Latest / Auto Collabs / Digital Paradigm Shift with Melissa Cartagena

Transcript

Digital Paradigm Shift with Melissa Cartagena · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  So I feel like I haven't spent enough time with our next guest. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs.
• 0:11
  Because I hear all these things from around the industry of the energy and the spunk and the intelligence, and I'm like, "I am just not spending time with the right people."
• 0:22
  But I feel like, Kyle, you know her better than both of us. For the most part. I know Melissa- Yeah... decently well. Yeah. You know. You know how to say her last name? She's a marketer.
• 0:32
  You know how to say her last name, right? Yeah, I know how to say her last name. Okay. Now. [laughs] Maybe. Hopefully. We'll see. We may or may not have made sure we were right.
• 0:41
  [laughs] We may or may not have made sure of that. Uh, yeah, and, you know, w- for all people that have hard-to-say last names like moi- Monsieur... we just generally get along. Mons- You know? [laughs] Monsieur.
• 0:54
  You know, I will say this, you know, AutoNation as a company, like, obviously we read about them in Automotive News, their PR stuff comes across the PR wire, but, like, they kind of are a, like, keep your head down and keep moving, uh, organization.
• 1:07
  They obviously purchased... You know, they're, you know, on an acquisition tear like all the publics, but they just keep their head down, they keep moving, they tackle the next thing.
• 1:16
  And so you don't actually hear about them a ton. But the other really cool thing about what I've noticed is, like, they send someone from their org to almost every conference I've ever been to. Ah, secret.
• 1:29
  Which is kind a... Like, they're just paint... You, you, you're like, "You're in the halls, aren't you? I see you." Hmm. You know? So it feels- I mean, that goes again...
• 1:36
  You see a lot too many dealerships that don't send anybody to anything, right? Especially sometimes the larger groups, like, you have your own thing going on, so you're like, "We don't want that."
• 1:46
  And they're kind of the opposite of that. Whenever I think- Slightly... of big groups like this, though, they remind me of the one and only winner of social media.
• 1:54
  Any guesses who the one and only winner of social media is? The marketers? Tom from MySpace. [laughs] Oh, I know Tom from MySpace. What? Everybody knows Tom. Everybody knows Tom.
• 2:06
  Well, everybody over the age of 35 knows Tom from MySpace. Guess where Tom is now. Anywhere- On a beach... he wants to be. I was gonna say, do you really know where he's at right now?
• 2:16
  Nope, because he took his 100 mil and he went anywhere he wanted to be. He doesn't even have a phone. [laughs] He's the one and only winner of social. Oh. I'm anywhere I wanna be. And that's these big groups.
• 2:30
  Like, you talk about somebody like Melissa or y- you know, to your point, Kyle- What? [laughs]... where are they? Everywhere. Where do they not need to be? Anywhere, because they're everywhere. You know?
• 2:41
  It's like- [laughs]... I'm anywhere I wanna be. I'm trying to follow this argument really quick. We are now trapped in Inception. [laughs] Uh, so now that- How many layers deep are we?...
• 2:49
  we've trapped you in Inception, we hope that you enjoy this episode of Auto Collabs and this conversation with Melissa Cartagena. [upbeat music] Oh, we're already laughing, and we are here with Melissa Cartagena.
• 3:05
  And, uh, we're laughing because I royally messed up her name 33 seconds ago. [laughs] But Melissa, thanks, uh, for hanging out with us today. Thanks for having me. All right.
• 3:15
  So track back, because we've talked to you on another one of our podcasts before.
• 3:19
  But for all the listeners, you, um, you came into auto in, as, as luck would have it, we, uh, we ask everybody how they come into auto, uh, via, uh, th- like, being in other industries in marketing if I, i- if I'm correct.
• 3:33
  Yep. Is that right? Yep. Yes, I spent, uh, 20 years in digital in general, but I've worked in a bunch of different verticals outside of auto.
• 3:41
  I came to auto in 2014, but prior to that, I had been in wes- web hosting companies, I had been in telecommunications doing affiliate work.
