OMP as an Alternative to Auto Loan Payment Tool with Aaron Bickart

Brian Pasch0:08Hi, this is Brian Pasch and welcome to another exciting podcast interview. I got my friend Aaron Bickart. He's the EVP General Manager of OfferLogix. And we have two really breaking announcements that we wanted to share with you prior to DMSC. And so we're going to talk about solutions that offer alternatives to dealers and solutions to CDP companies and dealer groups, large dealer groups who are trying to manage their first party data. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Aaron Bickart0:45Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. It's always great to be on your podcast and we're looking forward to the DMSC in Scottsdale, Arizona this year. So, you know, I used to live there for 15 years. So, I'm going back home, where I actually want to move to again.

Brian Pasch0:59Right. Well, it is a beautiful place. And after three days of conference, we're going to have an afternoon of golf for some dealers and pickleball tournaments. So we're going to have a lot of fun. So I'm glad you're coming out with your family.

Aaron Bickart1:15Perfect. Thank you.

Brian Pasch1:16Aaron, I want to talk about two things. The first one impacts every dealer. And this is the ability to win customers online before they defect or go somewhere else. And with affordability being so important to consumers today. Even with threats, even with threats of tariffs, considering even price increases in vehicles, affordability is important. And I want to differentiate between pre-qual and pre-approved first. And then when I talk about your solution that you're providing the vendor community that gives dealers a competitive alternative to the Cap One button, which is on so many dealers' websites. So let's start really at foundational. When you talk to dealers, the difference of pre-qual and pre-approved, what's the difference that you try to be very clear with, with general managers, marketing managers, and tech companies trying to build solutions?

Aaron Bickart2:28Well, first of all, Brian, pre-qual and pre-approved are almost the same thing. In a lot of people's mind, it's almost the same thing. But most people get confused. What is pre-qual? What is pre-screen? And what is pre-approved? Well, let me just walk you through a couple of things. Thank you. One thing real quick is, if you think about this, we've all bought houses in our past, right? We've all went out there and we all bought a house. And we all want to talk to either a lender, like a Wells Fargo, Bank of America, or Ameris Bank. We go to a lender or we go to a mortgage broker.

Aaron Bickart2:59But the first thing they ask you, Brian, is all the time, what do they ask you? They ask you for your social security number. And they ask you how much money are you making? So what do they do? They're getting you pre-approved, right? They want to know what you can afford and if you can't afford it. So this is exactly what we're talking about here. So pre-qual is great. You know, you fill out a five-liner information, you do all that great information. It comes out. It doesn't hurt the customer's credit score at all. There's no inquiry. It's a wonderful solution. And it's basically the number one or number two lead provider for every dealership that I've ever seen. We'll just say 98% of every dealership. I'm not going to say 100% just because there's always a 2% or 3% that's not going to be there. But now with pre-approval, if you think about pre-approval, why not take it to the next level, right? Where you actually take the VIN number of that particular unit, take all the published rates that are sitting out there from all the captives. So let's just say you're a Ford dealership.

Aaron Bickart3:55You have Ford Financial, you might use Ally Loan, you might use Bank of America, you might use US Bank or whoever lenders that you're doing. Why not have all the lenders that that particular dealership uses? Take that VIN number, take the selling price of that particular vehicle, take 10% down, whatever it is, figure out a credit score that is very, let's say, compliant for your dealership or like, you know, that you can live with. And say, hey, take that information. And now we can pre-approval on that particular VIN or that particular vehicle in real time using that loan. So in milliseconds, you can figure out exactly what the lease payment is, the finance payment or the APRs of what that customer has approved on.

Aaron Bickart4:37Versus just pre-qual, it's just a credit score at the end of the day. So really, at the end of the day, we stole the idea. And I'm going to walk you right through it. You know, it's your favorite, it's your favorite company in the whole wide world. Listen, everybody, this is your favorite company because you said it multiple times on stages. I've heard you for the last three, four years, you know, Cap One. This was the catalyst. You know, one thing about Cap One, they siphon all the information off the dealership's website. And then they send you letters in the mail. They send you credit card information in the mail. So reality, and they don't ever mention the dealership's name. So this is a replacement of Cap One's information onto a dealership's website using your lenders, not just Cap One lenders.

