Ilana Shabtay
VP of Marketing
Fullpath
DMM Expert Ilana Shabtay
Ilana Shabtay is the VP of Marketing at Fullpath, Automotive’s first customer data and experience platform (CDXP) serving the dealership community.
Ilana is focused on engaging audiences and expanding market share. She contributes thought leadership for tech companies in and out of the automotive industry and is constantly thinking about perfecting conversion funnels to build brand awareness.
Ilana continues to innovate and contribute to the automotive industry by leveraging her experience across Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid SEM Strategy, Social Media, CRM, and Public Speaking. Disrupting the traditional standard as an experienced marketer and growth hacker with expertise in digital marketing and artificial intelligence, Ilana also hosts the InsideAuto Podcast.
Articles by Ilana
Use it or Lose it: The Vital Role of Activated Data in Closing Sales
There’s a lot of talk about data in automotive these days, and rightfully so. We are living in an age where data is literally the factor that determines whether or not your business will succeed or fail. After a period of slow adaptation,...
The Critical Role of Audience Suppression in Effective Dealership Marketing
We talk a lot about how sending the right message at the right time to the right shopper is key in creating hyper-personalized shopping experiences for car buyers today. But what about the opposite? What happens when you send the wrong...
Dealership Data is Key to Unlocking the True Power of ChatGPT
ChatGPT. It’s everywhere. It’s taken over social media and the evening news - it’s come up in work meetings and over dinner with family and friends. People can’t seem to stop talking about this groundbreaking AI - and for good reason. The...
The 4 Must-Haves for Any Company Rebrand
Your company’s story and messaging are the core of everything: it’s how you market, how you sell, and how you retain loyal customers. The story is the backbone of your company’s brand and should permeate every aspect of the business. That’s why...
Live Launches: Commitment to Innovation
Live product launches have become an innovative marketing strategy aimed at creating hype around the introduction of new products and technologies to market. They have become quite the trend as more companies seek out the benefits of such an...
ASOTUCON: These are a few of my favorite things
From the venue to the guest list to the panel-style workshops, this conference lived up to its infamous tagline, “the rebirth of the automotive conference.” Here’s a recap of a few of my favorite things about this conference and why I can’t...
The importance of data orchestration & connectivity
As we progress more and more in the “information age,” and move into what looks like a strong 2022 for automotive, different things become key to our strategy when it comes to creating customer experiences. And we always have these...
The Biggest Disruption of All: The Quiet
When we think about disruption, we think loud, rowdy, and bumpy. But in reality, it’s the dealerships that can mitigate the noise who are making the biggest disruption of all. Setting up sales and marketing infrastructures at dealerships...
Google Ad Extensions 101 For Dealers
Ad extensions are dynamic add-ons to Google ads that expand the information you can show in any given ad. They are usually more eye-catching than the ad text itself, leading to more click activity. While the strategy behind your ad campaigns...
The Not-So-Hidden Gold Mine That Could Increase Dealership Revenue Instantly
A customer for life goes a long way in automotive. It’s not just the vehicle purchase, it’s everything that comes with it: maintenance, service, add-ons, renewals, and, of course, referrals. But it’s hard to scale personalized campaigns to...
RIP Facebook Marketplace for Dealers?
Facebook Marketplace underwent some changes in September and no longer lists vehicles from partner catalog feeds. This includes the entire marketplace experience: homepage, search function, etc. There is a lot of debate on how this will affect...
No Inventory? No Problem. Marketing Tips From the Field for Your Dealership’s Success
The automotive industry is consumed with the inventory shortage-- while gross is higher than ever, dealerships are finding it hard to strategize marketing without the usual suspects on the lot. That being said, it’s still critical that your...
The Automotive Website Tragedy Still Exists and Frankly, I’m Shocked
We’re halfway through 2021 and we’re still seeing website tragedies in automotive. And yes, it really is a tragedy. When a dealership spends that much money for a solid website, competitive traffic, and SEO maintenance, you’d expect the website...
Dealership Inventory Crisis: Marketing Lessons From the COVID-19 Crisis
It’s obvious that fluctuations in inventory are going to dominate the automotive narrative for the rest of 2021. And while it seems like we’ve just overcome the challenges that COVID-19 brought to the automotive industry, we’re slapped in the...
One Size Does Not Fit All: The Importance of VIN-level Targeting
It’s always exciting when you purchase a one-size-fits-all shirt: it serves many purposes, anyone in your family can sport it, and you don’t have to worry about dieting to fit in it in the future. But while one-size-fits-all is the winning...
