Digital Paradigm Shift with Melissa Cartagena

Paul J Daly: 0:00So I feel like I haven't spent enough time with our next guest.

‍Speaker 2: 0:09

This is Auto.

Paul J Daly: 0:10

Collapse, 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. But I feel like, kyle, you know her better than both of us.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:26

For the most part, I know Melissa decently well.

Paul J Daly: 0:30

Yeah, you know how to say your last name, Marketer. You know how to say your last name right?

Kyle Mountsier: 0:34

Yeah, I know how to say your last name now, Maybe.

Paul J Daly: 0:39

We may or may not have made sure we were right.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:42

We may or may not have made sure of that. Yeah, and you know, for all people that have hard to say last names like my- most you know. I will say this you know Auto Nation 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 like keep your head down and keep moving. Organization. They obviously purchase, you know they're on an acquisition tear like all the public's, but they just keep their head down, they keep moving, they tackle the next thing 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 secret, which is kind of like they're just paying you like you're in the halls, aren't you? I see that, you know.

Paul J Daly: 1:35

I mean that goes again. 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 and they're kind of the opposite of that, Whatever.

Michael Cirillo: 1:49

I think of big groups like this, though they remind me of the one and only winner of social media. And he guesses who? The one and only winner of social media is the marketers. Tom from my space.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:03

Oh, I know Tom.

Paul J Daly: 2:05

Everybody knows Tom, well, everybody over the age of 35 knows. Tom is now anywhere he wants to say Do you really know where he's at right now?

Michael Cirillo: 2:16

Nope because he took his hundred mil and he went anywhere.

Paul J Daly: 2:22

He doesn't even have a phone.

Michael Cirillo: 2:24

He's the one and only winner of social. I'm anywhere I want to be. And that's these big groups. Like you talk about somebody like Melissa or you know your point, pal, where are they Everywhere? Where do they not need to be Anywhere because they're everywhere you know it's like I'm anywhere.

Paul J Daly: 2:42

I'm trying to follow this argument we are now trapped in inception, so now that we lay in deep our exception.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:50

We hope that you enjoy this episode of Auto Collapse in this conversation with Melissa Cartagena. Oh, we're already laughing and we are here with Melissa Cartagena and we're laughing because I royally messed up her name 33 seconds ago. But, Melissa, thanks for hanging out with us today.

Melissa Cartagena: 3:13

Thanks for having me.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:15

All right, so track back because we've talked to you on another one of our podcasts before. But for all the listeners, you, you came into auto in as as luck would have it. We, we ask everybody how they come into auto via, like being in other industries, in marketing, if I, if I'm correct. Is that right?

Melissa Cartagena: 3:34

Yep, yes, I spent 20 years in digital in general, but I've worked in a bunch of different verticals outside of auto. I came to auto in 2014. But prior to that I had been in web hosting companies. I had been in telecommunications doing affiliate work. I even worked for a CPG company and also spent some time in residential real estate. So I've been through several different verticals.

Paul J Daly: 3:57

Why not the real estate? Just throw that in there.

Michael Cirillo: 3:59

Yeah, just the real.

Speaker 2: 4:00

I'm to go out there. I read a breakfast restaurant.

Paul J Daly: 4:03

Like she's just going to Google this. What?

Melissa Cartagena: 4:06

Definitely not telemarketing, though I didn't do that.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:09

OK, right. So because in in in many people's worlds, like 2011 to 2014 was when the Internet started existing, right, like that's when they finally realized that they needed a website type thing. But there were many other verticals, especially outside of auto, that were. You know, obviously, autos had websites since you know, the late 90s and had web vendors and auto in, carscom and auto trader came around in that time. But, really, like the big press when, when a lot of those vendors kind of came on the scene was in like the 2010 to 2014 range. Give us a look back when you were in those other verticals. What were some of the experiments and things that were happening back then that you were learning about? That? Maybe, like when you came into auto, you were like you guys don't know about that, that's a big question.

Paul J Daly: 4:58

It's a lot.