Brian Pasch5:19And I think one of the other things that dealers should understand is when your tools are implemented, because you're selling to website companies, digital retailing companies, that will all be compliant with the Automotive Standards Council. So dealers are going to be able to see every step the consumer makes. They'll see that data in GA4. They're going to see that data in their CRM. So there's full transparency available. And the leads that convert through this pre-approval process are owned 100% by the dealer.

Aaron Bickart6:08Yeah, exactly. So everything is 100% compliant. You're going to be able to see all the analytics for GA4. You're actually going to be able to see the emails come through. It's completely compliant with Equifax. And then the last thing is, you know, through your CRM, you're going to actually be able to keep track of the attribution of every one of those sales. So at the end of the day, you're not only keeping track of the analytics, it's fully compliant, but you also have the attribution of those leads coming in. So you actually know exactly how much gross you're making on every particular unit that you sell through the pre-approval process.

Brian Pasch6:43And you know what? Some people listening to the podcast may miss that little detail. There are payment tools on dealer websites, pre-approval tools on dealer websites that don't take into account the marketing channel, right? So if it was a Google ad or a meta ad or an email marketing or a TikTok, whatever, when that referral traffic comes into the dealer's website, if those iframe tools or the tools built into the core website are not capturing that source and medium and campaign name, the dealers don't know where that conversion comes from. And I think this is one of the last areas of black holes on dealer websites.

Brian Pasch7:29I understand the value of putting a pre-qual tool on a website and a pre-approval tool on a website. But none of it makes sense to me if they're not fully transparent to the marketing efforts, the traffic journey that generates the lead.

Aaron Bickart7:49Well, yeah, I always say, you know, it's like connect four, right? If the dots are not connected, right, all the way across from the beginning to the end, right, you're not going to, it's a loser. Why would anyone in their right mind put anything on a website that doesn't connect which medium it came from or multiple mediums it came from with an attribution at the end of the day? Because at the end of the day, we spent, you remember the old saying, Brian, you know, if I had $100,000 to spend on an advertising budget, I wonder which $50,000 is working, which $50,000 is working.

Brian Pasch8:22Right.

Aaron Bickart8:23But now with all the, with all the connectivities that we have through GA4 and attributions and, you know, all the CDP information that we have, we know exactly what's happening in the marketplace. And we know where that particular consumers come and now all the dots are being connected all the way through, through, through the process at the end of the day.

Brian Pasch8:43You mentioned CDPs, and that's the second thing I wanted to talk about. Man, there's a lot of acronyms. When we talk to customers about managing their first-party data, we have CDP, Customer Data Platform, CXP, Customer Experience Platform. We have CEP, Customer Engagement Platform, you know, and it is getting, let me see, Dealer Management Platform, you know, whatever. So, but the truth is, whether the acronym fits or not, dealers are more and more interested in managing and activating their first-party data. And what they need to understand is that a CDP isn't aware of the automotive industry. It doesn't know rates and residuals, offers, discounts at a VIN level, EV rebates, incentives, state taxes, whatever.

Brian Pasch9:44And so, how do dealers and their CDP partners get this real-time data for shoppers that they can offer in an email or a social media ad or dynamic offers on the websites? And that's where you're really coming out to the marketplace with an offer management platform. Well, for our listeners, especially those who understand the CDP in itself, its only job is to unify customer data and keep track of every interaction that they're doing, every email they open, every phone call, every text message they respond to, what pages they were shopping. They know nothing about banking, finance, rebates, incentives. What's your vision for the offer management platform?

Aaron Bickart10:32Okay, well, first of all, that's a lot, there's a big vision there, massive vision. It's probably too big that, you know, we might have to be at this call for another two, three hours for that vision to happen. But I'm going to try to bring it down to simplistic levels here, because what happened is everyone knows who comes to your meetings that OfferLogix works with Lithia. And this all basically came out, and they have a CDP they work with internally at Lithia, and it's a great CDP. I'm not going to mention the name of the company that they work with, but we work with them a lot.

Aaron Bickart11:05And one of the big things is that, you know, as we've spoken to you and a lot of other great industry experts in the field, is the syndication of payments across all the different mediums, right? And what OfferLogix...

Brian Pasch11:16One source.

