the real issues in exchange for shiny new things, we will keep falling back into the rut when ‘new’ inevitably fades.