Melissa Cartagena: 4:59

When I started back in the day, like Google was not they, it was pre IPO. So Google hang on public, the 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 so you can run a feed in through Yahoo and get first page placement in the Yahoo listings. You're technically we're paying for it, but it looked like the free version of you know, your app, your your website, coming up in ranking, so in the SERPs, which was crazy. 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, and then that was the year way back in like 2000. I want to say maybe 2003 roughly, when Google first made its very first algorithm update and they called it the Google dance. That was actually founded in South Florida and it's why they called it the Florida Google dance, and check me on that, because it may have never heard this before, but it's pretty cool.

Paul J Daly: 6:08

Wait a second. You're dropping all types of things that I'm like. I what?

Melissa Cartagena: 6:13

Yeah, it was back in the day when it was the first algorithm update that they ever made and it was bouncing off their servers several times, so they called it the dance. And it was founded in Florida, so they called it the Florida Google dance Something in that Something in that?

Kyle Mountsier: 6:28

Yeah, the Google Florida update.

Melissa Cartagena: 6:30

Yeah, it was way back when check the year, it might have been 2003 or somewhere in that timeframe and it was the first time I was an account manager at an agency when I all of a sudden my phone was like flipping out, ringing off the wall 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 literally the index upside down, and then we were battling people all day trying to figure out what was going on and searching all of the forums to figure out what happened. Then we were able to figure it out, 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. But back then overture was still very big as well, which I don't even know if you guys know who overture is. But you can lock it. It was great. And then Google you were buying media buys. Really you were getting placements that were like five or 10 or 15,000 versus keyword buys. It was all like media based you can get top placement but you had to pay up front a pretty penny to get it.

Paul J Daly: 7:40

And then I remember move to the auto.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:42

I remember Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk, so you know you nailed the date, it was 2003. So we owe those.

Paul J Daly: 7:49

Yeah, yeah, I remember 2003 very clearly, Gary Vaynerchuk 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. That's anyone who searched it anywhere. Everywhere he owned the term.

Melissa Cartagena: 8:14

Merlot. The keyword term Mesothelioma was probably worth more than that back then. It's probably just as expensive today. You get one lead for someone that's suing for Mesothelioma. You're golden, you're advertising, I love how you know this.

Paul J Daly: 8:28

I love how you know this. It's like a keyword, like that was. What he used to talk about back then is Meso. I don't know what he used to talk about back.

Michael Cirillo: 8:34

Then is what he used to say New investment strategy for a certain high mesotheme.

Paul J Daly: 8:39

Sell mesotheme in the Yoma Leads. Learn how to spell mesotheme.

Melissa Cartagena: 8:42

Lawyers were back in the day. It was lawyers were trying to make sure that their websites were optimized Well, get the most leads for things like that, 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. They just want something quick to throw up on the you know, on the web so that they could be found. We did template templated website work there. So like the SEO wasn't really going to help much when you're working with a tight template that doesn't have a lot of flexibility. 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. 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 Kind of crazy. Things have evolved over time.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:32

I didn't expect all that treasure trove of joyful, joyful knowledge that I didn't know I was getting this Monday morning.

Melissa Cartagena: 9:42

Do you guys ever like see? 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. I don't know if you guys are familiar with pubcon. It's an SEO conference that happens every year. My mentors in it. He goes all the time now, 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 way back machine. You guys have seen the way back, when you go back to the websites years ago, but he, 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 and the sun was feeding into Yahoo, and then you had Ask Jeeves that was one of the websites back then. But then you had things like Ink Tomey, I think it was called. That was one that was like a big engine back then, 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, although, as we just see, like Google and then maybe they start to come up. But, every year. It was like a big thing, 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 web?

Kyle Mountsier: 10:58

Well, it's interesting because, instead of like, the new version of that is Google's like, well, we're just going to buy the top three. Sound good? Ok, right, like they. Like we got Google and YouTube, we're good, basically own all of the searches, right, which they both feed each other, right?

Melissa Cartagena: 11:16

Exactly.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:17

Well, now they got to contend with each other.

Melissa Cartagena: 11:20

Yes, it was Bruce Clay, bruce Clay.

Michael Cirillo: 11:22

Thank you, the godfather.