Aaron Bickart11:18So what OfferLogix is famous for, and what we're great at, is our penny-perfect payments. But the other piece of the puzzle is now syndicating those payments off. So if you called a dealer today, Brian, and said, hey, you're advertising that, let's just say, Ford Explorer for $399 a month with $2,995 down. I guarantee you, I guarantee you, if I went to their website, it would not have a Ford Explorer there for $399 with $2,995. I guarantee you, the email does not say, you know, $399, $2,995. I bet you the OTT ad doesn't say it either. Whatever it is, it's very inconsistent. So one of the things that we work with...

Aaron Bickart11:58Say that again?

Brian Pasch12:00Yeah, I agree. Because it's typically multiple vendors making assumptions or putting some base offer from some matrix with no consistency.

Aaron Bickart12:13Exactly. Or they're just making it up out there on the fly, and they're trying to figure it out. So one of the things that we work with Lithia and all their preferred partners was syndicating the data out to all the preferred partners. So we, at OfferLogix, came out with an offer management platform. Now, I know you love CDPs, and I know we got CXPs and everything. So we decided to have our own acronym. We call it the OMP, right? Offer Management Platform. Oh, you know, everyone laughs at me when I say this, OMP at the end of the day. But reality is, we're the only ones in the marketplace that not only have a pre-approval solution,

Aaron Bickart12:50but we also have an OMP, Offer Management Platform, that can tie into any CDP or CXP and be able to syndicate that out to all your vendors. I mean, you think about what just went on in the marketplace. I mean, you had the Lindsay Automotive Group in D.C. here, where I live, just got taken down by the FTC. You also have the other group out of Chicago. I'm having a blank right now, but I think it was called the Leader Group out of Chicago, right? They just had a $20 million fine. FTC is now looking at all these different things on how they can now get all this information.

Aaron Bickart13:27But if you look at the Lindsay Automotive Group FTC ruling, they're going after the general manager. And the general manager doesn't even own part of the dealership. They're going after him, suing him, because the payments are not correct. So we can bolt on, bolt on, all the inventory for that particular organization, that group, that dealership, and be able to provide you with an OMP, Offer Managers, rebates, incentives, payment calculations, quoting engine, lease, and finance payment. And we're able to syndicate that information out to keep you, which every dealership wants to make sure they're completely compliant within the marketplace today. And by the way, it gives you the, and everyone always says the Amazon experience,

Aaron Bickart14:11but I'm just going to say it gives you the complete personalized experience now, right? Versus the Amazon experience, because I think Amazon, we all use that too much now. So now I'm just going to say personalized experience across all the mediums of advertising, all the way into in-store. So out of the store and in-store gives you the complete experience across the platform. So we call it the OMP. And we're the only ones that offer it through the platform. And we're completely syndicating now through every Lithia preferred partner. And, you know, there's probably a good 20 of them now that are preferred. And all their dealerships are completely consistent with all their payments

Aaron Bickart14:50and completely compliant through their legal department. So we would love to figure out how to get that throughout all the other big dealer groups throughout the United States, because that's who they're going after.

Brian Pasch15:01Well, listen, you know, at the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference, we're bringing new solutions, breakthroughs in connecting marketing message with consumers, whether it's through identity resolution, CDPs, OMPs. Now, one of the core thing is, how do you generate at scale, OEM compliant, legally compliant, consistent marketing offers? And this is where the OMP comes in. Also, dealers are looking to increase lead conversion. And what you're saying is, look, we have the tools, but are they fully compliant with your business rules? Like, do you know where the data is going? Do you know what the data is used for? Do you have full clarity of conversions and analytics?

Brian Pasch15:53Are you able to associate marketing traffic and investments to conversions? And that's one of the topics we have at DMSC, which is optimizing conversion and website experience. This is where dealers have to start thinking differently and take ownership of their website and their marketing to keep them out of legal troubles, but also to increase conversion, visibility, marketing optimization. And obviously, for the larger dealer groups with CDPs, or even the smaller groups with CDPs, the OMP makes sense. And since dealers feel that they only have one choice with Cap One, you know, to get prequal at scale, you're offering transparent prequal for all of their vendors, just not one lending institution.

Brian Pasch16:51To me, that offers a compelling reason to test it.

