Seeing and Knowing The Person Behind The Click with Tina Cuatto

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00

I think this is the first, first podcast ever that Paul has worn a white shirt.

‍Unknown: 0:12

This is auto collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:14

that doesn't that doesn't work, that doesn't work. One day, one day I'm gonna come in with some type of color shirt on.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:23

You're gonna have a colored Have you ever down? Let

Paul J Daly: 0:25

me ask you this. Have either of you ever seen me? Not in a picture, in a shirt that's like a color, like a blue, a teal, anything. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:33

Oh, you said not in a picture.

Paul J Daly: 0:35

Not a picture. Person, not a picture. No, okay, that's, that's going to be part of my my stick? No, that's going to be part of my disguise. When I don't want anybody to bother me anymore,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:47

he's going to show your beard. Color picture,

Michael Cirillo: 0:49

lose the hat, wearing a Richard Simmons tie dye tank, boat shoes,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:55

boat shoes and white golf shorts. Think

Paul J Daly: 0:57

I'm a boat. Oh, I was going to say I'm not a boat you got, which is exactly why I would wear that's why my kids won't even recognize me.

Michael Cirillo: 1:03

I tell our teams, I'm like, if you see me in anything other than black or white, like wearing black or white, you need to go look for a new job, because it means I've,

Paul J Daly: 1:10

Oh, I thought you're gonna say you need to kill me immediately, because it's not me. It means I've lost

Michael Cirillo: 1:14

it. Something's going something's going down, like, maybe you might see me in a nothing but a towel, for example, you gotta go look pretty

Paul J Daly: 1:22

well. I think that would be, yeah,

Michael Cirillo: 1:25

did you know I learned something about our guest today? Okay, at asotu con, actually. And I was delightfully surprised and impressed our guest today, Tina quatdo from dealer on. It is a classically trained dancer. What? What did you know this? I

Paul J Daly: 1:48

don't fully know what that means.

Michael Cirillo: 1:50

Like she's,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:51

I mean, I fully know what that means. Well, my wife was a classically trained dancer, like ballet

Michael Cirillo: 1:56

and just all of the things. And I think I could be wrong, but I think she's still involved in some way, in like helping other sounds, like

Paul J Daly: 2:06

artsy sounds like there's a maybe an opening ceremony in the work for so con 2024

Unknown: 2:11

Yes,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:14

oh man. Well, we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we hope we do with Tina. Bring Daly around.

Paul J Daly: 2:25

Tina, it's so good to have you on today. It's good to see you again from asotu con. Yeah. Thank

Tina Cuatto: 2:29

you guys for having me. So we

Paul J Daly: 2:32

are kind of like, when recording this, it is, I asked Kyle yesterday, are these the dog days of summer? Like, do these count? I don't know. You're in the Philadelphia area, which Kyle is always like, oh, Paul is going to talk about Philly, but, but what? What's the what's the game plan in Philly these days, lot

Tina Cuatto: 2:49

of baseball, it's been hot. It's baseball season. Not to talk about the Phils, but,

Paul J Daly: 2:54

but not hoping you would. Yeah, that's our

Tina Cuatto: 2:57

life. I'm a huge sports fan. So are you?

Paul J Daly: 3:00

Are you are you because you didn't grow up in the Philly area? Are you a Philly sports fan?

Tina Cuatto: 3:03

I am. My husband's a big Philly sports fan. We've been together for 10 years, so it's hard not to convert.

Paul J Daly: 3:09

So you're transplant. My wife, my wife is the same way. So it's, it's good to be a Philly sports fan. So let me ask you. So in being in the pre show prep, we always like ask you some questions. And I didn't know this about you, but you spent a year as a public affairs intern with the Smithsonian. I did,

Tina Cuatto: 3:26

yes, yeah, way back in the day, I went to school for journalism, and my dream job was to work in a museum. So I really fulfilled that early on in my life, and worked at the National Portrait Gallery.

Paul J Daly: 3:40

I was gonna say I was like, and now you'd work at the opposite of a museum. Yeah, an industry. Well, I don't know you could call it a museum. Sometimes just depends on who we're talking about. No, no, no, but it's an industry where it's an industry where nothing, nothing sticks around for long. And if it does stick around for too long it's it's really detrimental to the game. So, like, how does that transition go from, like, I want to work in museum, to now working for, like, a very fast paced in a very fast paced industry, in a very fast paced segment of a fast paced industry, true. How does that transition happen?