• 3:50
  I even worked for a CPG company, and also spent some time in residential real estate. So I've, uh, been through several different verticals. Why not the real estate? Okay. Just throw that in there.
• 3:59
  Yeah, just the real estate consumer package goods. I'm a tall walker. I ran a breakfast restaurant. Yeah. Like, she's just gonna go through the list. [laughs] What? Okay. Definitely not telemarketing, though.
• 4:07
  I didn't do that. [laughs] Okay. [laughs] Right. So because in, in, in many people's worlds, like, 2011 to 2014 was when the internet started existing, right?
• 4:17
  Like, that's when they finally realized that they needed a website type thing. Mm-hmm. But there were many other verticals, especially outside of auto, that were...
• 4:25
  You know, obviously autos had websites since, you know, the late '90s and had web vendors, and Auto- and Cars.com and Autotrader came around in that time.
• 4:34
  But really, like, the big press, um, when, when a lot of those vendors kind of came on the scene was in, like, the 2010 to 2014 range. Mm-hmm. Like, give us a look back.
• 4:45
  When you were in, uh, those other verticals, what were some of the experiments and things that were happening back then that you were learning about, um, that maybe, like, when you came into auto, you were like, "You guys don't know about this yet"?
• 4:56
  [laughs] That's a big question. You know- It's a lot. [laughs] When I started back in the day, like, Google was not... They... It was pre-IPO. So Google hadn't gone public. The...
• 5:07
  Yahoo was, like, the biggest, and MSN would feed their results into Yahoo. So we used to do what was called paid inclusion back then.
• 5:18
  So you can run a feed in through Yahoo and get first page placement in the Yahoo listings.
• 5:23
  You're, technically were paying for it, but it looked like the free version of, you know, your ad, your, your website coming up in ranking, so in the SERPs, which was crazy.
• 5:34
  So you could pay for that via paid inclusion on Yahoo, but then also stuff your meta keyword tag with all kinds of keywords back in the day for Google to get your website to rank. So it was way back when, way back when.
• 5:48
  And then that was the year way back in, like, 2000, I wanna say maybe 2003 roughly, when Google first made its very first algorithm update, and they called it the Google Dance....
• 6:00
  that was actually founded in South Florida, and it's why they call it the Florida Google Dance, and check me on that because it might not be- I've never heard this before...
• 6:08
  the exact term, but it's pretty close to it Wait a second. You're dropping all types of things that I'm like, I, what? Yeah. What?
• 6:13
  It was back in the day when it was the first algorithmic update that they ever made, and, uh, it was bouncing off their servers several times, so they called it the dance.
• 6:23
  And it was founded in Florida, so they called it the Florida Google Dance. Something in that- The Go- Something in those lines Yeah, yeah. The Google Florida update. Yeah. Yeah. It was way back when. Check the year.
• 6:32
  It might have been 2003 or somewhere in that timeframe. And, um, it was the first time, w- I was an account manager at an agency, when I, all of a sudden my phone was, like, flipping out, ringing off the wall.
• 6:45
  People, like, saying, "I was ranked number one forever, and now all of a sudden I can't be found for, like, eight pages deep." So the- Wow. [laughs]... literally the, the index flipped upside down. Ugh.
• 6:57
  And then we were battling people all day trying to figure out what was going on, and searching all of the, uh, forums to figure out what happened. Um, but then we were able to figure it out.
• 7:05
  But it took several months for a lot of those rankings to come back up. So I spent a lot of time in the SEO space way back when, and then also in the paid search space.
• 7:16
  But back then, Overture was still very big as well, which I don't even know if you- Right... you guys know who Overture is, but you could lock bids, it was great.
• 7:24
  And then, you know, Google, you were buying media buys really. You were getting placements that were, like, 5 or 10 or 15,000 versus keyword buys. It was all, like, media-based.
• 7:35
  You can get top placement, but you had to pay upfront a pretty penny to get it. And then- I remember-... they moved to the model... golly.
• 7:42
  I remember Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk- Just real quick, just so you know, you nailed the date. It was 2003. [laughs] So- We old... kudos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember 2003 very clearly. Yes.