Streamlined Metrics, Open APIs, in-house Marketing, Oh My!
Let's finally talk about it. The automotive industry as it stands today will never be tech-first-- and dealerships will not operate as technology companies (refer to Mckinsey recommendation here)-- if we don't fix some of the biggest problems...
Your Dealership's New Unforeseen Competitor. How Will You Keep Up?
Your dealership isn't competing with the dealer next door, it's competing with Netflix. The fight for digital real estate is real. In-market car shoppers are also in-market baby clothes shoppers, or Netflix-obsessed parents, or perhaps college...
Dealers: Are You in the Clubhouse?
If anyone missed high school cliques, you could thank Clubhouse for bringing that feeling back. Yes, the newest social media app is consuming our industry with exclusive invites to the platform where you can connect with others in audio-only...
Mask-less Socialising: What This Means For Your Dealership
There will come a time, sooner than we think at this point, where we'll be living in a post-COVID era. We'll be back at our favorite crowded bars, our kids will be in school — real school — and we'll be on the road: business trips, family...
5 Lessons From the InsideAuto Podcast as We Enter 2021
The InsideAuto Podcast hosts top GMs, Thought Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Marketers in and out of the automotive industry. Launched in the middle of the pandemic, it covers everything from productive quarantine hobbies to effective marketing as...
Now Is Not the Time to Pause Marketing Spend
Reject every instinct in your body that's telling you otherwise. Now is not the time to pause your marketing spend. Yes, we're in a totally new normal and chaotic time in history. COVID-19 is changing the way we shop for groceries, plan...
Hindsight is 2020: Tech Supports These Issues We Didn't Know We Had
We talk a lot in our industry about meeting the customer where they live and creating a frictionless sales experience. While these things are important, they are also expected in 2020. If you think about the technology we encounter every day,...
Why Automation Is Like Fine Wine - and the Data Thereto
We all know that unlike most things, wine gets better with age. This is because of a complex chemical reaction among sugars, acids and substances known as phenolic compounds. In time, this chemical reaction can affect the taste of wine in a way...
Emerging Incentives Will Drive Demand. Here’s How Your Dealership Can Capitalize
With emerging markets on the rise and a complete shift in consumer behavior, dealers are forced to get even more competitive (who knew this was possible) and win market share in the digital space. Think about it. In the past five months,...
The Pandemic's Ripple Effect: AI Marketing Tech Trumps Traditional Marketing Agencies
With millions of consumers turning exclusively online in the recent months, dealerships were forced to acknowledge their aging digital infrastructure. Outdated solutions, like traditional marketing agencies, simply didn’t cut it anymore. And...
Newly Released Research Reveals An Emergence of New Automotive Markets
As a company that lives and breathes data, we turn to the numbers in times of uncertainty. When we need answers, we rely on data, not gut, to guide us for the smartest decisions. It allows us to gain full transparency into what’s working, and...
A Roundup of Google’s Latest Best Practices for Your Dealership
Simply put, in times of crisis, we look to the experts. We turn to the voices that will provide us with actionable support to help us navigate through uncharted waters. We want to make smart business decisions during this time so we can thrive...
Chatbot - Friend or Foe
A chatbot is exactly what it sounds like: A robot that managesyour conversations. The bot simulates a human-like interaction to give shoppersthe information they are looking for. Bots are trained and then speak on yourbehalf, answering the most...
In a Time of Crisis Turn to Each Other
In a once in a lifetime experience, where we're all looking for guidance, answers, and direction, now is the time to come together as an industry. I've been thinking — what can we leverage, how can we help, and what best practices can our...
Why Automating Your Google Ads is the Future of Your Dealership
It's no secret that there is a revolution happening in the automotive industry that, in many ways, has already impacted other industries: Applying automation to every aspect of your business, and more specifically, your digital advertising....
Why Your Ad Budget Should be Optimized by AI and Not Humans
For a long time, we all feared that machine learning and AI would take our jobs, diminish work, and leave us unemployed. But we’re over that. Now, across every industry, we see that data actually enhances businesses and makes us more...
The Art of Detecting Manipulations in Marketing Reports
A while back, my teammates looked into performance reports from various vendors and agencies, trying to assess the industry standard. I’d love to say we were surprised by the number of vanity metrics used by some agencies, but truth be told...