Clairvoy: A New Product Idea

[Ryan Everson]

In addition to CarStory's robust AI-based solution, I know there are many other companies that offer reporting tools based on the premise of more VDP views = more likely to sell.

LotLinx has their VIN View Optimizer tool that pulls in data from Google Analytics, Autotrader, Cars.com, etc.


And innovative website companies like Dealer Inspire have their own inventory analytics tool that breaks inventory into categories based on VDP views, days in stock, average days in stock, etc. You can export all of this data and manipulate it in Excel, cool stuff! I know Dealer Inspire's Fuel PPC program also integrates by adjusting bids, budget, etc based on this inventory data and a particular vehicle's popularity / probability to sell.

 

[joe.pistell]

I don't think we are at a place where we need to hand the keys over to the machines. But I do believe that arming yourself with this new source of information will result in better, more profitable decisions.

When the output of a Business Intelligence product becomes actionable, then you can move mountains. Dale Pollak's genius for vAuto was the Velocity business model, it made all that data.. actionable.

PredPol and HunchLab create predictive systems for Police departments. They don't produce analytics, they use analytics to produce an actionable tool.

I'll be interested to dive into your work, all the while I'll be asking "is it actionable?*"

 

[joe.pistell]

In addition to CarStory's robust AI-based solution, I know there are many other companies that offer reporting tools based on the premise of more VDP views = more likely to sell.

LotLinx has their VIN View Optimizer tool that pulls in data from Google Analytics, Autotrader, Cars.com, etc.

TY Ryan!

Is that a LotLinx graph? Very cool. It fired off a observation in my pointy head...

I noticed what differentiated your high volume VDPs from the sleepy ones was SEM and LotLinx FB and Lotlinx (yellow, blue & red).


Thoughts?

 

[joe.pistell]

Ryan,
Assuming thatsLotLink graph is a VDP traffic presentation...

1. Are you able to bucket VDPs? For example YMMT (Yr/Make/Model/Trim)
   • VDP traffic on scarce units will always outperform high volume new cars
2. Does it have analytics where you can see if any traffic source produces anything unique? (e.g. vehicles from SEM are 50% new trucks vs 18% Trucks for FaceBook Lolinx?)

Probably not, but it would be cool... probably someday.

 

[chad.bockius]

I just came across this article on AI-assisted decision making. It is one of the most well-written pieces I've seen in a long time.

https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/11/why-ai-drives-better-business-decision-making.html

The article does a great job explaining results from other industries on AI-based decision making. They make a few other great points:
- These systems all get better with more training and input.
- Human-assisted AI is the obvious place to start

And perhaps the best line. According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, “Basically, there’s no institution in the world that cannot be improved with machine learning.”

It's an exciting time to be working in the space...

 

[Michael Pokora]

The analytics are amazing and certainly pave the way for more "predictive product placement". I think Joe is asking all of the right question and the first company to really tie it all together will be head and shoulders above the competition. I really want to use these insights on the used side of the business with repair / replace / remain (R^3) analytics for vehicle resale. Driving to the heart of, did we need to paint that bumper to get the sale or could we have left it alone? Unfortunately, no one aggregates this data. but it could really help dealers drive margin and I've worked to build local decision guidelines but would love to put predictive analytics into play. That would drive actionable decisions by taking the human factor out of the RO writing and margin bargaining.