Tina Cuatto: 4:17

Um, yeah, I so I was very creative growing up, and I love the art, so I think it was a natural fit to want to work at a museum. I grew up going to museums. I was like, This is what I want to do. And the natural National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian is kind of the the epitome of museums. Um, so being in the public affairs department, being in communications, being in journalism that is also fast paced, right? You're constantly meeting deadlines and putting out press releases and just from a comms perspective. So a lot of what I learned there is still applicable in auto, you know, being able to to adapt and to communicate with a wide variety of people. So I think. That's, that's how I made that transition.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:02

Was it okay before we get off the Public Affairs intern at a at the Smithsonian? Yeah, what was like, go, like, is there anything that was like, Man, that was really fun. Or I would have never want a story this to happen when you were there. That's kind of like Smithsonian exposed in some way. Like, don't get yourself No, no.

Tina Cuatto: 5:22

I think what was really fun is I got to work a lot with our events team too. So a lot of the after hours events, book signings, huge galas, just being a part of that was really fun. I remember it sticks with me. There was a book release that came out, and I spent hours memorizing people's faces and names so that when, so that when I you know when they came to pick up the book. I just I knew who it was, and so many people were impressed. And I think that's something that I pride myself in, just being prepared. Um, do

Paul J Daly: 5:58

you still do that

Tina Cuatto: 6:00

like faces, honestly, for asotu con, I went through the list of speakers so that I knew, you know, hey, oh, that's so and so, and that's so and so, and go up to them and say, Hello, you know, yeah, that's

Paul J Daly: 6:12

my biggest fear. And I've told Kyle this before, is that I see somebody that I don't remember their face. It's tough, though, when you're always going off profile pictures, like, Yeah, well, the

Kyle Mountsier: 6:22

problem is, is that someone's gonna, you know, I don't Tina, just like, as an aside, every once in a while, people will come up to Paul and I, which, I mean, I get it, we both have beards, we both have hats, but they'll be like, you know, that one conversation that we had, that one time? And I'm like, literally, I've never met you, ever, yeah? Like, that whole conversation with Paul, so that's a totally separate story. But okay, so So track them, because you've not just been in product in auto, but you've been in product in other verticals, correct?

Tina Cuatto: 6:52

Yeah, I worked for a company called cision, their communications platform. When I was there, it was before they had bought PR Newswire, all the other kind of social software capabilities. But, yeah, it that's where I got my my product start was a decision.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:13

You know, product is a it's an interesting thing, because when you think about building products that people use. There are some times where there's kind of a replica product out there in the market, where you might have seen, you know, something similar, and you're iterating on it. But a lot of times, product is really the leading heartbeat of an organization, especially from a SAS or technology perspective, because it's really discovering the thing that someone hasn't thought of before and trying to bring that to life, right? Which is a very different thing than, like, talking about a museum. How did you kind of, like, get the chops for I'm gonna think about things that nobody's really thought of how to bring to life before.

Tina Cuatto: 8:00

I look at it a bit differently. I look at the problem space, right? What problems are you trying to solve and then solutioning around it? Obviously, you want to have that one in a million product idea. But like you said, there's so many variations of similar products out there, especially in this industry too, right? We've all got chat products, all got digital retailing products, websites, etc. So how do you, how do you solve the problems of your customers, and how do you make it specific to your brand? And that was true when I get, when I got started at cision, I was working in a custom development department, and I think that really helped, because they were unique problem spaces for larger or enterprise type customers.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:46

Yeah, I'm noticing a through line here. And you know, typically we get to this later, but it seems like you have this unique passion for caring for like an individual, the way that they see the world, the way that they perceive interacting, right, like, like you said, you know you you would memorize the faces of someone at in that's coming for the book signing, or you were solving a custom problem for an end user or a client. Does that like, does that come from something deeper, earlier in life that says, like, it's important to me that almost people are seen in a way, by the way that they interact with the world or with technology. Or, do you think it's just kind of grown into your career landscape?

Tina Cuatto: 9:39

Who would like to say it's feel like a therapy session. I would like to say that it comes from somewhere deep, but I don't think, I don't think so, right? I think it's just something that I've learned and evolved in the different places that I've worked. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 9:59

there's some. You're like, you're like, Wait, why? How are you drawing this through light?

Tina Cuatto: 10:04

I don't know. Maybe I haven't taxed that. Yeah, I'm not sure. But no, I don't think so. Well,

Paul J Daly: 10:11

it's interesting that you know you talked about remembering the faces, and Kyle just mentioned it, and like, even, like flipping to thinking about how we're thinking about deploying data and technology for website personalization, right? I know that's something that's front and center. It's it's like the same thing, because when you remember someone's face, it's like, Oh, I know who you are. Let me present this in a way. Let me interact with you in a way that shows you I know who you are. And it kind of disarms the whole situation and makes the conversation go better, makes the the internet, the web experience go better. So, like, I see a huge connection between those two.

