As NADA 2025 approaches, the industry is abuzz with excitement and speculation. The event is known as where innovation and industry-shaping happen and will introduce trends that will change how dealerships operate, market, and engage with customers. Let’s get into the emerging topics everyone will discuss at the show.
The biggest buzzword at NADA 2025? CDPs. Why? Because they solve one of the most significant pain points for dealerships: fragmented customer data and properly activating marketing
CDPs provide a single view of the customer by pulling data from multiple sources—DMS, CRM, first-party data, etc.—to create one reliable customer profile. This is huge for dealerships where understanding the customer journey and responding or engaging appropriately are key to sales and retention.
Dealers will be talking about CDPs because they’re no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have. The market is becoming more competitive, and customer expectations are rising. Dealerships need tools that not only collect data but make it actionable.
Once a CDP is in place, the conversation turns to what happens next: managing and using the data. Having a single source of customer information is just the beginning. To maximize value from the insights a CDP provides, dealerships need robust, automated, and perpetual data management processes.
The importance of data management can’t be overstated. Data management ensures the data collected is clean, complete, and accurate. It eliminates duplicates, corrects inaccuracies, and enriches profiles to give a 360-degree view of each customer. Without this, even the best CDP will fall short.
This is why data management should be a big topic at NADA 2025. As dealers try to turn raw data into actionable insights, they’ll seek solutions that make it easier and help them engage customers more meaningfully.
Another top topic is activating marketing and multichannel marketing strategies and tactics. Customers interact with dealerships through many channels, such as email, social media, SMS, phone calls, websites, and in-person visits. To engage effectively, dealerships must meet customers where they are through consistent and personalized messaging.
Multichannel marketing with a CDP makes these touchpoints work together. Whether re-engaging passive customers or nurturing active shoppers, dealerships can deliver intent-based marketing at every stage of the customer lifecycle. Activator at NADA 2025 will show you the tools and strategies to make it happen.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are a big topic across the industry, and NADA 2025 will cover the latest developments. From infrastructure to dealership readiness and threats to our industry, EVs present significant challenges and opportunities.
As EVs become mainstream, dealerships must rethink their sales and service models. Topics like customer education, charging station partnerships, and service technician training will be at the top of my mind. The dealerships that get ahead of the curve will lead in this rapidly changing market.
Amid all this, Activator's turnkey solution is automotive’s REAL CDP. Activator’s CDP, Data Management Layer, and Multichannel Marketing Journeys, powered with Salesforce, have been built from the ground up to solve the specific problems that dealerships face. With its CDP with Data Management Layer, Activator manages and enriches data to give dealerships the most accurate customer profiles in marketing activation.
But Activator doesn’t stop there. Its multichannel marketing capabilities let dealerships engage passive customers and active shoppers with intent-based campaigns. By delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time, Activator helps dealerships engage meaningfully throughout the customer lifecycle.
CDPs and data management, multichannel marketing, and EVs, NADA 2025 will be full of insights and innovation. As dealerships navigate these trends, the tools and strategies revealed at this year’s show will shape the future of automotive retail. Stop by the Activator booth #3119 to gain valuable insight into what's ahead.
Learn more about Activator’s CDP, our show promotion, and what we offer at NADA 2025.
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