At the recent Modern Retail Conference (MRC), industry leaders gathered to unpack one of the biggest opportunities in automotive retail: activating real-time data to drive smarter engagement, stronger personalization, and better outcomes across every channel.

Launch Labs CRO Mike Morgan joined the panel to break down how identity resolution, API-driven data partnerships, and real-time signaling are reshaping the way dealers convert anonymous traffic into measurable revenue.

API Partnerships: Turning Data Into Action

The panel opened with a simple question: How are data partnerships injecting real value into dealer tech stacks?

For Launch Labs, the answer is clear: API efficiency—making sure each tool talks to the others in a way that actually drives action, not just reports. Mike explained how Launch Labs is working alongside Affinitive and Tealium inside a shared dealer group environment:

• Launch Labs sits on top of customer data and an identity graph, essentially a live map of who each shopper is across systems
• Tealium acts as the Customer Data Platform (CDP), where that data is unified and organized
• Affinitive listens for real-time signals to trigger engagement campaigns

In this setup, Launch Labs becomes the signaling engine. When a website visitor matches a known customer profile, Launch Labs sends a real-time notification with who the shopper is, what they viewed, and what happened during the session. Affinitive can then instantly activate the right workflow.

This automation creates two distinct paths:

1. Customer recognized → trigger the appropriate loyalty or sales workflow
2. Unknown shopper → activate a different engagement path (such as acquisition or nurture)

The result is a  long-promised but rarely achieved reality: the right message, at the right moment, for the right person. This is identity resolution actually powering the CDP in practice — not as a buzzword, but as a functioning system dealers can use every day.

Identity Resolution Moves Front and Center

As the conversation shifted, the panel tackled a topic now impossible to ignore: identity resolution and de-anonymization.

Dealers have grown more aware of what’s possible—from device ID stitching to cross-domain graphing, but also more conscious of the “creepy factor.” The key, according to Mike, is subtle, smart activation that respects the shopper journey.

Identity Resolution Without the Creep Factor

Rather than blasting emails like “we saw you on our site,” modern identity strategies focus on relevance, not intrusion:

• A shopper researching trucks receives truck-specific direct mail
• Browsers who return anonymously still receive highly relevant social ads
• Behavioral signals guide appropriate tone and channel, not overt surveillance

This approach keeps personalization powerful without feeling invasive. Mike broke it down simply. Yes, you can connect cookies, device IDs, and bidstream signals to build a unified identity graph. Yes, you can identify who is shopping even if they never submit a form. But the real strategy is activating those insights in a subtle, intelligent way.

Choosing Identity Tech: What Dealers Need to Know

With new de-anonymization vendors appearing monthly and many offering bold accuracy claims, dealers raised an important question: How do you actually validate identity resolution performance?

Mike’s answer was direct: There is no store where you pick identity resolution off the shelf. Everyone has built their own methodology. The only way to test accuracy is inside a controlled environment with a partner like Tealium or Team Velocity.

In these controlled environments, Launch Labs measures probabilistic accuracy against deterministic truth sets. This helps dealers calibrate accuracy levels based on the specific application:

• About 95% accuracy for CDP stitching and one-to-one personalization
• About 75% accuracy for advertising use cases where scale matters more than precision

The takeaway is clear. Accuracy should match the use case, and transparent testing is essential.

Real-Time Personalization: The Next Wave of Retailing

To illustrate the value of deterministic + probabilistic identity resolution working together consider a common scenario in automotive retail.

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• The Scenario: A logged-in shopper browses Corvettes. Later, the same person returns on a different device and begins looking at trucks.
• The Solve: Even without a login, probabilistic identity can still recognize the shopper and send a signal to the website platform that their interest has shifted from Corvettes to Silverado trucks.

This ensures every downstream system updates instantly, avoiding stale messaging and keeping marketing aligned with real intent.

Practical Takeaways for Dealers

The panel delivered several insights that dealers can act on immediately:

• Leverage API-based partnerships to unify CDP data with engagement engines
• Adopt both deterministic and probabilistic identity resolution to maximize identifiable traffic
• Test identity vendors in controlled environments—don’t rely on marketing claims
• Personalize based on relevance, not intrusion to avoid the “creepy factor”
• Use real-time signals to update offers, messaging, and retargeting instantly

Identity Is the New Competitive Edge

As Mike summarized across the discussion, the future of automotive retail hinges on one capability above all:

“Understanding who’s on your site and activating the right message in real time.”

API partnerships, identity resolution, and instant signaling aren’t emerging trends anymore, they’re the new engine behind high-performing retail strategies.

Launch Labs is proud to help dealerships harness these capabilities to turn anonymous traffic into measurable, revenue-driving engagement.

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