Tina Cuatto: 10:47

Yeah, I would agree. I think that this has been a really fun project to work on. It at dealer on with our website personalization, seeing this evolve, seeing, you know, people craving this in the auto industry too, right? Like, we get this everywhere across, you know, our our social media and website landscape, from E commerce to what I'm trying to view on Netflix and Hulu. It just seems like a natural, a natural tie to have this in the auto industry. So it's been fun. Well,

Paul J Daly: 11:19

do this, why don't? Because the people who watched and listened to the show are going to be at all different levels of the organization, all different levels of understanding. Can you give us the explain it like I'm five version of what is web personalization in the way that you're deploying? Yeah, so

Tina Cuatto: 11:35

what we're doing is basically just taking what a user is doing on your website and showing advertisements, changing up the content so that it's it's matching where they are in the buying process. It's matching them, you know, what they want to see, right? So I think the simplest way that I've explained this before is, I'm looking for, I viewed, you know, certain programs on Netflix. I'm a huge Real Housewives fan. I'm, you know, a reality buff, and I just got served the new Dallas cheerleaders Netflix special. It was awesome, and I would have never, you know, seek that out on my own. And that's, that's the experience that we're trying to provide for car shoppers too, right? You're, you're looking for a red truck of some sort. Let me see, you know what we have on the dealer's inventory, and show this to you, right, so that you don't have to fumble around and try to find it. And work, you know, work with different filters or searches like let me just present this to you, because I know this is what you're looking for, and that's what we're trying to do here.

Paul J Daly: 12:39

I shuttered a minute. You brought up Dallas. Oh,

Tina Cuatto: 12:41

I know. I didn't think I was gonna like it. I thought they

Paul J Daly: 12:45

were about to cut your internet in Philly.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:49

That was silly, you know, some sometimes I think you know people especially, you know. I mean, even just as of this week, at time of recording, we are kind of experiencing Google saying, Hey, we're getting rid of third party you know, we're not getting rid of third party cookies. And there's this, been this big conversation, and even, you know, the there is, there's an entire government research piece going into like, how advertisers or pricers are utilizing AI to recognize people and personalize or price their experiences. And I think people sometimes can feel like, hey, this might be a little invasive, but I love your relationship with Netflix, because nobody feels like Netflix is invasive, no when it shows you the cool thing that you that you thought you never knew, but now you know, how do you build in the personalization, a feeling of being known without being creepily known, like a stalker knows you, right?

Tina Cuatto: 13:57

Yeah, I think that comes with trust and transparency, right? I think privacy and kind of the privacy banners that dealers have on their website plays into this too, just making sure that the user knows, hey, my privacy is respected if I if I want it to be right, but also not, you know, having creepy kind of ads right and not have not having it be integrated into your website a little bit more. We're doing some things with vehicle recommendations, little flags, little, you know, icons around certain vehicles, so that it doesn't seem like hey, these are perfect for you, right? Or, or these are the ones that you must look at, but just integrated a little bit more seamlessly so it doesn't feel invasive

Kyle Mountsier: 14:43

when when you're starting to because this is it's still kind of as the product landscape in auto is rolling out, personalization is still fairly new. Are there early results that speak to conversion or interaction or the the activity that users? Exhibiting on sites when this is enabled.

Tina Cuatto: 15:02

Yeah, really early metrics here, but we're seeing users that are shown personalized content, whether they're shown it or engaging with it, are converting at about two and a half percent across kind of the sites that we're looking at right now, as opposed to no personalized content. They're converting at 1% and those are form form bills, obviously not kind of looking at any sort of third party forms, but that's kind of our raw, you know, out of the box website metrics.

Kyle Mountsier: 15:36

I mean, that's two and a half X, yeah, 250% for those that are counting

Tina Cuatto: 15:44

super early on. Want to caveat that, but of course, it's telling and it just excites us more to want to continue on this journey and see what else we can do. I mean, right now we're primarily focusing on on vehicles and your SRP and your VDP, but there's so many other pages that we know shoppers go to when they come to a dealer website. So you know what?

Paul J Daly: 16:07

What are, what are like the next on the hit list? Can you talk about that? Sure,

Tina Cuatto: 16:12

um, we're looking at like

Kyle Mountsier: 16:14

I'm in product, of course.

Paul J Daly: 16:19

But are you allowed to is really the question,

Tina Cuatto: 16:23

sure I make the rules. Now, I like we're doing some things on on the home page, and I think our next play is, I want to be able to to get information from off site, right? We're doing a lot around what users are doing on site, but we know they're looking at, you know, tier one sites. They're looking at other aggregators, you know, are we able and in a in a safe, you know, and secure manner, get that kind of information so that we can know more about them when they come to the website initially?

Kyle Mountsier: 16:59

Yeah, whether from ads or from Yeah, just the fact that you seen shopping behavior which the third party cookie thing plays into that exactly.

Tina Cuatto: 17:09

Yeah. So I'm not mad that that Google is kicking that can down.