• 7:52
  Um, Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk, um, the marketer entrepreneur, he was talking about, I remember he talked about this, and he was buying the term Merlot, but he was Wine Library, for $3,000. Right? Like, everywhere. Yeah.
• 8:09
  That's anyone who searched it anywhere, everywhere, he owned the term. Merlot. Yeah. The keyword term mesothelioma was probably worth more than that back then. It's probably just as expensive today.
• 8:21
  You get one lead for someone that's suing for mesothelioma, you're golden. It paid for all your advertising. [laughs] I love how you know this... $1 million lawsuit. So it was like- I love how you know this...
• 8:31
  one of the most expensive keywords. Note to self- Like, that was what we used to talk about back then, is what was the most expensive- Meso... [laughs] New investment strategy for a certain- It was crazy...
• 8:39
  buy mesothelioma leads Sell mesothelioma leads Learn how to spell mesothelioma Lawyers were, back in the day, it was lawyers were trying to make sure that their- Yep...
• 8:46
  websites were optimized well, get the most leads for things like that. Wow. So that was, like, a big client. When I was working web hosting, we had a ton of, like, small businesses. A lot of them were attorneys.
• 8:56
  They just want something quick to throw up on the, you know, on the web so that they could be found. Uh, we did template, templated website work there.
• 9:05
  So, like, the SEO wasn't really gonna help much [laughs] when you're working with a tight template that doesn't have a lot of flexibility.
• 9:11
  So we, you know, we did a lot of that, and this was back in the days when people would sell paid search and tell you you're getting X amount of traffic, but really they're taking 50% for their pocket.
• 9:21
  They could actually do more with their own advertising than do it through a teeny-tiny agency that just wanted to make money off of small business owners. Kinda crazy how things have, uh, evolved over time. Golly. Yeah.
• 9:32
  I didn't expect all that. [laughs] That, that was- I've been around for a while... a treasure trove- Yeah... of joyful- I've been around for a while...
• 9:39
  joyful knowledge that I didn't know I was getting this Monday morning Do you guys ever, like, see...
• 9:44
  So there was a gentleman, and I can't remember, his name escapes me right now, but he was one of the originators, like, back in, way back in the day of SEO, and he's part of PubCon.
• 9:53
  I don't know if you guys are familiar with PubCon. It's an SEO, uh, conference that happens every year. My mentor's in it. He goes all the time now.
• 9:59
  But previous to him, there was another gentleman, and he's still in the biz. I'll find his name. I can't recall off the top of my head. But he had this, like... Remember the WayBack Machine?
• 10:08
  You guys have seen the WayBack Machine. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can go back to websites- Still use it... years ago. But the, he- Love it...
• 10:13
  this guy had a screenshot of how all the engines would feed off of each other way back in the day. So you still had Google, but then you had Yahoo. MSN was feeding into Yahoo. And then you had Ask Jeeves.
• 10:26
  That was one of the websites back then. I remember that. But then you had things like Inkt- Inktomi, I think it was called. That was one that was, like, a big engine back then.
• 10:34
  But they were all just, like, feeding into each other, and he would recreate it every year. I don't know if he has anything like that now. Otherwise, we'd just see, like, Google and then maybe Fa- [laughs]
• 10:44
  Facebook or something. [laughs] Facebook. But every year it was, like, a big thing.
• 10:47
  Like, we would impress our clients at the agency, like, "Hey, have you seen this website that shows you how all the engines intertwine with each other, and how traffic actually surfaces across the, uh, across the web?"
• 10:58
  Well, it's interesting because instead of... Like, the, the new version of that is Google's like, "Well, we're just gonna buy the top three. Sound good?" [laughs] "Okay." Right?
• 11:08
  Like, they're like, "We got Google and YouTube. We're good." Mm-hmm. Yeah. We basically own all of the searches, right? Which they both feed each other, right? Exactly.
• 11:17
  Well, now they gotta contend with TikTok- Is that, is that Bruce Clay?... but that's a whole other... Yes, it was Bruce Clay. Bruce Clay? Yeah. Thank you. The godfather. Bruce Clay, yes. Pretty much.