Melissa Cartagena: 11:24

Yes, pretty much.

Michael Cirillo: 11:26

The guy that made us all a lot of money and also some of us really bald. Yeah, he's still around, though I think he still speaks at conferences and everything. Yeah, he does. Yeah, still active in the game.

Melissa Cartagena: 11:37

Yeah, for a long time.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:39

This is a little history lesson for all, so I didn't know.

Paul J Daly: 11:42

Yeah, this is a history.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:44

I'm like. Now I'm not. I'm like I found this site that has, like, all of the Google updates for eternity, right Like what the way they all came from. And I'm like, oh man, yeah, that's that's a page. Rank out the caffeine, the hummingbird, the phantom, right Like they're all now. 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.

Melissa Cartagena: 12:13

Every three months there's. I know I can't keep up anymore. I can't.

Michael Cirillo: 12:16

It's unbelievable. Melissa, let me ask you how does all of this history, how does that Like? Looking back hindsight? How does that position you well to do what you're doing now in your current role?

Melissa Cartagena: 12:28

Um, I think because everything in this and I referred to digital as an industry to me, even though I work for automotive, that's the vertical element, but my industry is really digital, right, and it's 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. 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, like I came here in 2014 to start our digital programmatic business. That was my job when I first started at automation, 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. 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 tables. Because of that All that history that I have in the industry and seeing things change over time, you just shifted a paradigm for me.

Michael Cirillo: 13:32

You just shifted a paradigm for me because you said Industry is digital, vertical is automotive. 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 industry. I'm in the wrong industry.

Paul J Daly: 13:59

That's because because, you're not, michael, let me.

Michael Cirillo: 14:04

I'm a vagabond in a vertical. I'm in a vertical.

Paul J Daly: 14:08

You're a vertical vagabond.

Michael Cirillo: 14:10

Yes, vertical is automotive.

Paul J Daly: 14:11

I love yes.

Michael Cirillo: 14:12

I see, I wrote it down on my my friend.

Paul J Daly: 14:14

He's got to take a nap.

Melissa Cartagena: 14:15

He's gonna go talk to his dad, who started the company good, yeah, oh, I have that same one at home too remarkable.

Michael Cirillo: 14:21

Yes, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:22

I love. This is actually. I want to double tap on this because it actually gives Many more people in auto potentially Like a broader lens. Yeah 100% yes, right, like immediately. That paradigm shift then gives you a broader perspective, which we're always challenging, like look at, look outside of auto, look outside of auto, look what, look whatever. But if you're in the digital industry, you're like, oh no, I'm looking at everything digital, right. If you're in the sales industry, oh, I'm looking at everything, sales.

Paul J Daly: 14:57

If you're in the hospitality industry, hospitality industry, there you go right.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:02

That's your industry, your now, your perspective is much broader. It is and you can focus that perspective on a vertical. Like we can finish the podcast now.

Melissa Cartagena: 15:11

Everybody just we just need to go rethink our approach seriously like when people when I see like people looking for potential talent and they're like must have automotive experience. Why, 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.

Paul J Daly: 15:35

So we have conversations like that all the time.

Melissa Cartagena: 15:38

It's true I've anybody that I've ever hired here has not had an automotive background. They all come from some digital experience and I bring them in and I teach them 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.

Paul J Daly: 15:55

I'll take Michael's taking an effort. Michael's taking an effort.

Melissa Cartagena: 15:58

You didn't even know you were coming with this day.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:01

So, no clue you were gonna drop knowledge like this on the industry today. Welcome to money, welcome to the start of the week.

Michael Cirillo: 16:07

You just you just tied the most beautiful bow on the age old debate in this vertical vertical.

Melissa Cartagena: 16:14

In this vertical.

Michael Cirillo: 16:15

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.

Melissa Cartagena: 16:24

Yep, and look, I'm not trying to take anything away from Salespeople, because there there is definitely talented salespeople out out there, that's for sure. I'm not trying to take that away. But there's just certain aspects of business that you don't necessarily need to have that level of that experience. But if you have experience in life doing other things that can lend itself, there's no reason why it shouldn't be considered.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:48

Well, you just told us before, before we jumped on, that, 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 that everyone, that anyone that needs to come on, needs to learn. It's like here's the document, read it, learn it next. You know, like Not that crazy.

