Dealers and car makers face yet more disruption next year as Google ends the practice of easily identifying potential customers through their internet browsing activity.
That’s the warning from automotive content and ecommerce experts, Autovia, who believe that the motor retail industry has yet to wake up to the coming challenge.
Many marketing departments and dealer promotion businesses use computer codes called cookies to help identify consumers who are in the market for a car, so that they can target them with advertising.
But Google is changing the way it allows online personal tracking and ending the use of so called ‘3rd party cookies’ on its platforms – one of the ways that the motor industry uses to provide potential buyers with offers and information.
However, experts at Autovia believe that the sector has so far been slow to recognise the change, which will impact all businesses from the beginning of next year, and is now urging dealers and manufacturers to begin creating alternative approaches to reach potential customers.
Coming hot on the heels of the Covid-19 crisis, which has driven even more car-buying activity online, the reduction of 3rd party cookies in eight months time threatens to put smaller dealers in particular, who may not understand the change, at a significant disadvantage.