• 11:25
  [laughs] The guy that made us all a lot of money, and also some of us really bald. Yeah. [laughs] He's still around, though. [laughs] I think he still speaks at conferences and everything. Yeah, he does.
• 11:35
  Yeah, still active in the game. Yeah. That's amazing. A long time. A l- this is a little history lesson for all. [laughs] So, okay. I didn't ex- There's a lot of niche... yeah, this is legit a history lesson.
• 11:44
  I'm, like, now I'm, um, now I'm like, I'm, I found this site that has, like, all of the Google updates for eternity, right? Like, [laughs] where, where they all came from. [laughs] Oh.
• 11:54
  And I'm like, I'm like, oh man, yeah, that f- yeah, that's that- That's the original... PageRank. Uh, the Caffeine, the Hummingbird, the Phantom, right? Like, they're all- Wow. Yeah. And now- Panda...
• 12:02
  I mean, we get Google algorithm updates, like-At rapid pace at this point. I mean, it's every year there's a major update, every six months there's minor updates, every- Core vitals...
• 12:13
  three months there's micro updates, right? I know. I can't keep up anymore. I can't. It's unbelievable. It's a lot.
• 12:17
  M- Melissa, let me ask you, how, how does all of this history, how d- how has that, like looking back hindsight, how has that positioned you well to do what you're doing now in your current role?
• 12:28
  Um, I think because everything in this, and I refer to digital as an industry to me, even though I work for automotive, that's the vertical I'm in, but my industry is really digital, right? Hmm, interesting.
• 12:39
  And it's the, it's the yearly change. It's the annual, not even annual, it could be multiple times a year, but there's always something new that's being learned throughout, throughout the entire time.
• 12:50
  So I think that has benefited me of knowing what the history was, and then watching the evolution of it over time has, has helped me to elevate and be where I am today.
• 13:00
  Like, I came here in 2014 to start our digital programmatic business.
• 13:04
  That was my job when I first started at AutoNation, and that's because of all the experience I had with media buys in the past, and the way that you would buy media online and how different that is today, and how much more you can customize it today.
• 13:17
  So that's, that was really the way that it's paved for me in terms of what I've been able to bring to the table is because of that, all that history that I have in the industry and seeing things change over time.
• 13:30
  You just- It's been pretty cool to watch... shifted a paradigm for me. You just shifted a paradigm for me, because you said, [laughs] "Industry is digital, vertical is automotive."
• 13:40
  [laughs] My whole career I've been a digital guy. Doing the SEOs and the paid media and all these, and not once have I considered that I'm- Your industry... I'm in the wrong industry.
• 13:56
  [laughs] [laughs] That's crazy. Like- Because, because you're not, Michael. Let me affirm- No, I'm in the right... you are not in the wrong- I'm, I'm, I'm a vagabond in a vertical. I'm in a vertical. Yeah.
• 14:09
  You're a vertical vagabond. Yes. My vertical is automotive. I love- It's a yes. I, see, I wrote it down in my, my fancy little- He's gotta take a nap. He's gonna go talk to his dad who started the company...
• 14:17
  I wrote it down in my digital. Good. Yeah. Oh, I have that same one at home, too. Remarkable. Yes. Yeah. How remarkable. I love- [laughs]
• 14:24
  Th- this is actually, I w- I wanna double tap on this, because it actually gives many more people in auto potentially, like, a broader lens. Yeah. 100%. Yes. Right?
• 14:38
  Like, immediately that paradigm shift then gives you a broader perspective, which we're always challenging. Like, looks out- look outside of auto, look outside of auto, look what, look what every...
• 14:48
  But if you're in the digital industry, you're like, "Oh, no, I'm looking at everything digital." Exactly. Right? If you're in the sales industry, "Oh, I'm looking at everything sales." Yep.
• 14:57
  If you're in the- Hospitality industry... service industry, hospitality industry- Oh, there you go. Right... if that's your industry, your n- your perspective is much broader- It is...
• 15:06
  and you can focus that perspective on a vertical. Like, we can finish the podcast now. Everybody just needs to go- Dude, we just need to go, go like-... thesis their own... rethink our approach.
