automotiveMastermind, CarNow team up to track consumers’ shopping behavior

Auto industry data and technology provider automotiveMastermind has joined with auto retail software provider CarNow in a strategic integration partnership designed to connect its Mastermind technology with dealers’ existing operational systems to better account for consumers’ online and offline shopping behavior.

The integration includes enhanced tracking through the CarNow digital retailing suite, which the companies said improves Mastermind’s ability to detect customer activity and extract relevant customer information, supporting proactive engagement and hyper-personalized marketing to the most qualified customers.

“The strategic partnership with CarNow is just the latest step we’ve taken to help our dealership partners continue improving the overall consumer experience,” automotiveMastermind chief product officer Aaron Baldwin said in a news release. “CarNow’s real-time digital retail platform combined with Mastermind data is a great showcase of how dealers can modernize the consumer shopping journey through first-party data and heightened connectivity.

“In today’s competitive automotive retail landscape, customers no longer see these functions as optional. We’re equipping our partners with the data and tools they need to stay ahead.”

The deal is the latest for automotiveMastermind, which over the past 15 months has previously completed integration partnerships with more than a dozen companies, including Reynolds and Reynolds, Tekion, Elead/CDK and DealerSocket.

The most recent integration populates CarNow with Mastermind data, which the companies said creates a navigational pathway to purchase dealership sales teams can use when engaging specific customers.

The integration allows CarNow to use Mastermind predictive models in online vehicle sales workflows, and enhances Mastermind’s accuracy by using real-time data from CarNow’s chat and digital retailing tools to identify who dealers should market to, what offers will inspire customers to buy and how soon dealers should begin marketing.

“We are excited to integrate Mastermind’s personalized and predictive insights into our CarNow platform to improve both the consumer shopping experience and the dealer salesperson experience,” CarNow chief product officer John Lilly said. “We are constantly looking for ways to improve the conversations dealers are having with car shoppers using our products, and we strongly believe partnering with Mastermind will result in a measurable increase in the quality of those conversations.”

The companies said functionality of the CarNow integration will be available for dealers using Mastermind later this year.