Aaron Bickart16:56That's correct. But let's go back to the OMP, because if you think about the OMP, it keeps the dealer completely compliant. All the privacy issues are there. All the mediums are completely consistent. But the last thing I didn't mention was it also comes with all the disclaimers. It comes with all the Reg M and Reg Z disclaimers, too, as well. Completely customizable for that particular dealership. So when they go to market and they're one click away, now all the disclaimers are completely compliant. So imagine now an email goes out and it's a different disclaimer than the one on the website. And the website is completely different than the OTT.

Aaron Bickart17:30So what we're trying to say is we're going to be the industry expert of syndicating your data out to all the third party vendors that you work with to make sure that you're completely compliant and all the privacy issues are taken care of and you give the best personalized experience. And the last thing with the pre-approval stuff, we're also the only ones that allow you. Now, the other organizations will say they give you a full credit report. That is not true. What we're saying to you is we provide you also with a full-blown Equifax credit report through the pre-approval. And it's completely compliant versus just a summary page.

Aaron Bickart18:07I literally was just on a call with an OEM showing that to them. And we're going to be going live with this new OEM probably in the next three and a half to four weeks, how they sign the agreement. And that's another thing that we're going to talk about at DMSC, too, as well. This new partnership that we just went live with for our OEM with a pre-approval project.

Brian Pasch18:27Well, Aaron, I'm really excited for DMSC because we have some real breakthrough technologies. And again, the theme is how can we do more with our marketing dollars? How do we convert more, measure better? How do we create personalized experience? How do we keep ourselves out of legal trouble on all of the topics surrounding our marketing investments and strategy? And that's why I'm encouraging dealers, dealer principals, general managers, come out with your marketing manager, learn together. And, of course, all the website companies will be there. All the digital retailing companies will be there. And if they don't have this solution, you can pull Aaron right over to them and say to them, look, I want this consistency for my dealer group.

Brian Pasch19:13It makes a lot of sense. Aaron, I'm really excited about how data and data connections are happening. You have robust APIs, so you can connect into any CDP or data lake, right? I mean, there's no limitations or costs of data integration, right?

Aaron Bickart19:31No cost, no. Just when you use the data, there's a cost.

Brian Pasch19:35Yeah, of course. Yeah. I love it.

Aaron Bickart19:37I just have to make sure I say that. There's only a cost when there's a data when you use the data.

Brian Pasch19:41Yeah. That's fine. That's data on demand, software as a service. That's what it is.

Aaron Bickart19:48We integrate, as you know, with a ton of vendors, a ton of partners who are great friends. You know, one of our great friends is one of your great friends. He's like, who don't you always, who don't you integrate with? That's what he always says to me.

Brian Pasch20:01Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Bickart20:03And I said, I'm not allowed to tell you all that, but soon, soon I might be allowed.

Brian Pasch20:08Yeah, love it. Well, Aaron, thanks so much. For dealers listening in, we interview automotive technology leaders, people who are changing the playbook for automotive retail. So make sure you listen to all our podcast interviews by just searching the Brian Pasch podcast. Digital Marketing Strategies Conference, as Aaron opened up, is in Scottsdale this year, and it will stay in Scottsdale from here forward. It's April 27, 28, 29. So all day Sunday, all day Monday, half day Tuesday. And then after two and a half days of learning, we're going to break up into golf or pickleball, have some fun. This is the conference where you actually take home actionable insights and learn things that

Brian Pasch20:49can change the outcomes of your marketing investment. So this is not something to miss. Just go to digitalmarketingstrategies.org to get your tickets, book your hotel while the hotel room block is still available. It will close 30 days before the event. If you wait to the last minute, you will pay more for your hotel room. Don't miss out. And we're going to have a great time. Aaron, you mentioned to me you're bringing the whole family. Are you excited about the DMSC event?

Aaron Bickart21:22Very excited. It's one of my favorite events of the year. So we're very excited. And my family is actually really excited, too, because it's at the Westin Kierland, which is a great place in North Scottsdale, right off of Scottsdale Road. Great restaurants, great scenery, great weather is going to be there. So you're getting there right before the heat. I mean, it's still probably going to be in the 90s during the day, but low humidity. So I say, come on, come on, come on, come on, that's it.

Brian Pasch21:48Well, Aaron, thanks again. Thanks, everyone, for listening in. And make sure you check in for future interviews from companies that are going to be at DMSC. And until then, I hope to see you in Scottsdale at the end of April. And we're going to be providing the solutions, the strategies, and the blueprints for digital marketing excellence in 2025. See you then. Bye.