• 15:15
  [laughs] Seri- seriously, like, when people s- when I see, like, people looking for, uh, potential talent and they're like, "Must have automotive experience." Wah, wah, wah. Why?
• 15:26
  Like, why do you have to have automotive experience? You can teach that, but the digital stuff, like the digital skill set, that's much harder to teach than to teach the industry to somebody.
• 15:36
  So, I- You know, we have conversations like that all the time. It's true. I've, anybody that I've ever hired here has not had an automotive background. They all come from- You just tied a bow...
• 15:45
  some digital experience, and I bring 'em in and I teach 'em that. I learned it. If I can learn it, anybody can learn it. I mean, it's not that hard. It's, it's definitely got its nuances, but you can learn it.
• 15:57
  Michael's take- Michael's taking an F and sucking it up. [laughs] We didn't even know you were coming with this today. Bring him up. Throw some love up. So we had no clue you were gonna drop knowledge like this- You-...
• 16:04
  on the industry today. Melissa- Welcome to Mon- welcome to the start of the week. [laughs] You just, you just tied the most beautiful bow on the age-old debate in this vert- vertical. In this vertical.
• 16:15
  Which is, "You can't help... You ever sold a car? You can't help me until you got your tie cut." It's like, that's a perfectly teachable skill. Yep.
• 16:26
  And look, I'm not trying to take anything away from salespeople, because there, there is definitely talented salespeople out- Absolutely... out there, that's for sure. I'm not take, trying to take that away.
• 16:35
  But there's just certain aspects of business that you don't necessarily need to have that level of that experience.
• 16:41
  But if you have experience in life doing other things that can lend itself, there's no reason why it shouldn't be considered.
• 16:48
  Well, you just told us before, before we jumped on the, the actual and hit record, you were saying like, "Hey, look, we've got a three-page document. We know all of the, the, the- Acronyms...
• 16:59
  acronyms that everyone, anyone that needs to come on needs to learn." It's like, here's the document, read it, learn it, next. Yep. You know? Like, not that crazy.
• 17:08
  Except that there's probably three more pages that needs to be added to it. [laughs] Yeah, that was last year's version. Three new pages every year. [laughs] And this year it has, has three more pages.
• 17:15
  Like a never-ending list of acronyms. Where do you- Right... help your team, 'cause you just, I wanna key in on something you said. Um, "My team, when I bring them on, they, they come with no automotive experience."
• 17:27
  Where do you then start to teach them? Like, what direction do you point them to say, "Here's how you get familiar with the industry that we serve now"? Um, you know, there are a couple of key conferences,
• 17:38
  just saying, that could help- Ooh... with knowledge. And that's key. Like, that happened to me. So when I first, when I first started in 2014, uh, dealer.com back in the day used to have a- Oh...
• 17:51
  conference called Dealer Days. Yeah.
• 17:53
  And I went to a couple of those, and it, and I learned a lot about the industry by going to some of those events and sitting in on some of those sessions, and understanding what, you know, what other people were dealing with.
• 18:05
  And then to keep up on the digital aspects, I send my people to industry-related digital conferences, not so much just automotive, because I want them to think outside the box.
• 18:18
  I want them to bring in new ideas, because I wanna be on the forefront of every new idea that there is. We always wanna try something new here.Okay, you can't hang, like leave us hanging there.
• 18:29
  What are the- What are they?... what are the industry events- Oh, so-... that you're sending your people to? Industry events. So like there's a few out there. I used to start off going to the SMX events all the time.
• 18:38
  Uh, there's an advanced one that's up in, um, Seattle every year. [laughs] Oh, yeah. There's one in New York for like beginners and intermediates, but the advanced one is in June of every year, and that's out in Seattle.
• 18:50
  Sometimes they do them online. Then display, like all like the display stuff, Programmatic.
• 18:55
  Programmatic IO is great, because you get people from every vertical you can imagine, and then the pros in the industry of programmatic are there.