Melissa Cartagena: 17:08

Except that there's probably three more pages that needs to be added to.

Paul J Daly: 17:12

That was last year's version, and this year's has three more pages never ending list of acronyms.

Michael Cirillo: 17:18

Where do you Help your team? Because you just I want to key in on something you said Um, my team, when I bring them on, they come with no automotive experience. 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?

Melissa Cartagena: 17:35

Um, you know there are a couple of key conferences. Just saying that could help with knowledge and that's key, Like that happened to me. So when I first, when I first started in 2014, uh, dealercom back in the day used to have a conference called dealer days 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. 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, I want them to bring in new ideas, because I want to be on the forefront of every new idea that there is. We always want to try something new here.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:26

Okay, you can't hang like, leave us hanging there. What are the industry events? Industry events.

Melissa Cartagena: 18:32

So like there's a few out there, I used to start off going to the SMX events all the time. Uh, there's an advanced one that's up in um Seattle every year. 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. Sometimes they do them online then display like all like the display stuff. Programmatic, 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 and you learn from the DSPs, essps, 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.

Paul J Daly: 19:14

Melissa, um, I know you've given us enough of your time because you have a meeting to go to, so you want to get you out of here, but let me just um affirm you I have never seen Kyle and Michael and myself all like not knowing what to say after a guest stops their sentence. I don't know that that's ever happened, but you've just accomplished that several times. We can't wait to hang out with you at a Sotocon, um, and we just if this is the, the podcast I don't know the live version it's going to be but thank you so much for giving us some of your time.

Melissa Cartagena: 19:47

No, of course I appreciate it. It was fun. So lots of stories to tell, just let me know it's great.

Paul J Daly: 19:53

I can't wait.

Melissa Cartagena: 19:55

Thank you, thanks guys.

Michael Cirillo: 20:00

Guys, have I been in the right, wrong place my entire career? Have I?

Paul J Daly: 20:05

I think we're all having an identity crisis, questioning what in the heck just happened.

Michael Cirillo: 20:11

She is one sentence away. I'm telling you from balancing things on my hat, which everybody knows is what I do when I start to glitch out a little bit.

Paul J Daly: 20:22

I don't think I've ever seen all of us speechless at the end of a guest comment. Usually we're like one of us is ready to kind of jump in and keep the conversation flowing and she stopped and we're just like kind of got caught flat footed like no, what's.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:36

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 recording this part. In that gap she goes oh man, I didn't even get started on all the stories and the things that we're doing in the automation, like where is that, you know? a soda, yeah, well, one it's out of soda con, you can. She's going to be speaking there talking, actually, about a lot of things that they're doing with data and CDPs, with automation. It's really cool that she's able to open up a lot of that. But this is what I think is so key to that conversation and we zeroed in on it a bunch of times. It's like her rich depth of knowledge that she gained from the late nineties to 2014, outside of our industry, in the outside of our vertical yeah, outside of our vertical. In her digital industry has given her all of the all of the resources needed to continually improve and dial in, 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 eight years of my time in auto and it's like those are things that now the whole industry has access to. 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 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 across auto.

Michael Cirillo: 22:20

So I mean, or yo, you can go to a sodukancom and get tickets for that, because here's what we know, that is, a industry conference positioned for the vertical of automotive.

Paul J Daly: 22:36

Absolutely. And Taco Tuesday.

Michael Cirillo: 22:40

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 a sodukan. If you're not going, what, what? Come on, hold the trigger, let's see you there, where you get to hear from her and, of course, so many others. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with our new pal Melissa. I want to pick her brand out. So many things on behalf of myself Mike Trillo, pal Mousier and Paul J Daly Thanks for joining us on auto plans.

Speaker 2: 23:10

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at aso2.com. That's ASOTUcom. 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. See you next time. Welcome to Auto Collapse.

Melissa Cartagena: 23:41

Why are we?

Speaker 2: 23:42

recording Are we?

Paul J Daly: 23:47

rolling yet.

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