It’s amazing to me how many automotive marketers continue to use RL Polk’s garage predictor/modeled data for direct marketing. Their product was basically a band-aid/quick fix solution when the Shelby Act amended the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act on June 01, 2000. The amendment made the opt process at the DMV level an opt-in to get marketed to instead of an opt-out to avoid getting marketed to… Most people don’t raise theirs hands and say “send me stuff in the mail” so, in short, DPPA and Shelby made it very difficult to accurately target car owners based on their current vehicles. Polk has a deal with DPPA authorizing them to use actual DMV data as long as it’s bounced up against a consumer database. They use a zip+4 geography algorithm that says if you live in this zip+4 then you might have X-vehicle. In order for Polk to remain compliant, their file can at best be 70% accurate.
THAT MEANS YOU IMMEDIATELY LOSE 30% ACCURACY! That’s a huge hit when you’re paying for marketing and advertising.
Here’s where things get crazy… major automotive marketers throughout the country CONTINUE to use Polk simply because they don’t know any better. Marketing Directors are hired and told “Polk has auto data if you need auto data”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to bash RL Polk. They’re a great company with a great reputation and they’ve been around forever. For analytics and research you can’t really beat them because they have all the actual DMV registration data.
So if modeled garage predictor data is not the way to go when marketing to car owners then what’s the new way?
The new and far more efficient way to target car owners is through companies that build their databases using multiple sources that are FACTUAL. Examples of factual auto data sources are…
– Point of Sale
– Point of Service
– Extended Warranty
– After-market Parts & Accessories
– Insurance
– Major Car Clubs of America
Some data companies such as M1 Data & Analytics build their auto database using a dual-corroborating record technique. What this means is no record of John Smith owning X-vehicle is going to make it into their master-file unless it is verified against more than one their sources. Finally, to ensure that the data does not become old after time, a delete-of-record algorithm is implemented. For instance, if 10 months has gone by and M1 cannot prove that John Smith still owns X-vehicle from one of its FACTUAL sources then M1 assumes Mr. Smith has sold his vehicle and places his record in a holding work file until they CAN prove that he is still the owner of said vehicle.
This new build method is far more accurate, DPPA compliant as amended by the Shelby Act and will get you much better response rates. Finally, because you’re no longer marketing to a file that contains at least 30% “MAYBE PROSPECTS”, your ROI is improved.
Here’s the site for M1 Data & Analytics’ auto data products:
http://www.m1-data.com/auto/
Hello and welcome to The Data Gazette. This blog will have weekly posts with creative and innovative data solutions I've learned over the past 11 years buying and selling data. I started out as a sales rep creating targeted audiences and selling lists for all industries. After a few years working for the man, I started a data brokerage firm and a few more years later was recruited by one of my vendors (M1 Data & Analytics) and now work as their Vice President . Hopefully I picked up something along the way that will help you out :-)