Paul J Daly: 17:15

Let's make a list of the people who are mad about this. No one. Very short list, if there's anyone even on it,

Kyle Mountsier: 17:22

yeah, at least not in the marketing world, for sure. Yeah, I do want to, I want to take a little bit of a jaunt here over because you came to Paul and I at the end of asotu con, and I think it it like to express your heart for the way that the industry interacts. It was really poignant. And I think it also could serve just like people well to see our automotive industry in the way that you see it. You kind of you told us how you felt being in a room of people that that seemed to me more like hearted and like minded and and after the same things, can you, like, recall that feeling and maybe, maybe challenge the, you know, people that might be listening or watching with, like, how to get more out of the industry by way of events or Zoom calls or interactions or things like that, in the way that you're kind of perceiving that, yeah, absolutely.

Tina Cuatto: 18:22

I mean, we talked about my my past, it was not my plan at all to get into auto. Quite frankly, it seemed very walled off, very men, you know, man's world, you know what? What does someone, you know, with a museum and PR background, want to do an auto and, you know, I felt that way for a long time, but as you know, we've started to go to different conferences, and particularly yours, I felt so respected. And you know, people just wanting to meet you with open arms, talk about the same problems, you know, want to solve the same problems that everyone's experience and just be really nice. It did not, you know, I wasn't intimidated as as I was when I first joined this industry.

Paul J Daly: 19:10

What is, what do you see like? What is, what is your personal goal for your career in the industry?

Kyle Mountsier: 19:17

That's a big one. That's like you had to bring it back to therapy again.

Paul J Daly: 19:22

Therapy, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That's not therapy. Well, maybe it is. It depends on how you answer,

Tina Cuatto: 19:29

um, what is my goal? Um, I want to spend more time here. I think, you know, I go through ebbs and flows of being like, do I really belong? Right? And this is turning into a therapy session. But no, I really enjoyed the people that I've met along the way. I think I've had a lot of great mentors. I just want to continue to climb, continue to grow, you know, maybe knock Ali off of CEO or something like that. Or, you know, build my own car. Oh,

Paul J Daly: 20:02

girl, got aspirations, there you go.

Tina Cuatto: 20:04

No, no joking, but yeah, I think just continue to learn and grow. I'm not, not trying to jump ship. We've obviously had, you know, a lot of interesting situations this summer, particularly impacting auto but not not deterring. Me.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:25

Love hearing that. Well, Tina, you like I think the through line for you is that you care about people in a unique way, and you express that in the products and services that you build and you have built, and now you build for our industry. So I've appreciated getting to know you before this podcast and also on this podcast, I'm excited for what you're doing with dealer on and the personalization and connecting data sources into making people feel seen and listened to and heard in a way that's not creepy, but helps them to have a fun and enjoyable experience buying cars. So I appreciate you, and thank you so much for spending some time with us and joining us here today on Autumn.

Tina Cuatto: 21:06

Yeah, thank you so much, guys.

Michael Cirillo: 21:12

Hey, it turns out she's not just a dancer, not

Kyle Mountsier: 21:15

just a dancer, she's

Michael Cirillo: 21:16

all sorts.

Paul J Daly: 21:16

He's an artist, thing, curator. Yeah, uh, people like,

Kyle Mountsier: 21:22

just cares about people put us in different Yeah, she

Paul J Daly: 21:25

sees him at a different level. It's pretty awesome. Now, I

Michael Cirillo: 21:28

got a bone to pick, because, watch it. I was

Paul J Daly: 21:31

her husband's a Phillies fan. So is she now okay, but, but I

Michael Cirillo: 21:35

remember her being a little bit nervous to do her panel with me at asotu con. Like, what could be more nerve wracking than dancing in front of people, right? Like,

Paul J Daly: 21:49

it's like a security blanket, though? Like musicians like say, you play guitar, you put them in front of a stage with a guitar, and they might be way more calm than if you put them up on stage without the guitar and just a microphone. That's right, you know what I mean? Because there's a level of experience, training, competence, all that that has been proven over time, and then now it's like, very well, very just time. I think, I think that's the thing. I mean, she knocked it out of the park. We'll have to test that theory. Michael, we're going to put you on stage. You're so confident behind the mic, we're going to put you on stage to dance, and then we're going to see how confident you are. I'm

Michael Cirillo: 22:23

gonna start my practicing my Napoleon Dynamite sequence right afterward. Oh my

Paul J Daly: 22:28

gosh. That's gonna work. Well, we talked about opening ceremony of soda con closing ceremony. I think we might have just nailed it. We hope you had a good time with us today. We certainly had fun doing this on behalf of Michael Cirillo, the dancing Michael Cirillo, Kyle mountsier, myself, thank you for listening to auto collabs.

Unknown: 22:46

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Paul J Daly: 23:17

Welcome to autoca. Last I only recording, I.

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