Eighty million auto shoppers. That’s how many people that Cox Automotive — through the websites its companies manage on behalf of dealers, as well as via Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book — touched last month alone.

That’s according to Mark O’Neil, Cox Automotive Software’s chief executive officer, while speaking with American International Automobile Dealers Association president Cody Lusk on the topic of Cox Auto’s digital reach in the automotive space during Tuesday’s AutoTalk Series.

And that reach has expanded since Cox Auto’s acquisition of Dealertrack Technologies, which O’Neil is formerly the CEO of. He expanded on how that agreement came to be, which he said involved a two- to three-year courtship.

“I’d say, in a short sentence, the reason it came together is that I think we both concluded that we were better together than apart,” O’Neil said. “We had a much broader suite of solutions than we ever would have had individually. And those solutions that we both represented individually, when put together, were not only very complimentary but would let us impact the industry much more significantly in a combined way than either one of us could have done individually.”

So what are O’Neil’s plans, now at the head of Cox Automotive Software? Let’s go back to that huge number of shoppers that are impacted by the Cox Auto’s various outlets on a daily basis — and the data trails they leave behind.

“We’re talking about a huge amount of customer information that we’re beginning to collect and we’re beginning to understand,” O’Neil said. “And the importance of that is we think as we start to aggregate this data and we start to analyze it, we will very readily understand consumer behavior, perhaps better than any other technology company in the automotive space. Because we have more data, by far, than any other player. I mean by multiples, whether it’s three times, five times, ten times, depending what player you look at, we are by far the largest consumer-engagement company from a data side.”

This statement led Lusk to ask the question that many individuals in the industry are probably thinking quite regularly; Is there anything else that Cox Auto wants to buy?

“At this stage of the game, I would say there are no holes in the offerings. Certainly nothing substantive,” O’Neil said. “If you said, ‘What about CRM? What about websites? What about DMS?’ Any of the big holes have been completely plugged. We have terrific offerings.”

O’Neil then immediately jumped into another hot topic that is on the minds of everyone in the industry looking into the future as anticipated catalysts — self-driving vehicles. And the Cox Auto Software leader made some hints at what we may be able to expect in the future in terms of the company’s involvement in the automotive technology landscape.

“And really, as the autonomous vehicle evolves more, there may be new technologies that are more appropriate for us to acquire than to build ourselves,” he said. “On the same hand, we are staying very close to OEMs. We had an OEM approach us recently saying that they want us to sit down to talk about a five- to 10-year plan in technology. They wanted to share with us their vision for technology and figure out how we can work together to deliver things like a virtual test drive, a much more autonomous or self-directed purchase process within a store environment.

“How could we use touch screens and technology within stores to make a much more engaging experience? I think, for the most part, the OEMs are going to have us on their radar and involve us way ahead of how they would have traditionally involved us, which is very much after the fact,” he continued. “Now we’re going to get ahead of the game with them. I think that’s going to help us close any gaps by planning in advance and starting to build technology.”

But what about staying on-top of the industry’s technology landscape. What if new “holes” appear in Cox Auto’s coverage?

“But should we miss anything particular or if a new piece of technology pops up that we think is very exciting, I think the nice part is that Cox has a terrific balance sheet and enormous resources,” O’Neil said. “They think very long term, in terms of five-, 10-, 15-year plans. And I think they’ll give us the capability to acquire anything that we think makes sense for the portfolio that we don’t have today.”

One interesting avenue that you can plan on seeing Cox Auto take in the near future is a bundling of its offerings, especially within the technology space and between its various offerings.

“We do anticipate doing more bundling, particularly in the software arena,” he said. “We’re just starting to think about the concept — in fact we’re going to pilot this year with a group that will test a rewards program amongst Cox more broadly. So that, you know, maybe today you’re primary user of Manheim or Autotrader and you don’t use software very much. You might be able to earn reward points from that that you can use toward software purchases. Or on the flip side, maybe you’re a very heavy software user and you’re not a big user of some of the media services like Autotrader or KBB or Manheim or NextGear or some of our other assets within Cox Automotive. Those rewards points could go that way.”