• 19:04
  And you learn from the DSPs, the SSPs, like all of those folks are in the room. So you get like a plethora of information that's outside of what you're used to hearing. Melissa,
• 19:16
  um, I know you've given us enough of your time, because you have a meeting to go to, so we wanna get you out of here. But let me just, um, affirm you.
• 19:24
  I have never seen Kyle and Michael and myself all like not knowing what to say- [laughs]... after a guest stops their sentence. I don't know that that's ever happened.
• 19:34
  [laughs] But you've just accomplished that several times. We can't wait to hang out with you at ASOTU CON. Um, and we just, if this is the, the podcast, I don't know what the live version's gonna be.
• 19:45
  Uh, but thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. No, of course. I appreciate it. This was fun. Got lots of stories to tell. Just let me know. So many stories. It's great. It's great. I can't wait.
• 19:55
  Thank you. Thanks, guys. [upbeat music] Guys, have I been in the right, wrong place my entire career? Have I just been blind this whole time? I think we're all- [laughs]... having an identity crisis...
• 20:07
  questioning- Like [laughs]... what in the heck just happened. [laughs] She was one sentence away, I'm telling you, from balancing things on my hat, which everybody knows is what I do when I start to
• 20:19
  s- g- to s- glitch out a little bit. [laughs] I, I don't think I've ever seen all of us speechless at the end of, uh, a guest's comment.
• 20:27
  Usually we're like, one of us is ready to kinda jump in and keep the conversation flowing, and she stopped, and we're just like, kinda got caught flat-footed, like- We're, uh...
• 20:35
  [laughs] No, what's, what's even better is, and the people maybe don't know this, but normally right after we say goodbye, there's like two or three minutes gap between like finishing recording and then us re- recording this part.
• 20:47
  In that gap, she goes, "Oh, man, I didn't even get started on all the stories- [laughs]... and the things that we're doing in the- I know... automation." Like, where is that? [laughs] You know, so- ASOTU CON. There's...
• 20:59
  Yeah, well, one, it's at ASOTU CON. You can, y- she's gonna be speaking there, talking actually about a lot of the things that they're doing with data and CDPs with automation.
• 21:08
  It's really cool that she, she's able to open up a lot of that. But
• 21:13
  this is what I think is so key to that conversation, and we zeroed in on it a bunch of times, is like her rich depth of knowledge that she gained from the late '90s to 2014 outside of our industry, in the d- Yeah...
• 21:28
  outside of our vertical. There we go. Yeah. Outside of our vertical. In her digital industry, has given her all of the, a- all of the resources needed to continually improve and dial in.
• 21:42
  And just the fact that like I wrote down three conferences, right, that I've never heard of, that are technically in my industry, because I've been in digital the last si- the last eight years of my- Right...
• 21:53
  time in, in auto. And it's like those are, those are things that now the whole industry has access to.
• 22:00
  It's like you can send your people to Programmatic IO, especially those groups that have marketing teams and all that, because that's a way to dial in and, and, and have people from the trade desk and all the other DSPs sitting there telling you what they're dreaming up, what they're thinking of, which is how all of these marketers are executing marketing plans, uh, across auto.
• 22:20
  So, psh, just- I mean, or yo, you can go to asotucon.com- Yeah... and get tickets for that, because here's what we know. Person. That is a, that is a industry conference positioned for the vertical of automotive.
• 22:36
  A- Absolutely. And Taco Tuesday. And Taco Tuesday. Well, listen, I mean, we, the three of us have been left dumbfounded. We're so excited to be able to connect with Melissa again at ASOTU CON. If you're not going, what?
• 22:50
  Hmm. Yeah. H- what? What? Come out. Pull the trigger. Let's see you there, um, where you get to hear from her and of course so many others. Um, hope you enjoyed this conversation with our new pal, Melissa.
• 23:02
  I want to pick her brain on so many things. On behalf of myself, Mike Tirillo, Kyle Malcier, and Paul Jay Daly- Yeah... thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs.
• 23:09
  [upbeat music] Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com. That's A-S-O-T-U dot com.
• 23:23
  If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
• 23:30
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collabs. Welcome to Auto Collabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet?
• 23:48
  Not yet.