Experian senior director of digital credit marketing Scott Gordon acknowledged the proliferation of advertising mediums means there isn’t a “silver bullet” for dealerships and finance companies to use in order to showcase their options for consumers to purchase or lease a vehicle.

What Gordon and the Experian team also know is consumers look at their smartphones an average of 150 times per day, so finding ways for a store or finance provider to have its message appear at least once or perhaps more during those instances is paramount to a successful finance-oriented campaign nowadays.

“The current post-campaign analysis is showing us that consumers react positively to coordinated multi-channel messaging,” Gordon said during a Q&A session on Experian’s website that was shared with SubPrime Auto Finance News.

“We’ve seen studies showing that marketers can see up to a 30-percent lift in sales by combining email with social media, for example,” he continued. “This makes sense, when you look at how consumers engage through devices. We are no longer a single channel culture; we check Facebook while watching TV; listen to podcasts while checking our email, etc.”

“Consequently, marketers have had to adapt their campaign strategies accordingly – and this starts with the organizational structure,” Gordon went on to say. “Far too often we see silo’ed groups responsible for disparate media verticals. For example, a company may have a direct mail group and a digital marketing team, and then (in extreme cases) outsource television to one agency group and social media to another.

“Aligning these groups and breaking down the barriers between the groups is a critical first step toward building a true multi-channel campaign strategy,” he added. “This includes addressing budget concerns that are inherent with a culture where the size of a budget is tied to job security and corporate status. Aligning campaigns and finding the perfect cross channel market mix is much easier once you’ve broken down internal barriers and encouraged marketing collaboration.”

In an effort to help dealerships and finance companies clear all of these challenges, Experian developed what it’s dubbed Amplified Prospecting. The solution can deliver consumers a personalized, relevant and firm offer of credit through one or more preferred communication channels.

Instead of relying solely on traditional communications channels like direct mail, Experian explained a wide array of auto finance providers can reach consumers in the ways they want to be reached — through digital channels. It's a one-to-one approach that matches consumers with a tailored offer of credit.

Experian insisted this shift takes the direct-mail approach to an elevated level by augmenting it with an offer that could appear on mobile, display or a personal email and, in a few steps, a consumer can receive and accept a credit offer.

“Experian is the first to offer this type of solution. With our expertise in both credit and marketing services, this is a natural extension of our capabilities that further elevates the way lenders engage with consumers,” said Alex Lintner, president of consumer information services at Experian.

“Lenders will be able to create more effective campaigns that can reach the most qualified consumers in today’s digital environment,” Linter continued.

Experian's Amplified Prospecting solutions can combine credit data and a network of media partners with validated, addressable audiences to match auto finance companies with the right consumers with firm offers of credit — delivered via digital channels in a sequenced, measurable manner.

Amplified Prospecting solutions include:

—Digital display prescreen: Target consumers in a tailored online ad campaign based on creditworthiness, delivering a firm offer of credit digitally without the need for a direct-mail piece or email.

—Mobile options: Deliver firm offers of credit through media, digital display and advertising, and email partnerships connected to smartphones and mobile devices.

—Email prescreen: Process and prescreen a target or prospect list with access to several email service providers.

—Digital display retargeting: Retarget a firm offer of credit on digital and mobile to complement a direct-mail or email-prescreen campaign.

“With Amplified Prospecting, we are developing a personalized and seamless approach to giving consumers more flexibility by reaching them in ways that are the most accessible to them,” Lintner said.

“With consumers looking at their smartphones an average of 150 times per day and online purchases being completed with just a few clicks, we want to be there to offer the customized and optimized experience that consumers demand,” he went on to say.

Turning back to the Q&A session, Gordon emphasized how important it is for dealerships and finance companies to monitor their multi-prong campaigns not only to leverage this new technology but to keep up with the enhanced ways of tracking results.

“Thanks to tremendous efforts from industry leaders, we can now utilize regulated data with the same proficiency that they’ve been executing campaigns using non-regulated data,” Gordon said. “This presents unique challenges, as the industry races to get up-to-speed on new capabilities, take best-in-breed practices and apply them to the world of regulated campaigns.

“We’re seeing tremendous demand to combine programmatic advertising with people-based advertising, with cross-channel campaigns spanning mobile, video, social, and addressable TV,” he continued.

“Measurement and analytics must play a large part in these strategies. While the industry hasn’t achieved true cross-channel measurement to identify a consumer’s path to purchase across multiple devices, it’s getting closer, thanks to technology advances,” Gordon added.